The 30 coolest artists right now

The N.Y.C.-based heavy rock band make relentless music stuffed with discombobulating electronics, snotty fretwork, and blood-curdling shrieks. Their debut album, 45 Pounds, with hits like “Penetrator” and “Sickle Walk,” is one of The FADER’s favorite albums of 2025 so far. Read YHWH Nailgun’s GEN F profile.

Cortisa Star is a teenage sensation who’s already broken the internet with her blown-out, outrageous sound. With her viral single “FUN,” a co-sign from Charli xcx, and a stint walking the Miu Miu runway, the Delaware rapper is rap’s underground supernova. Read Cortisa Star’s GEN F profile.

Nino Paid makes lived-in pain rap. Tragic songs like “Pain & Possibilities 2” and “Play This At My Funeral” have made him a star with a growing audience that deeply resonates with his lyrics. Read Nino Paid’s GEN F profile.

N.Y.C.-based musician Mei Semones is a guitar virtuoso whose music blends bossa nova, jazz, and J-pop. Her debut album, Animaru, is a record about learning to live instinctively after a quarter-lifetime mired in self-consciousness. Read Mei Semones’ GEN F profile.

Chengdu-based rapper Jackzebra is the latest signee to the Surf Gang label and has cultivated an audience with his dreamy downer raps. Even native Mandarin speakers have trouble understanding his lyrics which have transcended the need for translation for his hardcore fans. Read Jackzebra’s GEN F profile.

SAILORR’s viral hit “Pookie’s Requiem” is the crash-out anthem that pushed her into the big leagues. Now, the singer has moved to Los Angeles and is adjusting to the countless eyes watching her every move. Read SAILORR’s GEN F profile.

Snow Wife is a rising pop singer who turned heads with her 2023 debut EP, QUEEN DEGENERATE. Her music is filled with feverish raunchy anthems and sex-positive lines like “I’m a plan B regular bitch.” Read Snow Wife’s interview with The FADER.

OsamaSon is the 21-year-old South Carolina rapper who might be the closest thing rage-rap has to a Playboi Carti heir. His 2025 album Jump Out was plagued with leaks but he’s focused on creating a sound that can move a generation. Read OsamaSon’s interview with The FADER.

Diles Que No Me Maten is a five-piece band based out of Mexico City that’s constantly reimagining their sound. Their music is built on improvisation, and free-form, spoken-word poetry over boiling seas of krautrock psychedelia. Read Diles Que No Me Maten’s interview with The FADER.

French electronic pop musician Marylou Mayniel has always created pop music that’s felt like intricately crafted puzzle boxes. Her latest album, Choke Enough, shows an artist that’s pushed her craft to its brink and made the best music of her career. Read Oklou’s interview with The FADER.

Sabrina Teitelbaum has been lauded for her abrasive rock love songs that acted as excoriated kiss offs to no-good men and a hard-living lifestyle. The singer’s latest creations are now trying to be content with the middle. Read Blondshell’s interview with The FADER.

Over two years since leaving the rap collective Surf Gang, rapper Moh Baretta has been on a prolific streak, releasing music that’s full of ruff flexing and memorable taunts, but also seeded with personal revelations and vulnerability. Read Moh Baretta’s interview with The FADER.

Ichiko Aoba is a Japanese guitarist and songwriter whose latest record, Luminescent Creatures, finds connections between lifeforms as big as whales and as small as glowing plankton; it’s one of The FADER’s favorite albums of 2025 so far. Read Ichiko Aoba’s interview with The FADER.

1900Rugrat is a South Florida rapper who went from unknown to millions of views in just weeks. Now he just wants to keep your attention. Read 1900Rugrat’s interview with The FADER.

Instupendo is a Philly-based producer known for making sweet-natured mutant pop like Arca, but Sanrio-ified. His latest project, Ripstupendo, made in collaboration with the collective Ripsquad, however, is a gentle, ambient force that deconstructs the genre. Read Instupendo’s interview with The FADER.

Xang is a 24-year-old rapper from Maryland and a pioneer of ambient trap. He and his crew DPM are now defining a genre that’s more than just another iteration of the Clams Casino/Friendzone sonic palette. Read Xang’s interview with The FADER.

Momma is Etta Friedman and Allegra Weingarten, two Brooklyn-based songwriters and best friends. Their latest album, Welcome To My Blue Sky, turns grunged-out guitars, hooky pop melodies, and a whole lot of distortion into a potent document of metamorphosis and growing up. Read Momma’s interview with The FADER.

Lily Seabird is a Vermont-based singer-songwriter who traded in her heavier sound for gentler folk rock on her 2025 album Trash Mountain. “This time I experimented with writing about other feelings besides the big scary ones,” she told writer David Renshaw. Read Lily Seabird interview with The FADER.

Rob49, a rapper who gets his name from New Orleans’s Fourth and Ninth Wards, is ready to become more than just a hometown hero following the success of his runaway hit “WTHELLY.” Read Rob49’s interview with The FADER.

Astrid Sonne is a Danish violist, producer, and singer-songwriter whose rapturous, experimental songs have made her a potential idol. Read Astrid Sonne’s interview with The FADER.

The Bay Area hardcore band merge rough and rumble riffs with bright, catchy pop melodies that have sent them on two years of continuous touring but also caused them to be the target of cruel and sexist backlash. They’re not backing down. Read Scowl’s interview with The FADER.

Maria Somerville is an Irish musician who makes hushed folk music soaked in reverb and delay. After recently moving back to her hometown, her songs have been imbued with a sense of escape and nature, dream-pop dedicated to Ireland’s Connemara. Read Maria Somerville’s interview with The FADER.

KATSEYE is a global girl group formed by record label powerhouses HYBE and Geffen Records and primed to be the world’s next major music sensation. Their latest song “Gnarly” is just the beginning. Read KATSEYE’s interview with The FADER.

Aunt Katrina is the solo project of Ryan Walchonski, the former guitarist of Pittsburgh-based band feeble little horse. His new music is digitally-damaged rock songs that strike the perfect balance of happy-doomed, created with members of Snail Mail. Read Aunt Katrina’s interview with The FADER.

HiTech is the Detroit trio that’s at the forefront of the slick and sexy ghettotech revival. Their music is equally ribald and sincere in its desire to make you want to party. Read HiTech’s interview with The FADER.

Winter is a N.Y.C.-based singer-songwriter whose next album is all about the intricacies and delusions of falling in love. Her dream-pop is inspired by ’90s rom-coms and French New Wave, and full of wistful vocals and guitar distortion. Read Winter’s interview with The FADER.

California rapper Molly Santana wrestled with perfectionism, isolation, and making a new space for female rappers to create her latest record Molly And Her Week Of Wonders, a standout project of trim rap fairytales. Read Molly Santana’s interview with The FADER.

Thirteendegrees, at the forefront of a new Chicago scene, is part of a storied lineage of outlandish exaggerators and reviving 2014 sounds and aesthetics that prior years of indie sleaze recycling have sorely lacked. Read Thirteendegrees’ interview with The FADER.

Angolan-Belgian producer Nazar was the pioneer behind the industrial electronic style of “rough kuduro.” But on his latest album, Demilitarize, he turns to R&B and shows a different, more smoldering kind of intensity. Read Nazar’s interview with The FADER.

The anonymous London duo Tracey is behind the burgeoning and horny club hit “Sex Life.” Their 2025 self-titled EP, however, shows off a group that’s interested in exploring more abstract dimensions of human connection. Read Tracey’s interview with The FADER.