It’s a new year and a new year brings new traditions, resolutions, habits and MUSIC!
The Brit Awards will take place on February 8th and if you are eager to discover new music in 2022, you are in the right place. Here are the artists we believe should be on your radar this year.
Holly Humberstone
Holly is a 22-year-old singer from a small town in Lincolnshire. Despite only being signed last year, she is already making her name for herself in the industry.
Humberstone’s sound has been compared to Lorde, they both expose their vulnerability to deepen the intimacy of their music. She cites HAIM and Phoebe Bridgers as her musical influence.
Holly is not a stranger to Liverpool either, studying at Paul McCartney’s Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts as a teenager. She was discovered when her manager heard her music on BBC’s Introducing. VEVO crowned her as an artist to watch for 2021 and she lived up to that title.
Last year, Holly signed to Interscope records and in December she was awarded the prestigious Brit Award for Rising Star, who’s recipients include Sam Smith and Adele. This year, she is the opening act for Olivia Rodrigo’s highly anticipated tour.
Check out her hit single The Walls Are Way Too Thin to familiarise yourself with the Lincoln legend.
Sissy Ford
A more underground artist who is on the come up is this 18-year-old from London. Sissy’s music career has barely begun and her cypher has already gone viral. Her versatility will captivate you as she goes bar for bar with other rappers and then delivers melodies with her deep and delicate tone.
Ford began producing her own sounds from her bedroom and writing the lyrics to her music. At the start of 2020, BBC Cambridge featured her on their Introducing show. It is only in the last few months she has ventured into the rap game too.
Her verses on the music platform SpitgameUK circulated the internet in November, with her first video gaining over half a million views. Her quick flow paired with her slick word play has gained her a small following on social media, which is only going to grow.
To see for yourself, check out her Spit Game Sessions on Spit Games’ YouTube channel.
Hazey
If 2022 has changed anybody’s life, it’s Hazey. Unless you live under a rock, you would have had ‘got to mix these packs and potions no p’s til I put a sim in a burner’ stuck in your head this month.
Those 17 words have changed the 17-year-old rapper’s life overnight when his Blackbox cypher caught international attention on Tiktok. His distinct scouse accent has put Liverpool on the map in the drill scene.
His verse was uploaded on December 29th and by January 8th, he was signed to Sony Music. It is just over two weeks since Packs and Potions was uploaded and it has over 250 million impressions on Tiktok.
The overwhelming reaction to his sound led to him turning it into a full song and it trended #1 on YouTube for music. He is now charting next to Ed Sheeran and The Weekend.
Liverpool right back Trent Alexander Arnold was featured in a bar and the world-famous footballer actually met up with Anfield native Hazey as the song gained more and more traction.
You can bet this is only the start of a prospering music career and if you are one of the very few yet to hear Hazey, you can listen here.
Pink Pantheress
Another artist who is no stranger to Tiktok is Pink Pantheress, a 20-year-old student from Kent. The various lockdowns brought out the best and worst in us and if you were lucky, you had time to devote to your passions.
The nameless teenager grew up using Garage Band to produce instrumentals and throughout last year, she would sit in her university halls at night making her own music from scratch.
Despite her songs gaining very little attention on Soundcloud, she moved her snippets to Tiktok where they were heard wide and far.
Her sound has been praised for bringing back the nostalgic feel of the early 2000’s era. Her experience in a punk rock band growing up is definitely noticeable in her songs. The quick and catchy beats juxtapose lyrics that convey emptiness and hopelessness.
One of the many snippets uploaded on TikTok was Just For Me, which peaked at #27 on the UK singles chart and the music video received over 3 million views. London rapper, Central Cee, sampled the song for his single Obsessed With You which gained her a nomination for BBC Song of the Year.
In January 2022, Pink Pantheress was announced as the winner of BBC’s Sound of the Year. With a staggering 661,000 followers on Instagram and a further 1.1 million on TikTok, Pink Pantheress is definitely one to watch in 2022. Check out Just For Me in our video portal above.