Amid Billboard’s festivities for Hip-Hop/R&B Week 2025, stars and business tastemakers gathered for an intimate occasion dubbed Billboard Way forward for Music & Cash: Introduced by UBS and Feeture to have fun visionary executives and artists reshaping the dialog round monetary literacy and creating new pathways for creators.
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On Friday, September 5, the invite-only cocktail reception and award ceremony was hosted at Cattail Lounge NYC and heard DJ Goldie Harris curate a set of throwback and present hip-hop and R&B staples. Horderves, cocktails and laughs stuffed the dimly-lit venue earlier than night honorees Leon Thomas, Ty Dolla $ign and extra took to the stage for the award presentation. Contained in the Decrease East Facet venue, Billboard shared a toast in honor of Leon Thomas for his groundbreaking 12 months, which noticed him command the highlight together with his hit, “MUTT,” peaking on the No. 12 spot on Billboard’s Sizzling 100.
“Tonight, we’re not simply celebrating an unbelievable artist — we’re celebrating a real visionary,” stated Wale Ogunleye, UBS Head of Sports activities and Leisure, in the course of the award ceremony. “Being a visionary just isn’t solely about creating timeless music. It’s about constructing a legacy, figuring out the place you wish to go and having the braveness to forge your personal path. At UBS, we’ve got the privilege of standing beside superb artists, serving to them flip their imaginative and prescient and artistic skills into lasting monetary success for themselves, their households, their communities and generations to come back,” continued Ogunleye earlier than R&B hitmaker and recipient of the Artistic Visionary Award Introduced by UBS, Thomas took the highlight to thank Ogunleye and share some phrases with the group.
“It’s actually arduous generally being early on a development or early on a sound as a result of there’s actually nothing kinda to reference it to within the market and I actually thank all people for being fearless sufficient to belief my imaginative and prescient,” he informed the viewers.
Among the many extra honorees included Ty Dolla $ign, who obtained the Collab Influence Award by Jareiq Josef Kabara, Feeture CEO, in addition to Shawn Barron, who obtained the Govt Influence Award by Jareiq Josef Kabara, Feeture CEO.
