Rolling Stone UK’s Future Of Music: see the full list

By the latest estimations, the UK music industry is worth a staggering £6.7 billion to our economy. It’s proof, if ever we needed it, that we might be a small island – but we’re one that delivers one hell of an almighty racket. At the very top, there’s the world-beating names that do their significant bit to provide a significant amount of that figure – there’s no doubt that the likes of Adele, Coldplay and Ed Sheeran continue to be brilliant ambassadors on the global stage.

But if we want to continue this success, then the need to look at a pipeline of new talent is imperative. This, friends, is where Rolling Stone UK’s Future Of Music list for 2024 comes in. In conjunction with all our global Rolling Stone partners, the editorial team at Rolling Stone UK has compiled our list of 25 incredibly exciting artists from the UK and Ireland who we believe are going to define music in the near future. There are DJs and producers who are already selling out huge rooms, electronic noisemakers offering two fingers to our tumultuous times and guitar bands who proudly stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the genre’s very forebears. In short, there’s something for everyone on this list. So please, read on and discover your favourite new artist. With the sheer variety of acts we’ve offered up, they’re bound to be in here somewhere. And when you do discover them, tell your mates too. The stars of tomorrow, we believe, are all here.

Central Cee

Central Cee is the Future of Music, but if you look at the UK rap scene in 2024, he is unmistakably the present, too. Since he emerged in 2019, the rapper has sold out arenas, topped charts and been emblazoned on billboards and London buses. His 2022 single ‘Doja’ was as omnipresent as songs get, and through EPs, mixtapes and freestyles, he’s proved himself a dextrous rapper and an in-your-face personality. A child of the UK’s drill scene of the 2010s, he’s leading the next generation of stars that are keeping rap as the dominant UK genre of the day, helped by the fact that the elder statesmen who influenced him have rushed to give him co-signs.

His only solo release of 2023 — the single ‘Entrapreneur’ — landed at the tail end of last year, but he still managed to come out on top after also landing the longest-reigning UK rap single in chart history with Dave collaboration ‘Sprinter’, taken from the pair’s Split Decision project. A debut album is still awaited from the rapper though, which could take him even closer to global superstar status and solidify his promise as a one-of-a-kind artist.

Master Peace

“I can make as many indie songs as I want, I can fucking fly this flag, and people still call me a rapper,” Master Peace told Rolling Stone UK last year, laying out the continued difficulties for Black artists to break out of antiquated boxes that they simply don’t fit into. 

After years of pandering to others and accepting being told that he couldn’t change, Peace Okezie’s transformative debut album How to Make a Master Peace finally sees him embracing his fierce love of indie music and redefining it for 2024.

Packed with hooks and sleazy instrumentals, the record could — and should — become formative for a new generation of indie fans and is the delightful sound of an artist finally being allowed to represent their true self. Alongside fellow Future of Music inductee Rachel Chinouriri, Master Peace is blazing a trail for the future of indie music, finally giving underrepresented voices their time in the spotlight. “I know how hard I’ve had to fight for people just to take me in and take away the colour from it, and just listen to the music,” he told us. “If I can bring that for [Black people] and give people inspiration to want to do it for themselves, I feel like my job is complete.”

NewDad

“I’m just hoping that this album cements us as one of the rock bands of this time,” NewDad singer Julie Dawson told Rolling Stone UK about the group’s debut album Madra late last year. 

Take one listen to Madra, and you’ll realise that Dawson’s hopes are well founded. Here is an album that establishes them as the leading lights of a Gen-Z shoegaze revival and one that can easily stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the genre’s forebears. “I just want more people to know who we are and be on the radio everywhere because that would be very, very cool,” said Dawson. “But mostly, we just want to set that standard and prove what we can do. Because we did disappear for a bit while we tried to figure out where we wanted to take the album. But honestly, we are all so proud of it and we want to show everyone we’re not messing around.” 

Caity Baser

Caity Baser began her year with nominations for both the BRITs Rising Star and BBC Radio 1 Sound Of 2024 awards and has returned with new mixtape Still Learning. “I don’t dress things up — it annoys me!” Baser told Rolling Stone UK. “Say it straight to my face. And what!” Here, Baser distils her alluring and potentially arena-filling appeal — her music is about trusting in your convictions, and it also happens to be sugary and radio-friendly. “My whole life people have been sugarcoating shit. I’m just like: ‘Be honest! Even if it hurts my feelings.’”

Like many 2020s success stories, her journey began on TikTok, but the cheeky personality and melodic strength of her songs ensures that they translate beyond the app, too. You can draw a direct line from 2000s staples Lily Allen and Kate Nash to Baser thanks to her conversational, sarcastic tone, but, vitally, her songs transcend kitschy elements and pack a serious pop punch as well. After flirting with rock and drum’n’bass in past musical lives, she’s now settled on pop, and it suits her well — here’s a pop star with bundles of enthusiasm and hit songs with withering kiss-offs to her detractors.

Lava La Rue

Lava La Rue is a true musical polymath. The singer started their journey as a founder of west London’s acclaimed NiNE8 collective — which included the likes of Mac Wetha and Biig Piig — but they’ve now broken out to become a true genre-spanning star in their own right. Their sounds veer from contemporary rap to more classic, 70s-flecked tunes, and represent the melting pot of cultures that surrounded them when growing up in south London.

“We all lived on the same block together, and we went home and would eat each other’s food, and speak each other’s slang,” they previously told Rolling Stone UK. “I was raised by the Caribbean side of my family, and music is so inherent to that culture. My grandma took me to Black church, and my parents, who are quite young, were ravers. My mum listened to a lot of pirate radio: jungle, drum’n’bass, 90s happy hardcore and that kind of stuff.”

But give their material — including 2022’s excellent Hi-Fidelity EP — a listen, and you’ll find that none of it feels out of place. With genre becoming an increasingly obsolete word, Lava La Rue is redefining what it means to be a true artist. 

Sam Tompkins

Sam Tompkins had a massive 2023, selling out Hammersmith Apollo and even being tipped for Rolling Stone UK’s Rising Star Award. Now, it looks like the musical polymath is set to continue that hot streak with his debut album Hi, My Name Is Insecure, a powerfully raw dissection of mental health. “As I’ve got older and meet more people, most people I know have at some point lost someone they loved prematurely through illness, suicide or other things; myself included,” he explains.

“It’s coming from a place where you want to enjoy your life and move forward, but in a lot of cases because you didn’t get closure, you feel as though you can’t. You honestly think maybe just one call from that person would give you peace, but sadly life doesn’t always work like that,” he told Rolling Stone UK. “When I lost my dad to suicide in November of last year, this song felt even more powerful to me, so it felt like the most fitting way to come into 2024. To show others that they are not alone in their struggles and that we can all get through these things if we just open up conversation.”

Big Special

In 2024, few bands are capturing the relentless malaise that’s afflicted the whole of Britain quite like Big Special. But where most of us are content with a half-arsed trudge through these uncertain times, this Black Country two piece are encouraging us to dance through the darkness. Pairing a restless punk spirit with pounding electronic sounds and the powerhouse vocals of singer Joe Hicklin, they’ve managed to create something unexpectedly beautiful from the bleakest of situations.

“I think that’s the overall sentiment of our debut album (the upcoming POSTINDUSTRIAL HOMETOWN BLUES),” says Hicklin. “We don’t want to give any answers or say that we know the way. It’s just us going, ‘This is shit, we know it’s shit, and you know it’s shit, but let’s try and do something together.’”

Anish Kumar

If you want to get an idea of what the future of British dance music looks like, you’d do worse than to pay attention to Dialled In. The organisation, which focuses on music made by British South Asians, says of itself: “Our purpose is to spotlight and platform the wealth of South Asian artistry by building long-term, self-sustainable spaces to ensure our culture is held while it evolves and expands.”

Leading this pack of exciting new names in dance music is Anish Kumar, a Cambridge veterinary medicine student who weaves house, disco and more in with sounds that honour his heritage. His 2023 release A Mixtape by Anish Kumar is a melting pot of sounds and energies, all tied together by his now-signature commitment to bright, sunny rhythms. His secret weapon, though, is the jubilant ‘Little Miss Dynamite’, which samples Brenda Lee’s 1964 track ‘Is It True’ and turnsit into a sun-soaked house monster. This skill and invention sets Kumar apart as a special new voice in a scene that will only become more influential in 2024. For further reading, check out Surya Sen, Yung Singh and DJ Priya.

Lambrini Girls

Lambrini Girls— Phoebe Lunny and Lilly Macieira — possess the same energy that you’d expect to develop after necking a bottle of the boozy stuff from which they take their name. Unpredictable, chaotic, but ultimately here for a good time, the Brighton duo offer killer riffs and irrepressible energy in songs that rail against the patriarchy and pretty much every form of prejudice going. The inclusive energy at their live shows, meanwhile, is enough to make you leave with a new fire burning deep in your soul. They were nominated for Rolling Stone UK’s Rising Star Award in 2023, but in 2024 their talent looks likely to soar into the stratosphere.

“I just think with anything, it’s obviously easier to be passionate about something that affects you directly,” Macieira told Rolling Stone UK last year of their open-hearted spirit. “There’s nothing necessarily wrong with that. But I think we can all push ourselves a little bit further and think about the people all around us and think about all of these awful things that are going on for trans people specifically at the moment. It’s important to be passionate about any issues that diminish anyone’s identity and anyone’s right to exist.”

Ren

Artists with the natural charisma and pure honesty of Ren don’t come around too often. The singer hit the headlines at the end of 2022 when he released ‘Hi Ren’, a track that discusses a range of auto-immune conditions that he was recently diagnosed with, including Lyme disease. The song connected with people due to its unfiltered honesty and Ren’s determination to look on the bright side despite years of misdiagnoses.

“Dark topics don’t always have to be ugly, and there can be a lot of beauty and richness to be found in those moments,” Ren told Rolling Stone UK last year, specifically referencing his track ‘Suic*de’. “Sometimes by facing them fearlessly maybe we can understand them better.” On debut album Sick Boi, he lays out these issues and pushes past them with stunning musicality and a wide range of musical references. Ren has spoken of how his audience have come together, bounded by the “very human thread” of the music and its message. It’s impossible not to be moved by this story and the one-of-a-kind singer behind it.

Nia Archives

It takes aspecial kind of artist to spearhead the popular revival of an entire genre of music all by themselves. Jungle has never stopped bubbling away since its 90s heyday, but it’s back on the radio now thanks to Nia Archives. The Yorkshire-born, London-based producer’s effervescent attitude and boisterous anthems have seen her support Beyoncé and become the sound of festival season in recent years, and her sound is already signature. 

A Nia Archives remix is the hottest property around in 2024, as Fred again.. and others can attest, and her ascendance is also spotlighting a continued underappreciation for a genre of music that can be heard in some of the biggest pop hits of the century.

This year will see Nia Archives take her revivalism global, while also pushing things forwards. On radio shows and during raves, Nia has worked to readdress the side-lining of Black women in jungle’s past and future, putting in the work as well as lighting up dance floors across the world.

Rachel Chinouriri

When we saw Rachel Chinouriri at KOKO earlier this month, we hailed her as “a star who could well go on to become an indie hero for a new generation of music fans”. No lies were told. Her debut album, the forthcoming What A Devastating Turn Of Events sees Chinouriri pitting crunching alt-rock guitars against lighter, indie-pop moments to show what she’s truly capable of. It’s all the product of a hard-fought battle against the detractors who lazily labelled Chinouriri a soul/R&B artist on sole account of her skin colour.

“What I want is to inspire the other 13-year-old Black girls who are confused about their identity but love rock music. I want them to be like, ‘Oh God, it’s possible. It actually exists.’ In 10 years’ time, I’m hoping to look back knowing that my album has been really influential in helping move stepping stones for Black artists,” she tells Rolling Stone UK. We’re under no doubt that she’ll do just that.

Chy Cartier

Tottenham rapper ChyCartier joins an exclusive list of musicians from the north London neighbourhood. As well as the obvious Adele, those same streets have been the proving ground for Skepta, JME, Wretch 32, Avelino and more. The area’s deep musical heritage — especially in rap — is in safe hands with Cartier, a dextrous and ambitious wordsmith with the thudding beats to back it up. Recent single ‘BOSSED UP’ is her greatest achievement yet, where an irresistible hook is teamed with bars that are teeming with passion but never rushed. “‘BOSSED UP’ is about having solid ambition,” she said of the song, and hers is immediately apparent. “Don’t wait for nobody,” she says with confidence in the track’s spoken-word section, before she launches into yet another fiery verse. Here is the next great voice of the London rap scene.

AntsLive

London-based rapperAntsLive knows that he’s already making waves. His latest mixtape Just a Matter of Time boasts a title that feels like he’s on the path to greatness within UK rap. Similarly, that mixtape contains the earworm ‘Number One Candidate’, which sees AntsLive clearly stating his manifesto for greatness. “I’m a young CEO, gotta do as you’re told,” he boldly offers.

The visuals take that to the next level too, as he tears through the Dolomites on an actual horse that he learnt to ride after hastily taking a riding course in Warwickshire in the weeks before the shoot. The video soon went viral, with the likes of KSI lauding his efforts on social media. Commitment to the cause, yes, but crystal-clear proof that he’s an artist acutely aware of his vision and the things it takes to get noticed. Expect that name to become even more prominent throughout 2024. 

Porij

Since emerging in 2020, Porij have constantly shape-shifted to circumstances both internal and external. After adapting to being a new band in a pandemic, they then exited the scene at the same time as losing two founding members in early 2022. Debut album Teething, due out on 26 April via PIAS, documents this process and pieces the band back together. “To be perfectly honest, it was terrifying,” frontperson Eggy said of the experience. “I remember going through that time feeling like we were sharks: if we stopped swimming, we were gonna die.” It’s all poured into a debut album that’s restorative as well as reactive.

Porij have supported Metronomy on tour in the past and make a similar kind of alluringly wonky pop music. They twist unusual ingredients into catchy alt-pop defined by its exploratory nature. With toes dipped into rave culture, straight-up indie, pure pop, UK garage and beyond, they’re an amalgam of the UK’s 21st-century musical culture. What’s regurgitated by Porij is fresh and fascinating, and they are a brilliant new voice on the pop landscape.

Barry Can’t Swim

In the few years since the inception of Barry Can’t Swim, Edinburgh-born, London-based producer Joshua Mainnie has become one of the most buzzy and in-demand figures on the UK’s dance music scene, propelled by his eclectic and dazzling debut album When Will We Land?, released via Ninja Tune in late 2023. On it, he traverses jazz, club music and beyond with astonishing attention to detail. His live show, meanwhile, has packed rooms at home and abroad, as well as at Glastonbury and beyond.

With a commitment to not being taken too seriously – both his live and DJ sets are a bundle of giddy energy – and a love of jazz and funk which weaves in and out of his electronic productions, his music is built both for deep listening and sun-soaked escapism at festivals. Bringing fun and lightness back to both the stage and the booth, he’s ready to be one of 2024’s breakout dance stars.

Griff

Griff is a student of 21st-century pop music and is set on carving out her own fascinating corner of it. She exists in the lineage of Lorde’s hyper-specific and emotional lyricism, as well as Taylor Swift’s knack for a killer hook. You can also look to the likes of Grimes and Imogen Heap when tracing the influence of her almost entirely self-produced songs. 

As much as she’s a pop powerhouse in waiting, she’s equally happy being a studio wizard, and twists her catchy songs in off-kilter directions with punchy, leftfield production. On the other end of the scale, she’s supported both Coldplay and Dua Lipa on stadium and arena tours respectively, and feels entirely comfortable taking these bedroom productions to the biggest stages possible.

New EP vert1go vol. 1 shows a sharpening of her sound and lyrics in that she doesn’t settle for a tidy narrative, and this should be furthered on a debut album due in 2024. Griff is leading a new generation of pop stars taking control over their sound and their future, making radio-ready songs with depth and profundity.

High Vis

The mainstream explosion of Turnstile in recent years has brought a greater spotlight onto the world of hardcore. The subculture that’s thrived underground for decades and occasionally risen above it is experiencing another wave of attention. In the UK, much of that attention is being directed towards High Vis. Though the London five-piece don’t sound too much like traditional hardcore — their swirling, melodic songs are closer to Madchester — their ethic is hardcore through and through, as is their background in a countless list of far heavier bands.

As well as their hugely catchy melodies, the thing making High Vis catch on is their unflinchingly honest lyrics, particularly the track ‘Trauma Bonds’ from 2022 LP Blending. On it, vocalist Graham Sayle — who possesses a beautifully gravelly voice from Merseyside — ruminates on the death by suicide of many of his friends and wonders of his remaining companions: “Are we still lucky to be here?” At live shows, it’s become a rare moment of true catharsis and a bonafide anthem. “People are just attracted to the kind of honesty involved in this stuff,” Sayle told Rolling Stone UK last year of hardcore’s appeal, and High Vis embody every inch of it.

Elmiene

Combining elements of classic sounds with neo-soul, Elmiene is winning rightful praise across the globe. This 22-year-old British singer songwriter (aka Abdala Elamin) is a dab hand at contrasting smooth, classic soul with some of the genre’s newer greats such as 90s icon D’Angelo. Breakthrough track ‘Golden’ is the perfect encapsulation of what the artist all about. He’s already received praise in high places too, having co-written for Stormzy and worked with Sampha on a number of projects. 

“Growing up, I was a quiet only child; I’d spend all day watching people, just observing mannerisms,” he told Rolling Stone UK last year. “I felt like soul and R&B was based on observations, things that aren’t always obvious to the naked eye — like, 90s neo-soul, Donnie Hathaway’s 60s and 70s records, or Stevie Wonder’s classic records, they all speak about the unspoken and the unseen in a way that’s tangible and so eloquent. It really captured my imagination as a kid: ‘This is sick, what’s going on?’ Stevie and Donnie taught me how to sing; it’s in my DNA, my blood.”

Sprints

when Irish rockers Sprints released their debut album Letter to Self in January, it was clear that we had a rock record that would define the whole year. The spiky, arena-primed riffs of guitarist Colm O’Reilly bound along with the confidence of a band far beyond their tentative years and feel like the kind of stuff that is bound to ignite moshpits for a new generation of rockers at this year’s festival season. But there is real depth too. On ‘Cathedral’, singer Karla Chubb vocalises her battles at being a queer woman growing up underneath the oft-oppressive background of the Catholic church. This fully formed debut and the group’s relentless spirit suggests they’ll be a defining band in years to come. 

Lynks

Lynks is a sleazy, hilarious, gimp mask-wearing pop powerhouse. After spending the first three years of the decade sprinkling sexually charged bangers out into the world, developing a reputation as a raucous live performer, and collaborating with Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes and Metronomy, they will emerge with debut album Abomination on 12 April via Heavenly.

On it, they tackle subjects such as the bleak, often banal thrills of riding the DLR to a one-night stand (‘(What Did You Expect From) Sex with a Stranger’), and the ageist undertones of sexual proclivity (‘Use It Or Lose It’). All these topics are tackled with laugh-out-loud one-liners but an understanding of their importance, too, as Lynks explained to Rolling Stone UK last year: “Writing some songs that were a bit more emotional than, for example, ‘How to Make a Béchamel Sauce In 10 Steps’, really helped, and they still resonated with people.”

It’s a rare skill to be able to shoehorn important and vital conversations into songs packed with absurd, filthy jokes, and Lynks hits the sweet spot perfectly. Their message — and their bangers — deserve to blow up in 2024.

The Last Dinner Party

We’re almost out of superlatives to describe this lot, so let us put it in simple terms: The Last Dinner Party are the most exciting British band to have emerged in a generation. We knew it from the minute we heard the stunning new-wave stomp of their debut single ‘Nothing Matters’, and we certainly knew it when we gave them their first-ever award, The Rising Star Award, at the Rolling Stone UK Awards, in collaboration with Rémy Martin, last year. The ultimate proof comes in the form of their stunning number-one-charting debut album Prelude to Ecstasy, on which stadium-filling anthems rub shoulders with all manner of baroque pop curios.

All of this is to say that they’re superstars in the making and most certainly the future of music. “The lyrics, the music, the way we look — none of it is an act or a character. It’s all us, but in our platonic form rather than a Ziggy Stardust-type of character. It’s us at our full capacity,” they recently told Rolling Stone UK of their debut. They’re a brilliant live proposition too, with singer Abigail Morris displaying a star quality that’s somewhere in between Kate Bush and Freddie Mercury, but entirely her own. We can’t wait to see what’s next.

English Teacher

English Teacher’s debut LP This Could Be Texas (out 12 April via Island) is a masterclass in mixing modern-day banality (see song titles like ‘The World’s Biggest Paving Slab’) with a wide-eyed desire to burst beyond it. 

The band are led by Lily Fontaine — a magnetic frontperson — who gives their guitar music, which ranges from post-punk to 80s indie-pop and beyond, a distinct and exciting personality. In her lyrics, she grapples with identity and inaccurate stereotyping. “Despite appearances, I haven’t got the voice for R&B,” she sings on the band’s brilliant debut single ‘R&B’. Instead, she fronts a post-punk band that’s pushing the genre forwards in new and fresh ways, beyond the late 2010s explosion that threatened to go stale. “It’s looking like a very intimidating year,” Fontaine told Rolling Stone UK of 2024, during which the band will release their debut album and play their biggest shows to date. Only intimidating for the competition, we’d say.

Sekou

With a fan base that includes the likes of Quincy Jones, Dua Lipa, Anderson Paak and Bruno Mars, Sekou is already attracting attention in all the right places. But take a listen to his latest releases and you’ll see why they’ve all fallen for the soul-flecked talents of the Leicester teenager. His debut EP Out of Mind arrived last year and saw soulful edges being balanced against retro pop sounds, while ‘Time Will Tell’ marked one of his most powerful, stop-you-in-your-tracks moments to date.

“I’m definitely writing towards an album, but it won’t come out for another two years,” he said. “Albums come and go so quickly nowadays. Artists will drop one, and minutes later everyone has already moved on. Doing an album is bigger than that for me. I want to do one when I know everyone’s going to hear it. I definitely want to do another EP. I have a few features in the pipeline, and I worked on a Queen-inspired song with Labrinth. I just want to continue building my audience.”

Shygirl

Though she hasbeen an emerging star for years and has a Mercury Prize nomination under her belt for debut album Nymph, Shygirl’s status as the Future of Music is more justified than ever heading into 2024. The artist — a rapper, singer, curator — began the year by releasing Club Shy, her paean to nightlife culture and an extension of the parties she has been throwing worldwide under the same name.

Linked to the worlds of hyper-pop and PC Music but not boxed into them, Shygirl floats between the underground and mainstream radio without having to choose between them. If she wanted to, she has more than enough charisma and lyrical prowess to become a household name though. Instead, she might continue blazing a futuristic, leftfield trail through boundary-pushing music and year-defining parties. Either way, it’s impossible to take your eyes off her.