Today, Spotify launches RISE, a program designed to identify and break the next wave of music superstars.
By harnessing its unmatched cultural influence and 140+ million music fans, Spotify will launch these artists of exceptional talent into the world through a dynamic combination of multi-tiered marketing and editorial programming on Spotify.
The launch of RISE includes on platform, out of home, digital and social promotion in addition to special, mixed-media RISE playlists. In the coming months, Spotify will create one-of-a-kind experiential events for each RISE artist and release bespoke audio and video content that dives deep into the story behind each rising star.
Spotify kicks off RISE with 4 genre-diverse artists; pop-sensation
Kim Petras; pop/rock artist
Lauv; country singer
Russell Dickerson; and hip hop artist
Trippie Redd. Launching in the U.S, Canada and the U.K., the program will add 4 new artists every few months, supporting a total of 16 emerging artists per year.
Delta Air Lines is also supporting Rise on aircraft seatbacks through their Delta Artist Spotlight program.
“Spotify is committed to supporting the careers of artists of every level, including the next generation of global superstars” said Troy Carter, Spotify’s Global Head of Creator Services. “RISE is a powerful platform and an investment towards the future of emerging artists and the fans who discovered them first.”
About Spotify’s RISE artists
Kim Petras
Somewhere between nineties American pop and eighties European disco, rises the undeniable voice of Kim Petras. Nodding to influences as diverse as Britney Spears, Baltimora, and the “Brat Pack,” the “side bun” sporting German-born and Los Angeles-based songstress powers up a new pop paradigm, sharing intimate lovelorn storylines over explosive production.
Her brand of escapism remains rooted in a boundless capacity for empathy. Knowing herself from the age of two, Kim notably began transitioning with female hormone therapy following her twelfth birthday before receiving gender reassignment surgery at the age of 16 and making worldwide headlines. Her bravery quietly and subconsciously punctuates the music.
“I have unique experiences and have had unique experiences, because I am transgender,” she continues. “Those experiences one-hundred percent go into my music. Being the outcast and being bullied makes you work harder in life. I had to fight for everything, because I was not the cool kid and had very few friends. At the same time, I’m just a girl going through heartbreak. It feels the same way to me as any other girl would feel about it. Whether or not you connect with people has nothing to do with your gender or sexuality.”
Ultimately, her experience and intimate understanding of pop yields a universal vision that’s as incomparable as it is inimitable.
“For a moment, I’d love for listeners to forget reality and have fun when they listen to me,” she leaves off. “They don’t have to think about anything negative. I hope they blast it in the cars or when they’re getting ready and want to feel fabulous. I hope it’s a soundtrack to their lives.”
Lauv
In his early teens, Ari Leff picked up a guitar and started writing songs that uncannily captured all the nuance of heartbreak. “For whatever reason, before I ever had any sort of relationship, I had this weird obsession with writing love songs and breakup songs,” says the L.A.-based singer/songwriter/producer. “I remember being a kid and my dad asking me, ‘Why do you write all these sad songs all the time?’ But to me that’s always been one of the most beautiful ways to connect with people on a real level. There’s nothing like openness of being in love, and for me that vulnerability is maybe the most important part of being alive.”
Born in San Francisco, Leff moved around the country throughout his childhood and learned to play piano and viola as a kid. Once he’d taken up guitar and thrown himself into writing those heart-on- sleeve love songs, he started a solo indie-electronic project that included booking his own tours. After high school, Leff began studying music technology at New York University, where he immersed himself in production and ended up signing to the publishing company Prescription Songs.
During his college years, Leff strayed from his intensely personal work and shifted his focus to writing and producing for other artists. “I got further away from how I’d started out writing, which was totally stream-of- consciousness and natural, and closer to writing what I thought people might want to hear,” he recalls. But during his sophomore year, Leff had a shift in perspective when he stumbled upon a particularly illuminating interview with Paul Simon. In the interview, Simon described his songwriting as a process of uncovering his most buried feelings—a concept that hit home for Leff. “Reading that interview, something clicked in me and helped me get back in touch with the way I used to write,” Leff says. “I started learning how to let go again,how to stop second-guessing and over analyzing myself, and just focus on being honest.”
Russell Dickerson
Russell Dickerson was born for the stage. “I’m just naturally that kind of dude: a big, loud and over-the- top guy,” he says with a laugh. Yes, one of country music’s most talked-about new talents — and the voice behind the smash single “Yours,” a stunning ballad inspired by his wife of four years, Kailey, that’s racked up over 33 million streams to date on Spotify, where he’s been on the Hot Country, Country Gold Playlists and more for over a year, and exploded since being serviced to country radio in April — need not go into “entertainer mode” before he catapults himself onstage to deliver one of his notoriously amped-up live shows. He’s already there.
Even as a Union City, Tennessee-raised, obsessive teenage music fan, one who’d regularly wait in wraparound lines to see his favorite artists perform in Nashville (“I just got hooked on that energy”) and held up Garth Brooks and Keith Urban DVD’s as his personal Gospel, Dickerson, says being “that dude onstage was always the dream. We would scream every word of every song, and all I could think about was ‘I want to be that guy!’” Now, thanks to contagious tracks and a stellar live show,he’s steadily built a serious fan base of his own.
Trippie Redd
Blending the elements of rap and trap with touches of emo and punk rock, Trippie Redd creates music that transcends through genres and resonates with audiences. The 18-year old Canton, Ohio native first emerged online in 2015 with a series of tracks and videos that launched him to viral success. People took notice. Trippie signed with Caroline-distributed Strainge Vision in 2017 and released A Love Letter to You, spawning a series of streaming hits including, “Love Scars”. In October 2017, Trippie followed up with his second mixtape, A Love Letter To You 2. Critics and fellow artists have taken notice, and the praise and invitations to feature on tracks speak for themselves. Trippie’s unique vocal style has separated him from the pack. His tracks see him rap, croon, and distort his vocals into a slow-fade that keeps you guessing and makes you keep listening to see what he’ll do next.
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