By Colin Joyce, Austin Cox, Jaelani Turner-Williams, Brandon Ousley, and Leah Mandel of Third Bridge Creative
Infinite Coles
Chartmetric Artist Rank: 24,101
Genre: R&B/Soul
Country: U.S.
With 66.8K Spotify monthly followers, queer rapper Infinite Coles has stepped out of the shadow of their father, legendary emcee Ghostface Killah, and into the limelight solo. In the last month, the New York City-born rhymer and vocalist dropped two singles, “Dad & I” and “SweetFaceKillah,” which were perceived as disses about the Wu-Tang Clan member, although Coles denied it on social media. While Coles delivers scathing verses on both songs, their catalog is wide-ranging, with house, ballroom, pop, and alt-R&B production that originated on his 2021 EP Destiny. With Coles’ full-length debut, SweetFaceKillah, scheduled to release in December, the artist is poised for even higher heights, and richer, emotionally intense songwriting.
Rose Gray
Chartmetric Artist Rank: 18,675
Genre: Pop
Country: U.K.
East London’s Rose Gray has spent 2025 morphing from cult dance fave to breakthrough pop star. After the release of Louder, Please in January, Rose was featured on “ATTENTION!” with Kesha and Slayyyter, and then jumped on Kesha’s bus to open on the summer of her Tits Out Tour with Scissor Sisters and Slayyyter. During that stretch, she was interviewed by People and Interview—equally cool club rat and woman of the people, clearly—and told the latter her inspiration and vibe recalls a host of contemporary and historical pop mutators—think Madonna, Addison Rae, Charli XCX, Oklou, and Björk. The sound is fun, stylish, party-ready, 90s-influenced Europop mixed with classic house. This October, she put out the deluxe version of Louder, Please: A Little Louder, Please, complete with remixes and features from Logic1000, Melanie C, Shygirl, and JADE, among others.
RomancePlanet
Chartmetric Artist Rank: 5,067
Genre: Hyperpop
Country: U.S.
Miami-based artist RomancePlanet has recently had a fruitful metamorphosis. When he first emerged a few years ago, he was lumped in with the hyperpop world, making genre-obliterating pop music that seemed engaged with the kitchen-sink approach that other rising stars in the genre were making. But of late, he’s gotten more specific, both in sound and style. His colorful hairstyle and blown-out visual aesthetics are self-consciously recalling scene music—think Blood on the Dance Floor or Brokencyde—an increasingly popular touchstone among internet-dwelling acts. But musically he’s evoking a different scene entirely, his viral track “FALL FROM THE SKY PT.2,” leans on the high energy sounds of gabber and hardstyle, making a version of pop music fitting for playing at Utrecht’s Thunderdome. It’s a striking combo and the right time, following the rise of electronic artists like vyrval, the viral ecosystem was clearly ready for a pop artist to start integrating these sounds. Fans are starting to properly catch on too, RomancePlanet has over 1.6M monthly listeners on Spotify alone.
Santos Bravos
Chartmetric Artist Rank: 37,653
Genre: Reggaeton
Country: Mexico
One single was enough to put HYBE’s Spanish-language pop boy band Santos Bravos (306K Spotify monthly followers) on the map. Composed of five members–one being openly queer–that were placed together after competing in an interactive musical competition of the group’s namesake, Santos Bravos has since released their debut track following the show’s season finale in October. Titled “0%,” the guys have a night out that’s so memorable they’re not worried about their phone’s battery being drained. Santos Bravos keeps the carefree anthem on repeat for their 414K TikTok followers, while it’s also been playlisted on ‘el nuevo pop’ and ‘Latin Pop Today.’ It’s just the latest in a string of international successes for HYBE, and while it remains to be seen if they’ll hit the massive heights that Katseye have, their early rise shows that they have a playbook that works.
VAD BOYZ
Chartmetric Artist Rank: 996
Genre: Corridos
Country: Mexico
The stats for mysterious project VAD BOYZ are a bit mind-boggling. Their song “MUEVELOU,” which came out in September, has a staggering 23.5M streams on Spotify, and over 10M YouTube views to boot. The surge seems to do with an accompanying Pocoyo video—an animated, Spanish, interactive preschool series starring a little guy in blue jammies and a blue cap. He did a little dance to the lo-fi party sound of VAD BOYZ, and that went super viral on TikTok and pushed the track onto the Viral 50 chart. “After Pool,” from March,has 3.2M streams and almost as many monthly listeners; not much else is known about the artist—except that a duo called Dante V and Cris MP appear in the songwriting credits.
