Tomorrow's Five: fakemink, MOLIY, Maria Somerville, ATLXS and Lucy Park

Third Bridge Creative -


By Colin Joyce, Jaelani Turner-Williams, Will Schube, Brandon Ousley, Vrinda Jagota, and Kemet High of Third Bridge Creative

fakemink

Chartmetric Artist Rank: 6,195

Genre: Hip-Hop/Rap

Country: U.K.

The ultra-prolific rapper fakemink has an elevated view of his place within the UK hip-hop scene. He called his late 2023 debut album London’s Saviour, and the title might just be fitting. Claiming singer-experimenter Dean Blunt as a primary influence and maintaining a penchant for dropping multiple songs a week, fakemink has an idiosyncratic approach to his version of underground rap, dipping and diving between genres and styles with reckless abandon. This has won him the attention of tastemakers (including Pitchfork and king-making content creator Plaqueboymax) and everyday fans: on Spotify alone, he has over 805K monthly listeners. fakemink is one of the stranger artists to vault to this kind of fame in recent years—if nothing else, he’s got to be the only rapper with ghostly ambient interludes to make his way onto playlists as mainstream as “Internet People.”

MOLIY

Chartmetric Artist Rank: 61

Genre: Afrobeats

Country: Ghana

Ghanaian singer MOLIY has become known this decade for her cardinal iteration of afrofusion. Projects like WONDERGIRL (2020) and Honey Doom (2022) blend her West African and Floridian roots into palpable rhythms that resonate cross-culturally. In 2021, she scored her biggest song to date by featuring on Amaarae’s “SAD GIRLZ LUV MONEY Remix,” along with Kali Uchis; the three crossover talents helped the track climb upwards of 514M Spotify streams. MOLIY caught another wave with 2024’s “Shake It To The Max (FLY)” in tandem with Silent Addy. With the inclusion of Shenseea and Skillibeng on the remix, the song has become prominent on social media. An accompanying dance trend which encourages listeners to move their hips has contributed to over 2.4M creates on TikTok and 444K reels on Instagram, allowing the kinetic track to consistently climb the viral charts on social and streaming platforms. A global, cultural, and trending smash, “Shake It To The Max (FLY)” is surefire song of the summer material, fortifying MOLIY’s position as an expressive genre-bender and artist to watch.

Maria Somerville

Chartmetric Artist Rank: 60,451 

Genre: Indie

Country: Ireland

Irish singer-songwriter Maria Somerville released her debut album, All My People, six years ago. Though fellow producers like Daniel Avery have been sharing her music online for months, and she runs a beloved NTS radio show, her artist profile has been relatively low. But on April 25, Somerville released her sophomore album called Luster, her first with indie label giant 4AD. The album, a collection of gauzy dream pop interlaced with intimate field recordings, has been making quite a splash among critics and fans alike. In addition to receiving a Best New Music title on Pitchfork along with positive press from The Guardian and Tone Glow, Somerville’s Spotify monthly listeners have increased by 239% in the last three months, to a total of 146K.

ATLXS

Chartmetric Artist Rank: 120

Genre: Phonk

What fans lack in information about 18-year-old artist ATLXS, they make up for in fervor. The phonk producer is anonymous but has developed quite a following. He first started garnering attention with his 2024 house track “PASSO BEM SOLTO.” A slowed version of the song has been used in 2.2M videos on TikTok thanks to a viral dance trend. It made it to the Top 50 Spotify Global chart, and was followed by a handful of other successful singles, including “MONTAGEM LADRAO,” which has been used in 77K TikTok videos and has 34M streams on Spotify, and "MONTAGEM BAILÃO,” which has 26M streams on Spotify. Today, he has 20M monthly listeners on Spotify, and that number is growing: in the last 3 months, the number has grown by 3,570%.

Lucy Park

Chartmetric Artist Rank: 29,234

Genre: R&B

Country: U.S.

London/Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter Lucy Park leans on introspection to write emotionally-charged songs on vulnerability, self-discovery, and love. Balancing classic soul with hypnotic alt-pop textures, the ethereal-voiced artist first burst on the scene with her debut single, “Rain,” becoming her top-streamed track on Spotify at 20M plays to date. Following the acclaim of her 2021 debut EP, Before I Speak, and several poignant singles—“Resting State” (543K streams), “Role Model” (1.9M), and “All Roads” (3.6M) in 2023—she’s ventured further into her homegrown take on alt-R&B with her second EP, GOOD GRACES, released on May 16. Strongly echoing the warm confessional soul of Cleo Sol and Lianne La Havas, the six-song offering is largely based on Park’s move to London from Los Angeles. At 242K Spotify monthly listeners with additions on editorial playlists like “Lowkey,” “Fresh Finds Indie,” and the Asian-centric “Jasmine,” Lucy Park’s intimate R&B mastery is poised to break wide and far.  

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

Visualizations by Alejandra Arevalo and cover image by Crasianne Tirado; data as of June 2, 2025.