How Stella Lefty Broke Into the Hot 100’s Top 20 With ‘Boston’ & Set a Country Albums Mark
Categoria: Musica
"What we try to do is put Stella in a position to show fans that she genuinely cares about them," says Disruptor's Zach Horowitz.
Por Billboard | 05/06/2026
To those not paying close attention, Stella Lefty seems to have exploded out of nowhere over the last few months. To Zach Horowitz , director of A&R and management at Disruptor Records, the latest success for the rising pop-country singer/songwriter has been years in the making. Related Stella Lefty on Her Hot 100 Hit ‘Boston’ and Blending Musical Genres on New EP: ‘I Don’t Want to Put Myself Into a Box’ Clive Davis Hospitalized in New York After Respiratory Issue — UPDATE How Access Opera's John Burton Kickstarted Ye's Touring Comeback: 'He's Like the Michael Jordan of This Thing' “What a lot of people don’t realize is that we’ve been building Stella’s fan base for years,” says Horowitz, who first met the Chicago native Lefty while he was still in college. After several years of playing support shows for other artists and building up a fan base the old fashioned way — brick by painstaking brick — Lefty tasted virality for the first time earlier this year, when her song “Thinking ‘Bout You” began taking off on social media. After teasing a snippet of an idea of a song on social media following that attention, and getting a big reaction from fans about it, that idea became “Boston,” which can now be considered her breakout single — as it reaches No. 20 on the Billboard Hot 100 this week, her first time in the upper echelon of the major singles chart. The success of “Boston” also helped lift her recent EP, Is This Heaven? , released via Atlantic Outpost, to a No. 9 debut on the Top Country Albums chart, making her the first woman this year to debut in the top 10. And that success helps Horowitz earn the title of Billboard ‘s Executive of the Week. Here, Horowitz talks about the long road to Stella’s current success, and how she remains connected to her fans more than ever. “You can’t predict or manufacture whether fans will actually care about an artist,” he says. This week, Stella Lefty’s “Boston” reached No. 20 on the Hot 100, the first top 20 hit of her career. What key decision did you make to help make that happen? Honestly, it comes down to one thing: trusting everyone on the team to not just do their job, but do it with conviction. Management at Disruptor, Atlantic Outpost, Livelihood, CAA — everyone has been locked in from day one. No ego, just a shared goal. That kind of alignment is genuinely rare and it’s been really special to be a part of. How did you first come across Stella’s music and what made you want to work with her? I found her online when I was still in college. We became friends first, but she wasn’t even sure she wanted to be an artist back then, so I was just giving her friendly advice. We stayed close and over time it became obvious she had something really special. She is a naturally gifted songwriter. She moved to L.A. and partnered with JKash for publishing who’s incredible and a dear friend