Ryan Beatty on Taking Over Shadi with the "Sweet Fortune" Tour, Arms Over Armor

The 31-year-old collaborator of Beyoncé and Tyler, The Creator says: "When I felt I was in something good and beautiful, I wanted to protect it. I was afraid to write about it because I had never done so before."

Just a few weeks ago, Ryan Beatty had the best music recital of his life.

The 31-year-old was at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles, headlining his Arms over Armor tour in front of more than 5,000 people, a momentous moment for the iconic venue, the biggest city show he's played to date.

"That's what I was saying on stage, it's like a recital," Beaty says over the phone. "I'm in a suit, all my friends and family were there. The crowd was crazy, it was so inspiring. It made me fall back in love with performing in some ways."

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The Greek was a significantly bigger show than his last gig in Los Angeles a few months earlier - a low-key show at the Masonic Lodge in Hollywood Forever - where he performed some of the highlights from his latest album, Sweet Fortune.

This is a face about Calico 2023, which itself is about separation. Like many songwriters who have poured their romantic sorrows into their music, the challenge in this new era was learning to write from a place of joy that can itself be a source of anxiety.

"I think when you're in that same state of longing and hope and wanting and dealing with heartbreak, when something positive happens, it's almost more upsetting than what you're used to." "When I felt like I was in something good and beautiful, I wanted to protect it, I was afraid to write about it because I hadn't done it before," she says. "And finally, I wanted to make sure that I cherished it in a way that I could stand by."

Beatty, whose collaborators on the album include Clairo and longtime producer Ethan Gruska, says he sought to "speak in a romantic way" with his latest album. For an album about blossoming love, flowers are perhaps one of Sweet Fortune's most prominent motifs, whether it's on the first track, "Phantom," where Beatty's theme "mimics the spring and fades," or on the last track, "Fleur De Lis," as Beaty tells how a couple ends up alone. "I will sow seed and reap what I sow / 'Cause in the soil, all my flowers will grow."

"I think it's a reflection of how sensitive a garden can be, and everything you have to have to keep it alive, whether it's a relationship or something else you believe in," Beatty says. I think with 'Fleur De Lis', I think I closed the album in a really beautiful way. Ultimately it says I should gravitate toward things that might be hard to face or take risks. And this is the message I wanted to leave the listener with."

Beatty grew up in suburban Fresno and moved to Los Angeles as a teenager to pursue his music career. First gaining notoriety with YouTube covers, he began building momentum on the Disney radio circuit as a traditional teen pop star and inspiring comparisons as the next Justin Bieber. But in 2013 at the age of 18, he left that path behind, and legal battles with his old management and record label kept him from releasing music until 2016.

He would find his way, and the years that followed would prove far more artistically fruitful than is often available to a young artist in the pop mainstream. He frequently collaborated with the rap group Brockhampton, voiced Tyler, the Grammy-winning Igor the Creator and wrote four songs on Beyoncé's Cowboy Carter, including the fan favorite "Bodyguard."

He has released four solo albums, starting with 2018's self-released Boy With Jane, followed by 2020's Dreaming of David, then Calico, and now Sweet Fortune.

His work as a songwriter earned him a Grammy Award for Album of the Year with Cowboy Carter, though Beatty himself calls writing for other artists "a happy accident," adding that while he's not opposed to more writing sessions for himself, "it's something I'll be doing for the rest of my life."

It's definitely a different muscle, but it's a similar feeling, which is that I have to totally relate to it, and when you're writing for someone else, you have to understand that you're never going to fully know their point of view, you're never going to be fully in their head. "[Writing for other artists] is good because it lets you take a break from being completely in your own head and lets you try things you might not try for yourself."

Beatty is 20 shows into his Arms Over Armor tour and has more than 12 shows left for the year, including a sold-out New York gig at the Brooklyn Paramount on Saturday. More than halfway through, Beatty says the focus has been on keeping the gigs fresh, experimenting with melodies on songs and leaning into live dynamics.

"I think love songs really connect live," says Beatty. "There's a lot of sweetness in the room when you look out into the crowd and see couples holding each other and listening to Sweet Fortune or Too Many Ways."

He will finally get a break next month after wrapping up a 10-day run across Europe and the UK in London on November 7. It's too early for Beatty to make any hard commitments on what's next. For now, Beatty says, "I just have to take it one day at a time."

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