All Eyes On
Pink Navel Is the World’s Most Online Rapper
Some of the greatest MCs represent the neighborhoods that molded them. Jay-Z and Nas have Brooklyn. Dr. Dre and Kendrick Lamar have Compton. But for 24-year-old non-binary rapper, Pink Navel, aka Devin Bailey, that city doesn’t exist, well, on the material plane. “I’ve always said that I’m from the internet more than any physical place,” Bailey says, fiddling with one of their dreads. And that’s certainly reflected in their music. Bailey’s latest record, Epic, is a distinctly online project filled with a dizzying combination of TikTok samples, bars about YouTube and anime, and swirling beats that were produced for a live audience on Twitch. Raised in the coastal town of Marshfield, Massachusetts, about 30 miles south of Boston, Bailey had a hard time finding a single city to call hom...
Inside the Cinematic Universe of The Marías
Amid the narrow aisles of a cramped video store in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, The Marías are in their happy place. Dressed entirely in black attire, producer/multi-instrumentalist Josh Conway and singer María Zardoya are peak summer goths in the city. They’re a little intimidating at first — perhaps it’s their sleek looks — but it’s all for appearances. Their demeanor, in fact, does not reflect their choice of clothing. “The sensation of opening up one of these tapes!” exclaims Zardoya on a sticky afternoon. The crowded rows of VHS in the shop are packed with early 2000s favorites like Blue Crush, Honey and The Sweetest Thing. “It’s totally our vibe,” notes Conway as he scans through the shop’s collection. It’s not long until Zardoya lets her inner film nerd loose. “Some of...
Shannon Lay Is Doing This for Herself
“Geist” is the German word for “spirit.” Indie-folk songwriter Shannon Lay stumbled upon this word as she was leafing through a vintage music terminology book, and the word struck her. After she discovered its meaning, she realized that the word epitomized the experience of making her fifth record, so she decided to name the album Geist. “The idea of spirit flows evenly through this record,” Lay tells SPIN over Zoom. “As I was making it, I was going through an intense moment and seeing the way that the human spirit finds peace in all of this chaos. It was really cool to admire how resilient we can be.” With Geist, Lay has come closer to finding her true frequency. She embraced her insecurities and found comfort in discomfort, especially as a folk artist coming out of the punk scene. Lay us...
The Muslims Aren’t Messing Around
Formed in the wake of the Trump election in 2016, the Durham, NC trio of QADR (vocals/guitar), Abu Shea (bass), and Ba7ba7 (drums) quickly released a series of albums — The Muslims (2018), Mayo Supreme (2019), Gentrified Chicken (2020) — and their Inshallah: Tomorrow We Inherit the Earth (2020) EP before earning the opportunity to be heard through one of the most established houses in punk rock. With Fuck These Fuckin Fascists, the band’s debut on venerated punk rock label Epitaph Records, The Muslims are here to tell you why they’re the “right now” of punk rock. In a chance digital encounter, the long-running label slid into the band’s DMs to ask if they would be open to putting a record out with them. At first, the band was skeptical. “We had to have a conversation of like, ‘Is this actu...
Dirty Honey Want to Put the Roll Back in Rock
Sitting inside a hotel room with an unmade bed the morning after a show in North Carolina, Marc LaBelle is wearing a Led Zeppelin T-shirt. His well-worn Aerosmith shirt lies nearby. Talking about his preference for bands over solo acts, LaBelle says via Zoom, “I don’t have a Bob Dylan tee. I don’t have a Bruce Springsteen shirt. I like bands, and I like that energy.” The long-haired, behatted LaBelle is the frontman for one of hard rock’s best new bands, Los Angeles quartet Dirty Honey. Alongside guitarist John Notto, drummer Corey Coverstone and bassist Justin Smolian, the group struck thunder right from the start. Their 2019 debut single, the rooster-strutting “When I’m Gone,” became the first song by an unsigned band to top Billboard’s Mainstream Rock chart. The follow-up, casino boogie...
Indigo De Souza Feels It All on Any Shape You Take
“I’d rather die before you die/ Before you die, before you die,” Indigo De Souza repeats hazily on her confessional song, “Die Cry.” The line is emblematic of the indie singer-songwriter’s work, which is full of obvious, dark truths. For De Souza, these frank moments of introspection and fearlessness are the backbone of her second album Any Shape You Take on August 27. Her goal? To make people unabashedly feel their feelings. “I think that we live in a society where we’re not allowed to take the time to feel things fully because it moves so fast and survival is so key,” De Souza says over the phone while walking near her home in the Asheville area. “People get much more caught up in survival than they do embodying the things they’re feeling.” Raised by a Brazilian Bossa Nova guitarist fath...
Reintroducing Leon Thomas III, Drake’s Certified Secret Weapon
It’s the first Friday in September, and Leon Thomas III picks up the phone, recognizing my number without hesitation. We’ve been planning this call for a few months now, maybe a year, but somehow, this was the day it happened. The day we landed on, completely by accident, was monumental for the same reason it was monumental for the rest of the music world — it was the day Drake released his Certified Lover Boy, his long-awaited, end-of-summer fireworks-show of a sixth studio album. And of the behemoth LP’s 21 tracks, Thomas — who has already worked with heavyweights from Ty Dolla $ign to longtime friend Ariana Grande to soul superheroes like Snoh Aalegra — co-wrote and co-produced three of them. Anyone who’s glanced at Twitter at all this past week knows why the world is buzzing...
Reintroducing Leon Thomas III, Drake’s Certified Secret Weapon
It’s the first Friday in September, and Leon Thomas III picks up the phone, recognizing my number without hesitation. We’ve been planning this call for a few months now, maybe a year, but somehow, this was the day it happened. The day we landed on, completely by accident, was monumental for the same reason it was monumental for the rest of the music world — it was the day Drake released his Certified Lover Boy, his long-awaited, end-of-summer fireworks-show of a sixth studio album. And of the behemoth LP’s 21 tracks, Thomas — who has already worked with heavyweights from Ty Dolla $ign to longtime friend Ariana Grande to soul superheroes like Snoh Aalegra — co-wrote and co-produced three of them. Anyone who’s glanced at Twitter at all this past week knows why the world is buzzing...
Reintroducing Leon Thomas III, Drake’s Certified Secret Weapon
It’s the first Friday in September, and Leon Thomas III picks up the phone, recognizing my number without hesitation. We’ve been planning this call for a few months now, maybe a year, but somehow, this was the day it happened. The day we landed on, completely by accident, was monumental for the same reason it was monumental for the rest of the music world — it was the day Drake released his Certified Lover Boy, his long-awaited, end-of-summer fireworks-show of a sixth studio album. And of the behemoth LP’s 21 tracks, Thomas — who has already worked with heavyweights from Ty Dolla $ign to longtime friend Ariana Grande to soul superheroes like Snoh Aalegra — co-wrote and co-produced three of them. Anyone who’s glanced at Twitter at all this past week knows why the world is buzzing...
How Kiana V Is Reclaiming Her Confidence With Dazed
Like many artists, Kiana V had ample time to think about not only her next career move but also how she wanted to work on herself. Born Kiana Valenciano in Manila, Philippines, the 28-year-old singer made a bold decision to head to Los Angeles to further her life journey. The R&B singer, whose father is well-known Filipino musician Gary Valenciano, already was on her way to making a name for herself in her home country, independently releasing her first single “Circles” in 2017. Growing up in the studio with her father and using ‘90s acts like Brandy and Aaliyah as inspirations, she released her debut EP Grey in 2018 under the Filipino-based Tarsier Records. Her debut album See Me dropped the following year. Despite Grey highlight “Caught U” earning a Best Performance of a Female Artis...
Geese Reignites Brooklyn’s Indie-Rock Hype Machine
Two months ago, a new band from Brooklyn called Geese dropped their debut single “Disco,” a six-minute avalanche of loopy post-punk and biting prog-rock — imagine if The Strokes made a Yes record — that left many indie fans wondering: What the hell is this … and where can I get more? The song jabs and grooves, traversing a half-dozen distinct passages as it mirrors the jagged rise and fall of a dysfunctional relationship. “You’re not scared of my anger anymore, so I don’t think it’s gonna be able to work itself out,” frontman Cameron Winter sings with heavy affectation, channeling The Fall’s Mark E. Smith and Mick Jagger. Above all, “Disco” feels urgent, a song that insists to be heard from its first sharp strum — as does the rest of the band’s upcoming debut LP, a swirling and delir...
SEB Is Always Two Steps, And One Cinematic Universe, Ahead
“I would definitely need a lot of help,” SEB says when asked if he’d ever consider a career as a filmmaker. Little does the pop newcomer know, with the way he speaks about his latest project and overall vision, it seems like he’s already sitting in the director’s chair. Taking notes from cult classic Donnie Darko and Harmony Korine’s Gummo, the 24-year-old Los Angeles-based riser has always pictured his debut EP, IT’S OKAY, WE’RE DREAMING — the groovy first impression of the singer’s sound — as something that couldn’t be anything less than theatrical. “Each time there’s a movie that really grabs me, it just sticks with me,” SEB tells SPIN over the phone. “And the music helps me further explore what that movie means to me and my life.” For his July 30 debut, which he hopes to be just one ch...
