After winning Best New Artist at the 2025 Grammy Awards, Chappell Roan called for fair wages for artists in her acceptance speech. Her speech was later criticized by former music executive, Jeff Rabhan, in a guest column published in The Hollywood Reporter.
A couple of days after the column was published, Roan took to her Instagram to respond to Rabhan’s critiques. While calling for Rabhan to match her $25,000 donation to “struggling dropped artists,” Roan used the attention to highlight other artists who “deserve more love and a bigger platform.”
These artists included hemlocke springs, Sarah Kinsley, Devon Again and Baby Storme. The call to action immediately put the spotlight on these four smaller artists, but who are they, and where did they come from?
hemlocke springs
Isimeme "Naomi" Udu, better known by her alias hemlocke springs, began releasing music on SoundCloud in 2021.
The North Carolina native started writing music in high school and continued to write while she pursued higher education. She received a bachelor’s degree in biology at Spelman College and a master's degree in medical informatics from Dartmouth College.
Springs had plans to pursue medicine and eventually a PhD, but then she gained traction online. Her song “girlfriend” became an instant hit through TikTok and reached over 10 million plays by mid-December 2022 within its first month. Now, with over 49 million streams on Spotify, “girlfriend” was the first of many songs to bring the indie artist into the spotlight.
“going...going...GONE!” is springs’ most recent EP and was released last September. With strong influences from Kate Bush, Springs’ music takes listeners on abstract and psychedelic journeys, with a side of dream-pop to round out her work.
At 26 years old, hemlocke springs is already flowing toward musical stardom.
Sarah Kinsley
Kinsley was born in California, but she made her place in New York City after attending Columbia University. While studying music theory, she first began to produce and record songs.
In 2021, Kinsley posted a video on TikTok titled “women don't produce music.” This video, which went viral, featured the artist taking sounds from her apartment and producing a short song from the results.
Her second EP “The King” was released June 4, 2021. The title track quickly went viral on TikTok and has nearly 54 million streams on Spotify.
Occasionally leading with piano and sometimes harmonizing with an electric guitar, Kinsley’s music is unafraid to explore the vast reaches of music. But don’t let the often upbeat tracks fool you, the alt-pop artist’s writing is as deep and as strong as her musical abilities.
Kinsley’s newest album, “Escaper,” was released Sept. 6, 2024. She is currently gearing up for the second leg of her tour, which will begin in early March.
Devon Again
Before releasing her own music, the alt-pop musician went viral on TikTok in 2020 for her covers, original song snippets and duets. She released her debut single, “Suburbia” in 2021.
Devon Again has been posting music on SoundCloud for seven years. Her music is a “colorful discography of R&B-infused melodies and biting indie-pop production,” according to OnesToWatch.
Though Again’s sound is the most similar to Roan’s, it is not without distinctive qualities. Dizzying beats and electronic melodies are interlaced with bold lyrics that leave no question as to the song’s meaning.
Again’s newest songs “sunburn” and “cherry cola” were released July 5, 2024.
Baby Storme
Taking the world by storm as a kid, Baby Storme has been playing the piano since age 3 and has been singing as long as she could talk.
In February 2020, Storme joined TikTok for the first time, where she found a platform where no one would know her. By March 2020, Storme had already released her first single “Mixed Feelings.”
Her quick rise to fame was noted by American rapper Lil Nas X, who commented on a teaser for her newest single at the time, “Jackson.” That comment, noted by X’s fans worldwide, is, in part, what brought attention to one of Storme’s most popular tracks.
Storme released “Jackson” in January 2021. Soon after its release the song entered the No. 1 Featured Spot on TikTok. She now has over 1.5 million followers on TikTok and 115,000 monthly listeners on Spotify.
Storme often dips her toes into the sounds of R&B and dark pop but unabashedly explores niches throughout the alternative genre. Her ubiquitous discography has both songs fit for the club and songs fit for heart-wrenching breakups.
