Best New Artists

Our favorite new and rising artists in November 2022, featuring Izzy Spears, Errol Holden, Elmiene, Ray Laurél, Tobias, Mac Wetha, and Destin Laurel.

Best New Artists November 2022
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Best New Artists November 2022

Every month, we round up some of our favorite new music discoveries. Look back at all of our Best New Artists here and keep up with them all on the Best New Artists playlists on Spotify and Apple.

Izzy Spears

Izzy Spears


Since you’re reading this, it’s a safe bet that you’re a person who actively seeks out music and wants to hear new things. Sorry about that; it’s a tough time for people like you. There’s more music than ever, but not enough time to filter through it all, so you’re mostly left depending on algorithms and finding things through recommendations based on what you already like.

Perhaps the biggest problem is that a lot of music is just a recycled version of something else, or a timid attempt at making something inoffensive that can fit neatly onto a playlist of similar songs. Eventually, you become numb and can’t even decide what you like and don’t like anymore. It all just blends together. At least that’s how I start to feel from time to time, but hearing Izzy Spears snapped me out of that funk.

Izzy Spears is an LA-based artist from Atlanta who came up with the Anonymous Club, a collective of artists hand-picked by designer and Hood By Air founder Shayne Oliver. With his solo music, Spears is creating art that is jarring, curious, and unapologetic. His new MONSTAR EP melds post punk and alternative with hip-hop and industrial. It’s aggressively different, challenging in many ways but urgent enough to connect on first listen, and that’s the point.

“I’m aiming to hit a nerve,” Spears explains. “I want people to have their own experience and feel whatever the music provokes and then express that till full capacity.” On his sometimes abrasive approach, he continues: “I’ve always been in your face about something. That’s why it’s so captivating, because that type of energy hardly exists anymore. If you’re gonna do something and put it out there for the world to see you gotta fully carry and not half-ass. That’s how you end up in the state that culture is in today. Everybody is either too cool or too scared to push the bounds.”—Jacob Moore

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Elmiene

elmiene

The story behind Elmiene’s debut single, “Golden,” is a special one. The first time the public heard the song was in Virgil Abloh’s final Louis Vuitton show, which took place in Miami just two days after his passing. “Golden” was still unreleased, but had caught the attention of LV’s music director Benji B during a chance encounter through a mutual friend at a studio in London.

A little over a month later, in December 2021, the song was played near the beginning of the Louis Vuitton show, instantly drawing attention with lush production, rich vocals, and reflective lyrics that seemed perfectly suited for the somber occasion. Receiving such an incredible reaction to his first song only served to encourage and inspire the 21-year-old artist. He explains, “The way ‘Golden’ got to be on the show was so pure and natural that it never felt like anything had changed [in terms of release plans]. It became more of a sign to just keep moving in the direction I was going regardless, it told me that being myself and expressing what I was feeling in my music was valid.”

Elmiene (pronounced el-mean), released his second single this November. “Why (spare me tears),” co-written and produced with Jamie Woon, is a compelling song that centers Elmiene’s glorious voice and builds to an intense, cathartic crescendo. “I sang all the time but funnily enough I never wrote any songs of my own,” Elmiene tells us. “Until I was put in the studio I never thought to express myself in song, it was always in poetry before that. A big part to figure out my songwriting process was working out how I could translate my poetry into song.”

Name-checking artists like Prince and D’Angelo as major inspirations, Elmiene is just getting started building his own world as an artist, collaborating with Lil Silva and Stormzy in 2021. “I’ve been itching to let people get to know my mind and what I think about,” Elmiene says, looking ahead to a full EP of his own songs which is on the way in 2023.—Alex Gardner

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Errol Holden

Errol Holden

“If you lined up 100 people, I’d be the 100th person that somebody would say is rapping,” says New York City rapper Errol Holden in a clip leading up to his latest project, the now-released EP titled Joe Frog.

Before he started sharing his music, people knew him only as H-O. Raised between Harlem and the Bronx, Holden started hustling at a young age and dropped out of high school so he could focus on making money. For decades, he made a living that way, but in secrecy he was writing and honing his hidden craft. Eventually, he was spending more and more time writing while losing interest in dealing drugs. For the last few years, music has been the priority and the Joe Frog EP is his first release with Mass Appeal Records.

On the project, Errol Holden raps with a disciplined intensity that lends weight to his words. At times, he sprays syllables with Black Thought-like precision, but it’s his restraint that makes the delivery even more gripping. Somewhere between classic Jay Electronica flows and a poet who knows when to pause for emphasis or abandon the pocket for a second, Errol Holden is intentional with each line. His uniqueness is clear but understated, accentuated by sparse production, unlikely interpolations (check out the flip of Mustafa’s “Capo” on “85s Astonishment”), and potent writing.

“I want the listener to understand that I don’t imagine—I remember,” Holden says. “Joe Frog is my father. There are no imaginary characters in this episode. So in short, being that I can’t take each listener by the hand and walk them through my past, I can hopefully take them by the ear and make them feel the circumstances, lifestyle, and individuals that have ultimately helped shape my life, and my craftsmanship.”—Jacob Moore

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Tobias

Tobias

Billed as their “goodbye record to New York” following a move to Denton, Texas, Tobias’ debut release with True Panther is their most concise, and direct effort yet. Self-written, produced, and mixed, Two Birds sees Tobias move beyond the cramped restrictions New York placed upon them into a more expansive, full-bodied sound.

“I had gotten to a point with production where I felt I was missing something very crucial in terms of self-expression,” Tobias explains. “Even though I was writing lyrics it didn’t feel like I was getting across the entire point as I would like to. I had to completely strip down my writing process for two years: recording mostly to tape, sometimes to Ableton to put out a couple of EPs, but overall spending the most time playing and singing the songs over and again with an acoustic until they became second nature and had developed into living breathing songs without any production. Also taking a bunch of mushrooms.”

There’s an adventurous quality to the unvarnished aesthetic of Two Birds, which recalls some of the earliest material of Phil Elverum under the Microphones. It’s far from derivative though, with an explorative and emotive lyrical palette that’s both grand in scope and intimately whispered. “I spent and am still spending a lot of time working on the boundary between autobiography and fiction and how much of myself I even want in the lyrics,” they add. “Two Birds is an example of me going a more obscure route for a while.”

It’s also their first release recorded with a band in mind. Previous efforts, such as the fantastic Thread, were written without explicit plans to translate the material to a live setting. “Working on music without recording and just having it exist as a piece in real life that we would play if we wanted to hear was kind of incredible and intoxicating,” Tobias says. “We’re all over the country now so we can’t meet anymore and I miss it very much, but being more isolated now I’m focusing on crafting songs with just me and an acoustic guitar that can be as or more moving than songs like the ones on Two Birds.”—Joe Price

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Ray Laurél

Ray Laurel


When I ask what Ray Laurél wants their listeners to feel, their answer is short and simple: “Hot.” Based out of East London, the singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist is ardent on revitalizing the space around them—and having fun whilst doing so. Inspired by innovative artists such as James Blake, Sampha and Jai Paul, Laurél is determined to expand the parameters of UK pop, ambitiously exploring a multitude of sounds on their debut EP MANIC PIXIE DREAM BOY

“I’ve always wanted to create worlds with great depth that people can explore,” they tell me. In just under 14 minutes, MANIC PIXIE DREAM BOY tells the story of Laurél’s own queer, spiritual and cultural awakening whilst showcasing their versatility. In “JOHNNY”, Laurél shares a more personal narrative (“Johnny got picked on a lot / The kids would call him names like ballet boy”) whilst title track “MANIC PIXIE DREAM BOY” is inspired by emotionally unavailable hinge boys (and, the self-realization this usually entails), “HUNTER SCHAFER” drawing on the Euphoria actress. Fused together by vivid production and intimate storytelling, it balances tongue-in-cheek lyrics with a more sincere narrative.

After making their first forays into production at 12 years old, fascinated by the progressive electronic and pop rosters of XL and Young, Laurél’s artistic project began to develop in their late teens, discovering songwriters such as Joni Mitchell and Bon Iver. Now 21, Laurél’s own venture is very much at the forefront. Earlier this month, they released “CHARLES JEFFREY.” Entirely self-written and produced, it finds Laurél becoming increasingly confident as they enter a new chapter.

With their vision gradually coming to life, Laurél more than lives up to the hypnotic and kaleidoscopic space they have established, determined to do things their own way. “If I could, I wouldn’t do music videos—I don’t enjoy the rapid ‘content creator’ world we live in,” they tell me. “I wanna make films.”—Rani Boyer

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Mac Wetha

Mac Wetha


Whilst Mac Wetha’s project as a solo artist is burgeoning, his name is familiar to a multitude of artists and creatives across London. For years, Wetha worked behind the scenes, with production credits spanning from Aminé to Biig Piig, all whilst being resident producer of the capital’s dynamic NiNe8 collective. Now 25, the vocalist, multi-instrumentalist, producer and DJ is cementing himself as a solo artist in his own right. 

Not one to be pigeonholed, his recent EP Cloud Paint draws on formative pop punk and emo influences. “One of my music teachers, the great Jonny Logue, started what he called ‘Richmond Rock Club’,” Wetha tells me, “which was a bunch of young teenagers in the suburbs of London covering classic rock songs of his choosing. It was hilarious, literally School Of Rock, there were about 12 guitarists, one drummer, one bassist and no singer, so I stepped up to do vocals and that was my introduction to singing in rock bands.” Later outgrowing the club, he began to front a mixture of local bands, and, influenced by the rise of Soundcloud rap and artists such as SpaceGhostPurrp and Raider Klan, he began to produce alongside this. During college, Wetha met Lava La Rue and Biig Piig which, “in short,” led to the formation of NiNe8 Collective.

Nowadays, Wetha is more focussed on writing and performing his own music. “Ultimately, I always wanted to make ‘Mac Wetha’ a name with no constraints or limitations. I didn’t want it to be a producer project forever, so regardless of the difficulties I’m driven and very happy to be doing it,” says Wetha on navigating the transition. “I’m also very appreciative that people have stuck with me and are still listening!” 

“It’s been interesting switching from being a producer in sessions to a singer, it flipped my whole perspective on making music in a big way, and I’m still trying to make sense of it,” expands Wetha. Latest single, “Don’t You Go Falling In Love”, out 22 November, finds Wetha joining forces with Biig Piig and Lord Apex, its euphoric pop showing a more blissful side to the multi-faceted artist’s sound.

“I’m sitting on a bunch of tunes I’m extremely excited about,” Wetha replies when asked about the future, “but even more I’m stoked to play more shows this year; that’s my main goal for 2023. Become Mr.Worldwide.”—Rani Boyer

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Destin Laurel

Destin Laurel

It has been quite the year for artists making a name for themselves on the internet and converting that momentum to a ride-or-die fan base. We are now starting to see the influence of artists that were having their own rise five or six years ago shine through this new generation of upcoming talent. But with the sheer volume of artists in the world today, it takes someone who moves with intention to make a lasting impression. 18-year-old Destin Laurel is doing just that.

From spending his early years in the school band and growing up listening to gospel music, to receiving an iPod from his cousin that was preloaded with “mad Drake and Taylor Swift,” we find the genesis of the trailblazer that is Destin Laurel.

Destin is most comfortable in his home studio in Atlanta, proudly sharing that every song he has ever released was made in the bedroom where he’s calling from today. “It feels like work when I’m in an actual studio unless I’m in there with all the homies. It feels like I’m at a job clocking in.” 

Snapshots of Destin’s early influences can be heard on “walkin’,” where Destin slides over a gospel sample as he expresses how nonchalantly he maneuvers through life. Almost all of Destin’s work is self-produced, giving the young artist room to experiment on his own terms. “I’m always trying to do something different,” he says. “Every time I make a song I’m testing the waters and seeing what people like.” 

In a climate where the next top artist can emerge from a viral video, it becomes hard to discern who’s really going to last. With a mindset like Destin’s, the idea of not making it happen seems impossible. “I’m not just focused on what’s hot and viral right now—I care about the art. Even if none of my music ever goes viral, I’m still going to create whatever it is I want to create and what I love.”—Jack Sperling

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