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Kayla Diamond: What You're Made Of

The Toronto pop artist follows up her breakthrough hit Carnival Hearts with another tasty confection that embeds a positive message in an infectious melody.

Kayla Diamond: What You're Made Of

By Kerry Doole

Kayla Diamond: "What You're Made Of" (Slaight Music/Cadence Music): Last year this Toronto pop singer/songwriter broke through with the infectious earworm, "Carnival Hearts." A radio and YouTube hit (450K views), it marked her as an artist of immense potential.


That is reaffirmed on this charming cut, the second single taken from her debut EP Beautiful Chaos. It begins quietly, with piano and finger-snaps, then swells with massed backing vocals that lend it an anthemic air.

Diamond is becoming known for positive and uplifting messages in her lyrics, and this is no exception. "Life's too short not to fill it with love," she implores here, and who can disagree with those sentiments?

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Beautiful Chaos is a collaboration with Toronto-based songwriter/producer Craig McConnell. Diamond explains that the album "is inspired by the chaos in my life. It represents that ability to find beauty in what others perceive as sadness. It also represents my life until now - there have been many ups and many downs to get to where I am today, and that to me is beautiful and chaotic."

The singer's life changed when she won Slaight Music’s 2015 “It’s Your Shot” competition with her song "Crazy." That win gave her the confidence to quit law school to pursue a musical career, and she's now showing us what she's made of.

Diamond's versatility as a vocalist is showcased on some very successful collaborations with EDM artists. A cover of Mike Posner’s “I Took a Pill in Ibiza”, with Kiso Armic, has received well over 4 million streams on Sound Cloud, and a track with Anevo, “Feel Something”, has hit 3 million+ streams on Spotify. 

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Panos A. Panay
Raphaële Sohier

Panos A. Panay

Features

Recording Academy President Panos A. Panay on Canada, Diljit Dosanjh and the Grammys’ Global Future

The influential music executive returned to a place he has called home at NXNE for the Billboard Global Summit. Here's why it was particularly meaningful for him.

The music landscape is changing quickly, and Panos A. Panay, the President of the Recording Academy and the Grammys, is right in the middle of it.
This week (June 11), Panay interviewed Punjabi superstar Diljit Dosanjh as part of the Billboard Summit at NXNE. For him, it represented a global shift in music where sounds carrying different cultures and languages are pushing against the "Anglo-American" mainstream. Celebrating the universality of music in the diverse city of Toronto holds special meaning for him.
Panay spent some formative years in Canada, and says in some ways he considers it as much like home as Cyprus, where he was born. It shaped how he sees the world and his career, and it's been important in his work at the Grammys, which is also going through changes. Since he started his job in 2021, along with CEO Harvey Mason Jr., Panay has been helping the Academy adapt to a new generation of artists, represent diversity and navigate the changing music scene.

Before he was at the Recording Academy, Panay founded the online platform Sonicbids, which brought him to NXNE many times. Again, it feels like coming home.

In this exclusive interview with Billboard Canada, Panos discusses Dosanjh, how the Grammys are changing and the future of Canadian music.

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