Ryan Beatty hates this part.
“In the past, I would really fight against this,” he tells me, “this” being an interview.
“Putting out music is such a vulnerable thing,” the 30-year-old singer-songwriter explains. “I loved making it, but I sometimes dreaded putting it out. It opens you up to a lot of love, but also a lot of critique or questions, or things that you maybe don’t even want to acknowledge.”
So Beatty doesn’t give a lot of interviews. In any case, he’s a busy guy who had a whirlwind few years: touring his critically acclaimed 2023 album, Calico, co-writing for artists like Bleachers, opening for Noah Kahan and Maggie Rogers. Oh, and there was the Grammy he shared in winning for co-writing four songs on Beyonce’s Cowboy Carter. And not just any Grammy—her album of the year.
He likes to let the music speak for itself, he says, but he’s also gained a lot of confidence that sharing his music with the world means he can talk about it a little too.
“Ultimately, I’m really grateful that I get to do this,” he says. “I love making music and I love sharing it. So, I’ve acknowledged that the pros outweigh the cons. Having Calico come out and seeing how much people connected with it gave me that.”
It makes sense if you know his backstory. For those who don’t, it helps to understand why he’s so determined to make music with his unique control and authenticity, and then let it out into the world without overexplaining it.
He was discovered on YouTube after posting a Bruno Mars cover in 2011, back when 6 million views could send a bat signal to the labels and make you a star. Within a year, he was premiering a music video on Ryan Seacrest and becoming a staple on Radio Disney—positioned as the next teen heartthrob to emerge from the internet. But he felt uncomfortable with that persona, and boxed in artistically. He ditched his management and spent years behind the scenes wrangling for artistic freedom.
He came out as gay publicly in 2016 on Instagram (“proud to be a raging homosexual. it’s taken 20 years of suffocating in the closet for me to become comfortable enough to say it, but now I can finally breathe. i did it!”) and formed a new creative community in Los Angeles, collaborating with Kevin Abstract and the rap collective Brockhampton, Tyler, the Creator, and the super-producer Benny Blanco.
His 2018 album, Boy in Jeans, was a coming-of-age story that reveled in his newfound ability to be himself, while his 2020 project, Dreaming of David, took him into unexplored, experimental territory as he developed his sound. But it was his third full-length album, Calico, in 2023 that announced Beatty’s renaissance as a singular songwriter, vocalist, and architect of music that demands to be heard as a collective album. Think: nine nearly perfect Americana tracks, swirling in a lush aural landscape as Beatty whispers in your ear about his recovery from a searing heartbreak. It was hailed by critics (and Elton John) as a masterpiece, and proved Beatty’s unique skill at balancing revelation and restraint, crystalline detail with atmosphere.
The album’s success led to a banner 2024—the touring, the stadiums, the Beyoncé.
Now he’s back, having spent the better part of last year writing and producing his new album, Sweet Fortune (out today, streaming on Spotify and Apple Music), with his longtime collaborator Ethan Gruska—who’s also worked with Phoebe Bridgers and Fiona Apple—as well as his friend and first-time writing partner Clairo.