By Michelle Hyun Kim, Andrew Marcogliese, Jaelani Turner-Williams, and Vrinda Jagota of Third Bridge Creative.

This bi-weekly column highlights emerging artists using a combination of Charmetric data and the knowledge of our contributors. In each installment, we’ll identify five artists drawn from a wide range of artists and genres that you’ll be hearing from in the future, and we’ll conclude with a breakdown of how we use Chartmetric to discover and analyze breaking artists.

Destroy Lonely

Chartmetric Rank: 2,888

Genre: Hip-Hop/Rap

Country: United States

Destroy Lonely has been making massive waves in internet rap’s everchanging vortex. In 2021, the Atlanta rapper signed with Playboi Carti's label, Opium, where he released No Stylist, a 19-track project bringing fans into his euphoric soundscape. Before releasing “if looks could kill” last month, the single leaked and became hugely popular on TikTok and Souncloud building anticipation for its official release. After garnering over 14M Spotify streams and landing on coveted playlists like Rap Caviar, Destroy Lonely's growing popularity is positioning him as a must-see this festival season drawing crowds at Rolling Loud, Bonnaroo, and Lollapalooza this year.

Frost Children

Chartmetric Rank: 7,022

Genre: Pop

Country: United States

Sometimes, when hyperpop sibling duo Frost Children are asked what kind of music they make, they respond “it’s confidential.” It’s a cryptic answer that nonetheless reveals the winking, satirical sensibility at the core of their music. On tracks like “BL!NK,” the duo reference Blink 182 and Spongebob Squarepants over a beat that morphs from jittery and glitchy to a cyclone of raspy vocals, ricocheting drums, and chaotic, video game-like blips. Since getting their start during the onset of quarantine, they have since released three full length albums, with another slated to be released on April 14. With this new project, they are primed to bring their singular sense of humor to hyperpop.

Khamari

Chartmetric Rank: 10,992

Genre: R&B

Country: United States

Boston-born artist Khamari is paving his own lane in R&B and soul. After leaving Berklee College of Music in 2017 to pursue music full-time, Khamari released Eldorado, an EP that bears acoustic and progressive R&B sensibilities. Now a Los Angeles resident, Khamari’s latest single “On My Way” is an autobiographical look at the singer-songwriter aiming to strike it big. The gentle song prominently samples 1972 Al Green classic “Love and Happiness” and has achieved 241K Spotify streams since its release last month, with Khamari garnering 428K monthly listeners. Featured on noteworthy playlists like R&B Weekly, Lowkey and R&B Rising, Khamari is writing his way into R&B’s future.

Zulu

Chartmetric Rank: 24,449

Genre: Punk

Country: United States

Halfway through A New Tomorrow, the debut album from L.A.-based hardcore group Zulu, an interlude asks: “Must I only share my pain?” This question drives bandleader Anaiah Lee to make music that expresses the complexity of his Blackness. Dreamy soul and reggae samples are juxtaposed against thrashing punk guitar riffs and strained vocals. Those layers give the music a sense of tranquility while paying homage to the lineage of resistance and perseverance established by Black artists like Nina Simone and Curtis Mayfield. In honoring their complexity, Zulu blends genres and tones, making music that sounds like nothing before it.

Navy Blue

Chartmetric Rank: 5,122

Genre: Hip-Hop/Rap

Country: United States

Building a name on his introspective raps since 2015, Navy Blue has found his mainstream breakthrough with Ways of Knowing, his debut album for Def Jam. The Brooklyn-based rapper, producer, and skateboarder is an established figure in the indie hip-hop scene, having collaborated with Earl Sweatshirt and providing crackling, soul-sampling beats for the likes of Wiki and MIKE. The reflections on love, family, and relationships on his new LP (released March 23), are the result of four years of soul-searching and closely working with the producer Budgie, which has led to a 129K percent increase in his Spotify editorial playlist reach since its release.

The Method: Chartmetric’s Artist Rank

At Third Bridge, we use Chartmetric data to help our curators and music supervisors understand what’s worth knowing about. One of the first data points we look for is the Chartmetric Artist Rank, a metric used to measure the aggregated popularity of the top million artists on the platform. As laid out in the 2021 post Updating Chartmetric Artist Rank: Our New Global Digital Artist Ranking, the ranking is based on data drawn from 16 different platforms to evaluate fan base and engagement metrics. The top artist in the world based on those aggregated metrics is ranked #1 and so forth.

When evaluating emerging music at Third Bridge, we look for rapid changes in Artist Rank for evidence that an artist is gaining traction. It’s a strong initial signal that something interesting is happening on streaming platforms, social, or both, and from there we can dig deeper to understand the nature of the uptick. While changes in Chartmetric Artist Rank don’t in and of themselves confirm that an artist is emerging according to our criteria—sometimes, it can just be a result of new music being released after a period of inactivity—it does provide a sort of “first look” that something important may be happening.

Portions of this are included in Sound Signal, a bi-weekly newsletter from Third Bridge Creative. Sign up here.