Future 25

There are few people on planet Earth who can rap as fast as J Noa — and even fewer who actually have something to say. On her 2023 debut EP, Autodidactica, the 18-year-old MC from the 5 de Abril barrio in San Cristóbal, Dominican Republic, showcased one of the most nimble flows in rap of any language, along with a penchant for strings-laden throwback beats and a modern perspective. Beyond merely precocious, her voice carries the weight of one who’s seen some things and lived to tell about them.  The frenetic,…

Pink plastic cows and fake aqua-blue trucks decorated the lobby of the Wiltern during the last night of Chappell Roan’s U.S. Midwest Princess Tour in November. Her fans — donning sparkly devil horns and bedazzled bralettes decorated with hearts — posed for photos in front of the backdrops as they made their way into the art deco Los Angeles venue, where death-dropping drag queens lip-synced on stage. “The Wiltern… It doesn’t feel like a gay club, you know what I mean? It’s proper. It’s very fancy,” Roan, 26, says.…

Wyatt Flores can pinpoint the exact moment he says the party ended in country music. After a decade-plus of tailgating, beer-drinking songs clogging up playlists, the pandemic struck and forced artists and fans alike indoors with their thoughts. And shit got real, fast. “They got trapped inside of wherever they were and they had a lot of time to sit down and think, and that flustered up their minds,” Flores says. “People felt emotions that they hadn’t felt before.” Emotional songwriting just happened to be…

Young Nudy has been a rotation mainstay for diehard fans of Atlanta rap for years. But he’s on the verge of crossover stardom after the ascent of “Peaches & Eggplants,” a delectably titled single with his cousin 21 Savage that peaked at Number Seven on the Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart last fall. The single from Nudy’s Gumbo album is buoyed by a pulsing, synth-driven beat and an irresistible “boaw, boaw, boaw” ad-lib that blew up on TikTok. Over the phone, Nudy says that the song’s success just might be…

Preceded by a crew of gymnasts who shot fire — and themselves — high in the air, Black Sherif earned a hero’s welcome when he took the stage at the El-Wak Stadium in Accra, Ghana, to headline the AfroFuture festival last December. The event, which has become one of the hallmarks of winter celebrations in West Africa, attracted roughly 40,000 attendees across its two days, according to its founder. Black Sherif was the sole Ghanaian artist to headline, and he stands as one his country’s brightest stars thanks to his…