There’s always an influx of new artists giving music enthusiasts new streaming opportunities. While many fall into obscurity a talented few become playlist mainstays. Kai Ca$h, Marco Plus, Farrah Fawx, and Girlfriend are four artists gaining traction and building audiences through high-quality soundscapes. In their own unique way, they’re creating a deafening buzz in crowded spaces. Kai Ca$h, a younger, more adventurous Loaded Lux, will be performing at The Future of Black Music’s Tampa showcase on Thursday, June 26.
Make your way to the Big Guave for a memorable rhyme experience.
Artist: Kai Ca$h
Sounds Like: A younger, more adventurous Loaded Lux
Signature Song: “Helen Keller"
Deep Cut: “Mentally Unstable” featuring CEO Trayle, K Wale
The Skinny: If you think New York rappers should sound a certain way — ie, a pure formalist — you probably rock with Kai Ca$h. For a while now, he's been getting bars off, flaunting the acrobatic acumen of a URL champion with some underestimated all-around songwriting ability; he can flow over West Coast soundscapes ("The West") as easily as he does subdued boom bap ("Knicks in 6"). Versatile, dexterous, and really just kind of a cool guy, Kai Ca$h is someone you should put money on.
Artist: Farrah Fawx
Sounds Like: Doechii meets Baby Tate
Signature Song: “Hi My Name Is”
Deep Cut: “Stretch”
The Skinny: With quippy wordplay, It-girl charisma and eclectic musical impulses, Farrah Fawx feels infinitely Stanable. Like most of her best offerings, tracks like “Hi My Name Is” thrive on wit and buoyancy — a constellation of dance sound and Mean Girl snark from a girl who’s also somehow a sweetheart. Skittering over a beat that sounds like a vintage Toonami bump, the track is as playful as it is quotable: “Supercalifragilistic, I need all the motion.”
Stylistically, her agility, airily lithe vocals and affinity for interstellar electronic beats situate her somewhere in between the Nicki Minaj and Azealia Banks Venn Diagram — which should also position her on a lot of playlists, stages, and conversations about emerging rap stars.
Artist: Marco Plus
Sounds Like: If J. Cole and Meek Mill did the fusion dance
Signature Song: “Lately”
Deep Cut: “Venting”
The Skinny: In a post-Future Atlanta, Marco Plus is one of the area’s few remaining rap formalists. On tracks like 2022’s “Lately,” he fuses nimble rap acrobatics with a battle rapper’s intonations and nocturnal soul beats that let his words linger like the end of a Brian Steel closing argument. He can do gunplay, but there’s an emotional transparency, earnestness, and technical craftsmanship that gives him a J. Cole-esque everyman aura.
He’s the sixth man Spillage Village didn’t know they needed — except, J.I.D featured him on background vocals for his new single, “WRK,” so maybe they’re catching on. Cypher-lovers should be catching on, too.
Artist: Girlfriend
Sounds Like: Ella Mai
Signature Song: “Bon Voyage” featuring Tierra Whack
Deep Cut: “Bathroom Floor”
The Skinny: Sultry and piercing, Girlfriend makes R&B that’s sexy, intimate and soul-searching. Tracks like the Tierra Whack-assisted “Bon Voyage” are embedded with a genuine tenderness that can only come from a thoughtful songwriter with the supple vocals to channel that naked vulnerability: “I’m jealous of all the pillows that you lying next to/I just want find out what’s the price to get you right next to me.”
It’s diaristic in the way the best Alicia Keys and Janet Jackson tracks are, but the spacy soundscapes are perfectly modern, which should only help her connect with bigger features in the future. Fueled by delicately powerful vocals and unrelenting honesty, Girlfriend’s got the chops to break your heart and put it right back together again.
RSVP to the Tampa event here and experience The Future of Black Music