High Touch

It was December 2018, and music executive/podcast host Karlie Hustle was about to fulfill her longtime dream of directing a documentary. But on Christmas Eve, she received a diagnosis that changed the trajectory of her life. “Right as we were getting ready to book flights and get everything together for a shoot in April of 2019, I was diagnosed with [breast] cancer,” Hustle tells Billboard. At a point when many would have bowed out of the project altogether, Hustle and her producer Dan Eason instead made the decision to lean into her diagnosis. Originally intended as a feature-length documentary that would focus on Hustle, a self-described “city slicker,” “getting back in touch with nature” in the Oregon wilderness, the focus pivoted to become a story about her journey through the ri...