Billy holds a B.A. in Public Relations and Professional Writing from California State University, San Bernardino.

In 1998, Billy began his 18-year stint at Yahoo Music as a senior editor and content producer where his duties included determining the site’s Hip Hop and R&B coverage, programming online radio stations, and securing music video premieres. More than 500 of his articles appeared on the Yahoo homepage. His article about the Kanye West-Taylor Swift incident at the 2009 VMAs received more than 40,000 comments.

As the managing editor of Rap Sheet Newspaper from 1994 to 1998, he assigned and edited articles and wrote major feature stories on the likes of The Fugees, Too $hort and A Tribe Called Quest. He was a contributing reporter for Entertainment Weekly’s coverage of the deaths of Tupac and Notorious B.I.G. He wrote concert reviews of Erykah Badu, Run-D.M.C. and Gladys Knight for The Hollywood Reporter. He wrote Chris Brown’s first cover story for Vibe magazine and penned features on The Neptunes, Eminem, Snoop Dogg and Nate Dogg for The Source magazine. He interviewed Aaliyah on the set of Romeo Must Die in Canada for Teen People. Billy has also written for Word Up!, 2Hype, and RapPages magazine.

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Billy began his journalism career in 1990 as a production assistant for the Riverside Black Voice News where he eventually became Editor in Chief.