“Each of these songs are really the things I never bothered saying being that I felt no one was listening.” This quote sums up to the magic of 20-year old Houston artist Blessing and her debut EP, the girl next door. On first impression, the strength and range in her voice are perhaps Blessing’s crowning features, but as you delve into this project, the diary-tinted songwriting identifies itself as the quality that brings the most out of this vocal performance. There’s an added strength to the vocals when the lyrics are of such personal weight, and across all 6 songs here, it’s clear that such is the case. Blessing doesn’t hold back as a writer, and as a result, she achieves greater relatability the more personal she’s willing to get. “Rage” is a personal favorite, but each song on the girl next door has merit to standout for a different emotional context. Houston has yet another budding star on its hands, so be sure to get in early — listen to the girl next door below:

15 years old from Orlando, the 50s and 60s-inspired music that Chenayder is making seems far from what one might expect out of a freshman in high school. Yet, Chenayder’s soft, impassioned vocal abilities and heartfelt songwriting make her the perfect candidate to carry the same type of soul that a lot of these older songs are celebrated for. While calling her an ‘old soul’ feels like a lazy assessment of the music, it can certainly be said that Chenayder is an authentic voice who writes with a certain wisdom that feels far beyond her years. Chenayder is aware of this, saying during a recent phone conversation that while her friends from school may not fully appreciate a song from an older group such as The Four Freshman, they do respond well when they hear their friend build on a similar style. This is Chenayder’s most potent ability, to channel certain characteristics of an older style of music and make them interesting for a younger audience of listeners. Not surprisingly, her music has gained rapid momentum when promoted through the type of compelling, authentic, and youthful videos that Chenayder has been posting on TikTok for some time now. “Fall,” in particular, …

Characterized by a rapid pace of output, uncontainable energy, a lawless palette of samples to rap on, and the personality of their buzzing section of NYC, the emerging scene of Bronx artists, from B Lovee to Kay Flock, Dougie B, and a host of others, is taking over NYC right now. They’re moving at breakneck speed, and with each passing minute, these artists are becoming more and more inescapable in their home city and beyond. This isn’t just the Bronx and this isn’t just NYC anymore — the scene is making serious waves on a national scale, and B Lovee is one of the names positioned right in the center of it all. Earlier this year, among his rich supply of solo releases and collaborations spread around YouTube, B Lovee released a song called “IYKYK,” turning a Wayne Wonder sample into an instantly memorable track that pushed the Bronx rapper even further into the spotlight around NYC. As the song continued to move and the demand for new B Lovee music only heightened by the day, new music — some officially released and some leaked — rapidly populated the internet. Among the songs leaked was a track called “My Everything,” …

We at Lyrical Lemonade have been covering Houston artist HVN ever since the release of his first project, Welcome to HVN. At the time, he was mainly known around Houston for throwing parties with his brand DONTDIE. But over the past two years or so, HVN has grown into a creative force far beyond his city, landing on Don Toliver’s album a few months back with “Smoke,” modeling for Heron Preston x Calvin Klein, and just over a week ago, releasing his most impressive body of work to date in All Girls Go To Heaven. 8 tracks in length, All Girls Go To Heaven doubles down on the sound that HVN’s Houston-based team has created, sharpening the ideas on Welcome to HVN, getting more personal, and and offering deeply compelling bouts of songwriting, hard-nosed deliveries, and unmistakable personality. In every way, it’s a lifestyle project, and one that achieves its goal of bringing listeners further into the world of HVN in a massively exciting way. Today, HVN is here with his second visual off of the project, blessing our pages with a music video for one of my personal favorite tracks, “HISNEYLAND.” Built around a charged instrumental courtesy of Broadday — whose contributions to …

Just over a month ago to date, UK talent Nippa made his debut on our pages with “Situation” — a deeply refreshing track, bolstered around bouncy production, silky smooth deliveries, and a sense of homegrown self that seeps through the infectious visuals. Simply put, Nippa’s music is the type that doesn’t pray on a viral moment or a TikTok dance to get moving. Rather, it leans on authenticity and sheer quality — the type of thing that anyone feels comfortable texting to a friend or playing at a party, which is arguably the highest form of cosign there is, when personal taste is put on the line without any other motives involved. Around the time “Situation” was released, Nippa was starting to gain some attention from U.S. and Canadian outlets, and is now buzzing out of the UK as a red-hot new talent with cosigns from the likes of Boi-1da and Blxst, spins from BBC Radio 1Xtra, a follow from FKA Twigs, and more — that is, while finishing up his last year of university in Kent, where peers have started to recognize him around campus. Nippa is a storyteller, he’s charismatic, he can sing, he can rap, and most impressively, …

Houston artist HVN has had a whirlwind few months. Since we last covered his April ’21 single “Draco,” the rising talent appeared on Don Toliver’s “Smoke” alongside SoFaygo, performed at several U.S. dates with Toliver from Miami all the way to Los Angeles, modeled for Calvin Klein, and just last week, released a brand new single called “Marine.” Today, HVN is here to bless us with the song’s accompanying music video, directed by none other than visual genius and jack-of-many-trades, Noah Dillon, whose work spans from visual campaigns for North Face and Maison Margiela all the way to his band The Hellp and a brand called Hot Mess alongside Luka Sabbat, among other things. Simply put, “Marine” is an eccentric, deeply compelling music video, far from what one would expect from a rap video in both visual identity and substance. Dillon builds what feels like a singular world around the song, using different textures of footage, split-screen shots, strategic camera movements, and more to ingrain the visuals into the muddied feel of the production and the personality driven into the vocals. The yield is a music video that continues to build upon HVN’s differentiated sense of artistry, sonically and visually …

Writing about music, I’ve received countless pitches over the years for songs that mix genres, or sound like if X artist met Y artist. Some of these songs are impressive, but I’ve come to realize that cool songs only go so far. They might land in playlists, or get sent in group chats as neat things to listen to, but music that finds an engaged, lasting audience, is music rooted in lore and belief. Because it’s about more than some neat songs. The ethos behind music that lasts is an extension of the artist who created it, and it’s the source code that characterizes a fanbase as more than a group of people who listen to the same thing, but rather, a group of people who choose to believe in something greater than cool songs. This is where gabby start comes in. gabby start is the artist project of a 20-year old NYU student formerly known as Knapsack. And while gabby’s songs are neat as they come, pairing the energy and anthemic qualities of rock music with EDM drum kits and pop song structures, they’re also rooted in a value system that defines what the artist project is all about. …

I’ll forever find myself allured by music that attaches itself to a “lifestyle,” whether communicated through lyrics, visuals, or otherwise. When an artist is able to effectively bring listeners into the world that their music comes from without losing the truest and purest version of the feeling that the world exudes, a new dimension of appeal is added to each release, and in turn, the artist is generally better suited to stick around for the long run. Such is certainly the case with Toronto artist RealestK, who may have built his momentum on TikTok — a platform infamous for flash-in-the-pan musical moments — but is already proving to offer so much more with his incredible new music video for “WFM.” Sonically, “WFM” pinpoints a marriage between dark, lush production and silky smooth vocal runs that gives it an addictive characteristic, complete with illustrative lyrics that ask a romantic interest, why can’t you wait for me? The songwriting is fantastic, tinted with a layer of desperation and sadness that effectively communicates the emotional weight that the topic holds in the narrator’s life. And then there’s the visual, which perfectly illustrates the song’s aura with night-set scenes of RealestK walking around Toronto wearing his signature, …