Three Artists I’m Excited To Hear From This Year

2026 arrived with the promise of some very exciting new music releases. The year has already shown a promising start, with both A$AP Rocky’s much-anticipated Don’t Be Dumb and Ari Lennox’s Vacancy. Later in the year, the third act of Beyoncé’s recent run of multi-genre albums, a suspected rock album, is expected to come out. Not only that, but BTS’s first album since all of their members returned from mandatory military enlistment will be out in mid-March, Jill Scott’s first album in almost 11 years comes out mid-February, and Steve Lacy’s Oh Yeah?, while still without a release date, is impending. While I’m excited for all of these new albums, and am already greedily enjoying the music put out over this first month of the year, there are some more artists I’m interested in hearing from. Here are the top three artists that I’m most excited to hear from this year!

1. Cortisa Star

I first discovered Cortisa Star in 2024 due to the viral success of her song FUN. Cortisa makes extremely catchy and outrageous rap that comes along with major hyperpop influences, and always features a heavy bass. Her first album, E.M.O. (Evil Motion Overload), was released in April of last year and featured some incredible hits like Dramatic, a very fast, jumpy song about, well, being dramatic. Cortisa has alluded to her upcoming second album on Instagram a couple of times already, posting videos of herself lip syncing to unreleased songs. While there is still no album title or release date, I’m hoping that the album comes out within the next couple of months.

Photo: @Voltoio

2. Massive Attack

I am a very big fan of trip hop as a genre. Coming about in the late 80s and early 90s, trip hop came out of Bristol’s underground music scene as a very atmospheric combination of hip-hop, jazz, and electronica, among other genres. Its innovators are American producer DJ Shadow, English electronic band Portishead, English musician Tricky, British group UNKLE, and English trip hop group Massive Attack, among others. A lot of these acts have stopped making music, or their rate of releases has greatly slowed down. When Massive Attack took to Twitter in November to announce that they will release a body of work of recently recorded work, I was ecstatic. The group hasn’t put out any music projects since 2020’s Eutopia EP, and I am readily awaiting their return

Photo: Marco Prosch/Getty Images

3. Raye

On January 22nd, Raye announced her upcoming full-length album, This Music May Contain Hope. With a release date set for March 27th, it will be the English singer-songwriter’s sophomore album. Raye has one of the most powerful and dynamic voices of stars from our current era of music. While she can tackle any genre, Raye tends to favor R&B and pop that usually finds itself mixed with elements of classical and jazz music. When performing live, she loves a choir, loves a big band, and loves embellishing an already perfect song with her incredible voice. This Music May Contain Hope should be a dramatic masterclass in vocal artistry.

Photo: KAPFHAMMER

All in all, I am always just excited to hear new music. It’s incredible that so many people love creating music, and in turn sharing that music with the world. One of my favorite feelings is sitting down to listen to an artist I love’s new album, and loving it. I hope that happens with all of these upcoming projects.