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This isn’t about who’s new. It’s about who stayed. This year, I stopped caring whether someone was technically “emerging.” What mattered was whether their music followed me. On walks. On planes. In moments where I didn’t have the words, but a song did. These are the artists who made 2025 sound the way it felt. 100 gecs Not emerging. Not subtle. Still weird in a way that feels honest. Revisiting their catalog this year reminded me how much they broke open what pop could be. Un

A Career Built on Purpose Daniel Allan’s work is intentional. Whether he’s making production choices or planning live shows, there’s a steady approach that shows patience and self-awareness. He doesn’t follow trends. Instead, his music grows from curiosity and careful effort. Speaking with Daniel offers a look into an artist who is actively shaping his identity rather than reacting to momentum. He reflects openly on his background, his creative process, and the discipline req

Most festivals today are designed with an obvious audience in mind. You can usually tell who they are as soon as you see the lineup. Jazz Fest has never operated that way. At its core, Jazz Fest is generational. It is one of the few festivals where the experience is shaped by the fact that people of all ages are meant to be there together. Every year I have gone I have created lifelong memories that only the dusty grounds hold. It is unique in this way. As many other festival

Going home for the holidays when you work in the music industry is honestly such a specific feeling. You walk into your childhood house or meet up with friends you have known forever, and before you even sit down, someone hits you with it. So what do you actually do now. You laugh because you can always feel this moment coming. You try to explain it in a way that makes sense outside the bubble you live in. Most people only know the industry through television characters and m

There are a lot of artists you fall in and out of depending on the phase of your life, but Mac Miller is not one of those artists. He’s the type of artist who ends up sticking around, almost without you noticing. You grow up, your life changes, you move cities, your taste shifts, but his music still hits the exact same way every time you press play. It’s weird how consistent it feels. I think it comes down to how real he was. Mac talked about life the way it actually feels wh

There is a kind of chaos that lives in your 20s, and New York City amplifies every note of it. It is an age of transition, where the line between love and loneliness feels paper-thin, and the city around you seems to know it. In your 20s, you start to realize how much music carries you through it all. Songs become emotional checkpoints. They turn the blur of uncertainty into something that feels understandable. When you walk through the city with your headphones on, you are b

I can still remember it like it was yesterday. Seventh grade, sitting on the bus ride home from middle school, earbuds tangled, watching the world pass by through a fogged-up window. I hit shuffle on Spotify, half-bored, half-tired, and then Under the Bridge  started playing. The second I heard those opening chords, everything around me seemed to slow down. I didn’t know it then, but that song changed something in me. It was my first real taste of rock music, and it hit deep

There’s something about old-school rap that never fades. The beats might be rough around the edges, the recordings might sound raw, but they carry the same pulse that still runs through New York today. Every subway car, every corner bodega, and every late-night dance floor feels like it was built on these rhythms. This week, I wanted to look at ten songs that shaped the city’s sound and imagine how they might live again in the next wave of electronic music. Because New York h

It usually starts with one aux cord, a half-broken speaker, and a crowd that just wants someone to play something good. Maybe it’s a darty. Maybe it’s a packed basement that smells like jungle juice and cheap perfume. Somewhere in that chaos, a student plugs in their controller for the first time, and everything changes. The crowd locks in. The lights flicker. The beat hits just right. That’s the spark. It’s the same spark that once lit up college parties for DJs like John Su

A couple of weeks ago, I walked past a glowing booth on First Avenue and could not resist stopping. Behind the glass, a DJ was spinning...

I did not discover Girls Don't Sync in some dark club at 4 a.m. I was 17, doomscrolling on TikTok late at night, when I should have been...

My first music festival wasn’t in a massive stadium or on a grassy field. It was in San Bernardino, California, in what was basically a...

The Harsh Truth Nobody Likes to Admit You could be the most talented person in the room, but if nobody knows who you are, it's like being...

When I first moved to New Orleans, I knew the city was famous for music, but I did not realize just how many different ways you could...

It is completely okay if you do not know exactly what you want to do when you first start out in the music industry. I just graduated...

Music has always been more than background noise for me. It has been the pulse of my life. Growing up, I learned that songs were not just entertainment. They were memories, emotions, and culture wrapped into sound. The music industry, with all of its chaos and constant change, is where that pulse gets shaped. It is where creativity meets business, technology, and community. That is what made me fall in love with it. Why Music Matters to Me The first concert I ever went to was