In partnership with Sziget Festival
Once hailed as “Europe’s answer to Glastonbury” by this parish, Sziget, which runs from August 10-15, is no stranger to iconic acts gracing its raucous Budapest home, having previously booked David Bowie, Prince and Radiohead as headliners. This year’s big-names are typically epic, including Billie Eilish, Lorde, and Florence + The Machine. Yet part of the giddy thrill of a festival is witnessing emerging talent before they go supernova, so allow us to present our 10 soon-to-be legends that you have to add to your planner for “I was there!” future bragging rights.
070 Shake
Who: Bilingual singer-rapper on a white-hot streak
What you can expect: Danielle Balbuena proved herself one of the indisputable highlights of the Bose x NME C23 showcase at this year’s SXSW, with her Mike Dean pair-up ‘Reset’ gracing our attendant mixtape (the latest in NME’s storied C-series of tapes, which championed 15 incredible, emerging acts). It’s fair to say the GOOD MUSIC-affiliated rapper who came to fame as part of the New Jersey-based 070 crew is enjoying a purple patch at the moment. After receiving acclaim for her second album, 2022’s ‘You Can’t Kill Me’ (a more introspective affair than her ‘Modus Vivendi’ 2020 debut), she scored a chart-topping ‘Escapism’ collaboration with Raye in October, and dropped her latest team-up with Christine and the Queens ,‘True Love’, in April.
Alice Longyu Gao
Who: Maximalist pop maverick and queer pansexual LGBTQ+ activist.
What you can expect: Another act hotly tipped for world domination by our 2023 NME 100 list, this Bengbu-born, US-based vocalist, producer and DJ refuses to be strait-jacketed by any genre. With a co-sign from Lady Gaga, Gao’s explored new sonic frontiers aided by Bring Me the Horizon’s Oli Sykes (check out last year’s frantic, intergalactic duet ‘Believe The Hype’), Mura Masa, Alice Glass and hyperpop pioneers 100 Gecs – who produced the naggingly addictive cut ‘Come 2 Brazil’, which alongside ‘Believe The Hype’, appears on Gao’s mini- album, the brilliantly-named ‘Let’s Hope Heteroes Learn, Fail and Retire’.
Baby Queen
Who: The cast of Heartstopper’s favourite singer – who marries self-scouring lyrics to indelible melodies.
What you can expect: When punk-pop hero Baby Queen contributed the swooning ‘Colours Of You’ to Netflix’s coming-of-age drama Heartstopper last year, it was picked out by stars Kit Connor and Joe Locke as their favourite song in the series (along with the rest of the cast, they even joined her to perform it onstage in London) – no mean feat on a soundtrack that contains bangers from the likes of CHVRCHES and Beabadoobee. Yes, it’s vertiginously high praise, but then ever since she dropped her debut single, ‘Internet Religion’, in 2020, the South-African-born, London-based artist has been leading the future-pop pack. Adroit at pairing deeply personal heart-on-sleeve lyrics with ruthlessly effective hooks and vibrant melodies, Sziget should see her previewing tracks from her forthcoming debut album and result in more recruits to her dedicated Baby Kingdom fanbase.
Balming Tiger
Who: Boundary-pushing Seoul collective bringing rough-and-ready thrills to the polished world of K-pop.
What you can expect: Anointed for great things by our NME 100 list for 2023, this self-described chaotic “multinational alternative band” are an arts collective of singers, rappers, producers, DJs, directors and other creatives formed online from Korea, China and Japan, who are on a mission to redefine what it means to be a K-pop band. Having been co-signed by RM of BTS (who described them as truly genuine and talented artists” and guested on their woozily hypnotic track ‘Sexy Nukim’), they won this year’s Developing Act Grulke Prize at SXSW, an accolade that recognises promising acts breaking new creative ground. Expect, as the title of their irresistible retro-futuristic R&B single aptly suggests, ‘Just Fun!’.
Hannah Grae
Who: Port Talbot punk-pop songwriter filleting the teenage dream
What you can expect: Time to doff your vintage Paramore-branded beenie to your new favourite artist. Tipped for success by our influential NME 100 emerging artists for 2023 list back in January, 20-year-old Hannah Grae went viral in 2021 with her cover of Aqua’s ‘Barbie Girl’, but it’s with her own material that she’s proving a Gen Z visionary. The spiky guitar anthems with turbocharged choruses of her mini-album, ‘Hell Is A Teenage Girl’, which dropped in April, slot right into the current pop-punk revival, while her lyrics pick over the emotional bones of that tumultuous period when you’ve just left school and are being told these should be the best days of your life.
Los Bitchos
Who: Franz Ferdinand-assisted cumbia outfit staking their claim as the festival season’s most gloriously fun band to watch
What you can expect: Formed in 2017 inspired by a passion for the Colombian genre cumbia, Los Bitchos are a London based – but pan-international – band that could start a bop in a morgue, as their Afro-Latin grooves, surf-guitar instrumentals and psych-rock explodes joyously like a party-popper. Last year’s debut album, the aptly-named ‘Let the Festivities Begin!’, was produced by Franz Ferdinand’s Alex Kapranos and was hailed by NME as ”the surf-exotica soundtrack to post-pandemic fun.” Get the tequilas in as they prepare to slay Sziget.
Mall Grab
Who: Australian dance don poised to transform Sziget into a euphoric late-night UK rave.
What you can expect: Mall Grab, aka New South Wales-born DJ and producer Jordon Alexander, released his long-anticipated debut full-length album, ‘What I Breathe’ last year. Armed with a plethora of features including grime stars Novelist and Double D, alongside northern production powerhouse Nia Archives and Turnstile frontman Brendan Yates, it’s a record so lovingly indebted to the sounds of London’s club demimonde (the capital has been Alexander’s adopted home for the last eight years) that you may find yourself accidentally, instinctively searching for your Oyster card for the nightbus home after his set.
TxC
Who: South African Amapiano-loving DJs transcending borders
What you can expect: Forging their own distinctive paths as DJs and producers, TxC – known as Tarryn Reid and Clairise Hefke to their mums – unleashed their debut EP, ‘A Fierce Piano’, last year which saw them demonstrate their love of Amapiano – a jazzy hybrid of deep house, global R&B, and languid grooves – which is the top genre in South Africa, and is straddling the globe thanks to TikTok. With their Boiler Room DJ set amassing over 2 million views, expect their appearance at Sziget, a festival that famously needs no excuse to cut loose, to see them ascend to even greater heights.
Uncle Waffles
Who: The ‘princess of Amapiano’ beloved of Queen Bey
What you can expect: South African DJ-producer Uncle Waffles (aka Lungelihle Zwane) has earned the sobriquet of ‘the princess of Amapiano’, but recently things were taken to the next level when Beyoncé sampled Waffles’ ‘Tanzania’, which topped the South African charts in 2022, instrumental during a transition in her blockbuster ‘Renaissance’ world tour. If ever there was a recommendation to check her out, it’s that so make sure you mount your glittery holographic horse and gallop to her Sziget DJ set pronto.
Yunè Pinku
Who: Malaysian-Irish dance producer providing the nocturnal soundtrack for introverted ravers.
What you can expect: Rising 20-year-old singer/songwriter/producer Yunè Pinku discovered electronic music, not from nights out , but rather being isolated alone during the pandemic, and her forward-facing club-ready tracks are banging enough to fill dancefloors, while also feeling intimate enough to be listened to on the 6am train home. Last year’s stellar debut EP ‘Buff’ was thematically about the paranoia of being an introvert going clubbing, and rippled with anxiety, but it’s her latest ‘BABYLON IX’ EP, which arrived in April, that saw her truly blast off. Rating it four-stars, we enthused that it was “futuristic space-rave for the ages.” Judge for yourself when she plants her flag at Sziget with a dazzling DJ set.