When it comes to searching for new, up-and-coming artists it’s exponentially more difficult than finding the best songs of the week for my top 5 article on Fridays. There are so many artists in all of the genres that it can get overwhelming. It takes me about a day or so to get through the new music to determine the best of the week. It takes me days and sometimes weeks to find the artists I would like to feature in these articles.
Where this is an opinion article, I still have to find the songs that speak to me and stand out above the thousands of other songs released. I also have to make sure they are up and coming and not already established. That is the most difficult part. It can look like the artist is rising but when I do my research I find they are signed and have a label backing, which then skews how the artist is working.
Each week when I write this article I don’t always know who is going to be featured until Tuesday night or even Wednesday morning. At the same time, I may have a small or large list to pick from. When it comes to showcasing these rising artists I want to spotlight them and not write a long article that each artist gets lost.
It would be unfair to write a six-page, 30-minute read article that features 25 artists from all over the world and the internet, and some of them get lost in the fold. That would leave me with a similar article to the top five where I would have to pick and chose the best artists to truly spotlight, meaning other artists that might be great would not get their just dues.
This week I have two artists that I would like to speak about, one that I just found last week and one that I have been watching for a few months. I think both are great in different ways but both are worth checking out.
His first song, “Lying,” was released recently and I came across this song on a rising Nashville country playlist.
“If you’re lying / I want you lying next to me.”
This lyric in the hook is what caught my attention. It’s a clever lyric and that is what I look for in listening to songs and looking for rising talent.
Being fine with the girl you’re with lying to you just as long as she is also lying next to you at the end of the day. I can’t honestly say that I would feel the same but the sentiment is something that I feel. We can have our differences, we can have our fights, you can have your own life, but as long as at night you come back home and lie down next to me everything is fine.
This creates a clever song and one that catches the listener. It’s straightforward, but at the same time its double meaning is great and is a lyric that will make this listener say, “Ah-ha, I got it, that’s pretty clever.” That’s what you want as an artist to catch your audience, especially for your first song.
She is a Nigerian-born, Chicago-based artist that is on the rise. She has been featured in a litany of articles and playlists and has been an artist that has been catching my eye over the last few months.
Her song, “Sensitive,” is currently sitting at 35 million streams on Spotify and this is in less than a year’s time. 2020 was a busy year for Serena, she dropped an EP and a project, each with a handful of singles to accompany them.
She raps, she got lyrics, she harmonizes, she got melody, she is a complete package. Her unique blend of Hip-Hop with her native African sound is one I haven’t heard in Hip-Hop in a while, probably since Akon or Wyclef. Wale has added doses of this here and there and is doing it more recently but not to the full extent of the aforementioned artists.
Serena is one to look out for this year and is definitely one that is going to continue to make noise.
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