You may know them best for producing Chance the Rapper’s smash “No Problem,” but this New York duo also boasts production credits for the likes of Anderson .Paak (“Am I Wrong?”), plus co-signs from GRiZ and Lido. Expect Ivan Jackson (trumpet, production) and Conor Rayne (drums) to make some more funk-infused noise in 2017. – Matt Medved
Sounds Like: Harmony-drenched Southern pop-rock with slick production and giant hooks
For Fans of: Little Big Town, the Lumineers, Grace Potter
Why You Should Pay Attention: Durham, North Carolina six-piece Delta Rae have been regional favorites for years, drawing enthusiastic crowds at major festivals like Bonnaroo and Lollapalooza. Now the band is signed to the Valory Music Co. (under Big Machine Label Group), having just released a four-song EP titled A Long and Happy Life. So far label life doesn’t seem to have changed the group’s sound too drastically, though they have adopted a slicker production style that should make these new tunes more radio-ready. The infectious pop of the EP’s title track will please Little Big Town and Lady Antebellum fans alike, with just enough of the band’s jam roots to reach the festival crowd.
They Say: “Our first single, ‘A Long and Happy Life,’ was inspired by my experience working as a caretaker to a Southern author named Reynolds Price,” says singer Ian Hölljes. “Reynolds was 76 when I met him and had been in a wheelchair for 25 years, the result of radiation therapy that saved his life from cancer. I lived in his home for a year and assisted in every aspect of his daily life and work as a writer. He taught me what it looked like to be a professional artist and to overcome incredible hardships to pursue the work you love. That spirit infuses a lot of what inspires Delta Rae’s music and is at the heart of what we understand country music to be about.”
Hear for Yourself: Massive harmonies and bright, soulful vocals make “A Long and Happy Life” the kind of windows-down song that becomes the soundtrack to summer. B.M.
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Born and raised in East Atlanta, J.I.D — a name adopted and adapted from what his grandmother called him as a jittery child — first appeared on the Atlanta hip-hop scene with his debut EP, Dicaprio, in 2015. Growing up, J.I.D’s first connection with music was through his parents’ collection of classic funk and soul LPs. After a stint at Hampton University playing football, J.I.D also hooked up with fellow MCs as part of the Spillage Village collective. By 2012, he had dropped out of college to focus on music, and in 2014 he headed out on what would be a productive tour with EarthGang, Bas, and Ab-Soul. Touring allowed J.I.D to craft his skills, and a year later he recorded and dropped the Dicaprio EP, which saw him team up with a host of producers, as well as EarthGang. While keen to distance himself from the generic abrasive trap sound that had dominated the Atlanta scene, J.I.D wanted to deliver something that was more than just about a beat, and instead focused his time and effort on lyrics as well. In 2016, J.I.D, alongside the rest of the Spillage Village crew, released the album Bears Like This Too Much, which saw the rapper honing his unique delivery and inspired lyrics. In 2017, he announced that he had signed to J. Cole’s Dreamville label (a connection made with the rapper via J.I.D’s part in the 2014 tour with Bas and Cole’s friend and producer Cedric Brown), which released the single Never and full-length The Never Story at the beginning of the year.
Presented anonymously, contemporary R&B artist H.E.R. debuted on major-label RCA in 2016. H.E.R., Vol. 1, released for streaming and as a download that September, was a seven-track EP of downcast post-breakup material, mostly ballads, that sounded vulnerable and assured at once. Promotion was limited, but labelmates Alicia Keys and Bryson Tiller helped spread the word through social media. Among the selections was a cover of Drake’s “Jungle.” Follow-up release H.E.R., Vol. 2 arrived in June 2017.
“Eighties pop-rock on acid” is how A Will Away have described themselves and — with a slew of memorable riffs, conceptual videos, and relatable lyrics that range from the everyday to transcendental — the band is living up to that.
Hailing from Connecticut, A Will Away’s first full-length album Here Again — released Mar. 3 via Triple Crown Records — in many ways acts as a continuation of their debut EP Bliss.
“Our songs are these stories and short anecdotal pieces about our own experiences,” vocalist Matt Carlson tells Billboard. “So when we finished Bliss, and we started writing more, and we started writing again, we noticed that the anecdotal Bliss days [stayed] relevant, they didn’t disappear.”
From the mundane (hating one’s job on the downtrodden “Pay Raise”) to the complex (navigating relationships in our current society), the alternative foursome have recreated their world through music. They often begin writing their parts separately, later coming together, only adding to their narrative of making sense from the sometimes disjointed and nonsensical.
“We just sort of noticed as we put Here Again together that it was just naturally attached to Bliss because we hadn’t detached thematically; we hadn’t detached to those feelings in our own lives,” explains Carlson.
A Will Away play a hands on role in the process of conceptualizing their music videos, like for their latest video for “Gravity.”
“When talking to him [director Eric Teti], I said something to the effect of, ‘I don’t really know what I want this to be: slow motion, black-and-white, and I want every indication that we’re in a floating void with abstract representing to force of gravity,’” Carlson tells Billboard.
Talk about a simple request; yet, somehow that’s exactly what came together. As the quartet perform, intangible concepts like time — and gravity itself — materialize in the form of flashes of clocks and the black vacuity that acts as the backdrop.
The visualization acts as a mirror to its lyrical counterparts, such as, “Gravity does what gravity wants/Pulling us back from the losing front/Seeing myself in a sliding door/Sweet cyanide and apple core,” speaking of arduous contemplation.
“The major takeaway [from our music] is you can sort of go as deep as you want,” says Carlson. “If you want to embrace this sort of ridiculous headspace that we’ve concocted as an experience then go for it; if you want to jam out to a song as a fun, poppy rock single, that’s fine too!”
Watch A Will Away’s new music video for “Gravity” premiering below.
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Sounds Like: The country-rock soundtrack to your next keg party, filled with slide-guitar strut, boogie-woogie bluster and thick Texas accents
For Fans of: Blackberry Smoke, A Thousand Horses, the rowdy side of Red Dirt
Why You Should Pay Attention: Already familiar faces on the Texas circuit, the Drugstore Gypsies raise honky-tonk hell on their self-titled debut, whose boozy highlights fit somewhere between Exile-era Rolling Stones and Eric Church’s “Drink in My Hand.” The guys also make room for power ballads and sexed-up salutes to life on the road, filling the cracks with Telecaster twang and Hammond organ. “This is our life,” insists frontman Duke Ryan, who speaks with the rapid-fire confidence of a carnival barker. “There are no sundresses or tailgates or cornfields here. We’ve played every bathroom stall from here to high hell, and we’re writing about the things we’ve seen on the road.”
They Say: “The biggest root of our sound is rock & roll,” adds Ryan. “Some people call it ‘Texas country.’ We’ve played shows with guys like Stoney LaRue, and that’s great, but we’re pulling from the Eagles, the Rolling Stones, Van Halen, Aerosmith. To us, that falls into the vein of rock & roll.”
Hear for Yourself: “Breaking the Law” sings the praises of a jailbird-in-training, saluting Southern rock icons like Lynyrd Skynyrd along the way. R.C.
One-half of an indie rock duo called Mount Dreams, Mehdi Benjelloun also produces lean and dreamlike dance music, inspired by the likes of Bonobo, Shlohmo, and Flume, as Petit Biscuit. Benjelloun, a native of Rouen, France, started making music on his synthesizer at the age of 12 and was a quick study. Within a couple years, the multi-instrumentalist — who can also play cello and guitar — was uploading early recordings to SoundCloud. In May 2016, at the age of 16, Benjelloun released a self-titled EP highlighted by the dazed “Sunset Lover” and the whimsical “Once Again.” Benjelloun made his first performances around the same time, including an appearance at Festival Panoramas.
New York-based musician Amber Coffman is probably best-known for her part in the alternative rock outfit Dirty Projectors, in which she sang and played guitar. Coffman initially started out as a member of the post-rock band Sleeping People until 2007, when she became a full-time member of Dirty Projectors and toured to promote the Rise Above album. Coffman went on to be a key member of the band for 2009’s Bitte Orca and 2012’s Swing Lo Magellan, utilizing intricate vocal parts and three-part harmonies that became an integral part of the band. Aside from Dirty Projectors, Coffman collaborated with electronic musician Rusko on the 2010 track “Hold On,” as well as “Get Free” by Major Lazer, “She Knows” from J. Cole, and “No Regrets” with Snoop Lion and T.I. In 2017, Coffman made her debut as a solo artist with City of No Reply.
Leela James is a Los Angeles native and soul singer who cites James Brown, Roberta Flack, and Gladys Knight, among others, as influences. Her deep, rich and gritty vocals easily draw comparisons to Aretha Franklin and Gladys Knight.
In 2004, James toured as an opening act for the Black Eyed Peas and Macy Gray. That same year, she was featured on hip hop producer, DJ, and emcee Pete Rock’s album Soul Survivor II, providing vocals to the track “No Tears”.
Her debut album was released on June 21, 2005, entitled A Change Is Gonna Come. The album is a soul music record incorporating the styles of 1960s and 1970s American soul singers, with a mixture of funk, R&B and gospel influences. The first single from the album, entitled “Music,” laments what Leela James sees as the decline of hip hop and soul music and asks for a return to the artistry of musicians of earlier decades. Leela co-wrote most of the tracks on her debut album, with two notable exceptions being her cover of No Doubt’s “Don’t Speak,” and the classic song by Sam Cooke for which the album is named. Notable collaborators on the album include Raphael Saadiq of the 1990s R&B group Tony! Toni! Tone!, Kanye West, and former Fugees member Wyclef Jean.
After parting ways with Warner Bros., James signed with the independent label Shanachie Records and released her second studio album on March 24, 2009, an all-cover set entitled Let’s Do It Again (the title being a homage to the 1975 soundtrack album of the same name by The Staple Singers).
In 2005, she lent her voice to the posthumously released Ray Charles album Genius & Friends, duetting with the singer on the song “Compared to What”. Leela also guested on Robert Randolph and the Family Band’s 2006 album Colorblind, lending her vocals to “Stronger”. In June 2009, she appeared on Moby’s new album “Wait for Me”, performing the vocal on “Walk with Me”.
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The 9-year-old America’s Got Talent contestant Celine Tam — named after vocal powerhouse Celine Dion — lived up to her namesake in her AGT audition with an unexpectedly stunning cover of Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On.”
While the young Dion super-fan had no problem charming both the audience and judges with her frequent references to the singer, it’s fair to say that no one would have expected the jaw-dropping performance that followed from the kid.
Things really got interesting when Tam reached the 1997 track’s iconic climax, winning a standing ovation from the crowd (not to mention the rare smile from judge Simon Cowell).
Tam (whose younger sister is named Dion), told the judges she first realized her own talent while singing along to the classic track in the car with her dad. “He was like, ‘Wow,'” Tam said, as her family watched from backstage.
