By Michelle Hyun Kim, Brandon Ousley, Vrinda Jagota, Peter A. Berry, and Kemet High of Third Bridge Creative

This edition of our bi-weekly column highlighting five artists that you’ll be hearing from in the future features a German techno couple, a Chicago music staple who has scored attention from industry legends, a hip-hop artist at the center of a recent online fight, a French-Senegalese musician with an ethereal voice, and a U.K. rapper finding success through collaborations with other artists.

Brutalismus 3000

Chartmetric Artist Rank: 11,025
Genre: Electronic
Country: Germany

Berlin-based duo Brutalismus 3000 has become #technotok’s new favorite act thanks to their early-2000s gabber and techno influences and the current irreverence of today’s young punks. As their 2021 single “Satan Was A Babyboomer” continues to be popular on TikTok with over 11k posts created using the sound, videos of the couple performing at festival slots and raves have gained over 20.2M views on the platform, cultivating a fanbase of young girls who seem drawn to the ruthless vocals of the act’s singer Victoria Vassiliki Daldas. The viral attention has converted to listeners on Spotify, as the singles to their latest album ULTRAKUNST have seen rapid growth since the project’s release in April: "DIE LIEBE KOMMT NICHT AUS BERLIN" has racked up 8.2M streams, while "JE N'EXISTE PAS" (which interpolates Lil Uzi Vert's "XO Tour Lyf3") has collected 4.1M streams.

Eryn Allen Kane

Chartmetric Artist Rank: 2,515
Genre: R&B/Soul
Country: U.S.

Since debuting in 2015, Eryn Allen Kane’s solo EPs have put her on the radar of Prince, Chance the Rapper, and Beyoncé. Even without a follow-up to her third solo EP, 2019’s a tree planted by water, Kane’s ethereal vocal harmonies remain a sonic anchor for other artists. This summer, Killer Mike enlisted her soulful voice for “SCIENTISTS & ENGINEERS,” “NRICH,” and “MOTHERLESS,” three tracks from Michael (out June 16), causing a huge surge in her Spotify Monthly Listeners. Earlier this month, Noname featured Kane’s jazzy accents on her thought-provoking single, “balloons” for her album, Sundial, which is currently enjoying acclaim and has seen placements on editorial playlists, including Spotify’s The Sound of Alternative R&B and Apple Music’s New Music Daily.

REASON

Chartmetric Artist Rank: 5,960
Genre: Hip-Hop/Rap
Country: U.S.

REASON's world-weary rasp, flexible flows, and down-home songwriting have made him an intriguing creative force, but it's clear he's in the middle of a level-up. Over the last three months, his Chartmetric artist score has risen over 170%, with the latest boost coming courtesy of his sophomore album, Porches. Released on Aug. 11, the LP features soulful beats and shapeshifting song structures befitting his Top Dawg Entertainment (TDE) lineage. It's also likely the beneficiary of a viral spat between Reason and TDE exec, Anthony "Moosa" Tiffith Jr. during an appearance on the BACKONFIGG podcast. Quickly becoming a trending topic on X (formerly Twitter), REASON’s Chartmetric engagement rank jumped from as low as 17k near the beginning of August to just under 5k by Aug. 22, marking a rise of about 12k spots.

anaiis

Chartmetric Artist Rank: 29,353
Genre: R&B/Soul
Country: U.K.

French-Senegalese singer-songwriter anaiis uses her ethereal, deeply transportive falsetto to straddle the line between grief and healing. She’s had an active few years: supporting Daniel Caesar on tour in 2019, performing on COLORS STUDIO in 2020 and 2021, and releasing her debut album this is no longer a dream in 2021. This summer, she’s thrived by producing remixes. On July 18, she released a new version of “vanishing .” (which was originally performed on COLORS) produced by herself and North London producer and singer Tev’n. The remix has been added to major playlists like Spotify’s Vanguard and R&B Weekly. One month later, she released a remix of “transcending” produced by Karen Nyame KG. Refreshing these songs has been fruitful: Her Chartmetric Fan Base Rank has increased by 16.4K since the song’s release, and Spotify monthly listeners have increased by 79.4%.

Lancey Foux

Chartmetric Artist Rank: 1,951
Genre: Hip-Hop/Rap
Country: U.K.

Lancey Foux has already rooted himself in the United Kingdom’s rap scene with futuristic cloud rap and British grime. A slew of collaborations with seasoned veteran Skepta didn’t hurt either. But last year, Lancey was also able to find crossover success by collaborating with U.S.-based artists like Yeat for “Luv Monëy” and tana for “swaggin like this” The sped-up version of the latter has blown up on TikTok with nearly 70k videos posted, and both songs combined have over 12.9 million streams on Spotify, evidencing Lancey’s newfound presence in the American market. In late July, he collaborated with rapidly blooming rapper Sexyy Red for “MMM HMM.” Since that release, his Spotify monthly listeners have increased by 16%, raising his total number up to 1.9 million.

The Method: Track Milestones Big and Small

Tracking an emerging artist’s career journey doesn’t always need to be reliant on big-picture data like Monthly DSP Listeners and overall TikTok views. Sometimes, it can be just as useful to search for information that’s a little more granular, which is especially important to contextualize big spikes in data from an otherwise developing artist. A musician like anaiis, for example, saw a rise in her Spotify Monthly Listeners from the end of July through August, as we highlighted earlier. The release of her “vanishing . (remix)” single on July 18 likely contributed to this jump, but can we pinpoint anything even more specific to explain such a large positive increase? The Milestones section of her Chartmetric Artist Page might provide some insight: here, we can track songs added to DSP editorial playlists, rankings on iTunes charts, and Chartmetric artist data. Filtering the page by date shows us that a few other tracks by anaiis have also sparked DSP interest — 2021’s “ultraviolet, counts” and “chuu” were added to international Apple Music charts earlier this month, and even more songs off of her 2021 album this is no longer a dream have been charting internationally since early this year. These might seem like non-important data points in the grand scheme of things, but even a miniscule of data can lead to the discovery of bigger moments.

Graphics by Nicki Camberg; data as of Aug. 23, 2023.

Portions of this are included in Sound Signal, a bi-weekly newsletter from Third Bridge Creative. Sign up here.