11 Nov Sam Smith: Get Familiar
You've probably heard of Sam Smith by now. This 21-year-old British singer's name has been on everyone's lips of late: the no-brainer of new music; President-elect for pop superstardom in 2014. You might've heard his star-making turns on Naughty Boy's "La La La" and Disclosure's "Latch" - the former remains one of the biggest selling singles of the last year whilst the latter is perhaps the best 'dance' song of the last ten. He can count Maxwell as one of his biggest fans, after the soul music titan spent the entire summer gushing about the Brit to his millions of fans online, and he's sold out shows in New York and LA; all without an album or even a proper single release to his name.14 Jan SoulCulture 13 for 13: JMSN
Hometown: Detroit, Michigan
Record Label: White Room Records
Age: 25
Drawing inspiration from some of the darker, overlooked and more honest portions of human emotion, the unique being that is JMSN captured our attention in 2012 with his beautifully unnerving and haunting odes, coupled with accompanying artistic yet almost horror-like self-directed visuals that in equal parts shocked, scared, hypnotised, disarmed and left us in awe, and is set to continue raising the bar this year.
04 Jan The Neighbourhood : Get Familiar
"Don’t tell them anything," whispers The Neighbourhood’s Jesse Rutherford to the languid beat of "Female Robbery." Since forming in August 2011, the Californian quintet [employing the deliberate Anglicised spelling of their name] have spent months driving the blogosphere into a hot mess of wild curiosity, bagged BBC Radio 1 DJ Zane Lowe’s Hottest Record In The World title four times and played a string of sell out shows. Yet somehow they’ve managed to keep a tight lid on their rapidly increasing profile.
18 Oct Femi Temowo : Get Familiar
It's probably about time that you're introduced to Femi Temowo. The Nigerian-born guitarist (and producer) is amongst the most talented jazz musicians currently residing in the UK. Fittingly, he's just been nominated for a MOBO in the Best Jazz Act category.
08 Oct Will Brennan : Get Familiar
In the overly populated musical genre of Hip-Hop, making your presence known as an up-and-coming emcee can be a hard task. With artists slotting into existing positions of conscious rap, hipster rap, non-lyrical rap etc, finding your lane can come with disappointing outcomes, and working extra hard to get your music out. For Florida born rapper Will Brennan, he finds not having a defined lane to be almost a blessing in disguise.
23 Jul Marie Dahlstrøm: Soul with a Scandinavian touch | Get Familiar
As an avid listener of R&B and Soul music, I've found that over the last couple of years the sudden swoop of electro-pop has taken over and left the genre to slowly but surely come to an end. On a quest to reignite my hope, I stumbled across London-based Scandinavian R&B, Soul and Jazz singer Marie Dahlstrøm.
05 Jul Darq E Freaker : Get Familiar
Tempa T's "Next Hype" was literally a next hype when the tune dropped in clubs up and down the country and came at a time when grime music was at its peak in the UK. The producer behind the track, South London spitter turned beatmaker Darq E Freaker was little known then - but his head banger of a beat put him in good stead to become one of the UK's freshest producers.
18 May J Boog : Get Familiar
I came across talk of Justin Bieber bigging up reggae artist J Boog (NOT the B2K guy) earlier this week in an interview by Reggie Yates [here is a radio rip on YouTube of the best part of the program at 3:30] as the Bieb's plays a song from his phone that he could listen to all day; J Boog - "Let's Do It Again." Don't let the Bieber co-sign put you off, it is actually a good song. With that said, let me tell you a bit more about the singer.
06 May Kendra Morris : Get Familiar
Kendra Morris has been creating a pretty big buzz for herself with her breakout song “Concrete Waves” and latest single, “If He Didn’t Go.” Gearing up to release her highly anticipated album, Banshee, via Wax Poetics Records, the singer has already got the cosign of various artists notably legendary producer DJ Premier who made a remixed version of “Concrete Waves,” for the three track EP. But, who is this girl?