The future of music is most definitely female. Handpicked in collaboration with Apple Music for our Volume II: Music Issue, we bring you the rising creative powerhouses who are changing the game as we know it — one empowering song at a time.
THE INDIE-POP DARLING
“Music has given me a platform to speak up in my own way,” says Norwegian newcomer Sigrid, 20, whose hit single “Don’t Kill My Vibe” is all about you doing you. With a brand-new EP and upcoming U.S. tour dates, the sparkling vocalist is poised for a very big year. “Songs have the power to connect people,” she says. “It’s never been more important to be tolerant.” Sigrid is part of Apple Music Up Next, a program that spotlights the next generation of artists. You can learn more and check out a new featured artist every month at applemusic.com/upnext.
THE STAR SONGWRITER
You might already know Bibi Bourelly for writing Rihanna’s “Higher” and “Bitch Better Have My Money” when she was 19. Now she’s becoming an R&B queen in her own right. “I hope to convey the truth through what I write,” says the now 23-year-old, who has released two EPs to date. “Whether it’s a song like ‘Ballin,’ which is about being a struggling musician, or ‘Ego,’ which is about my big-ass ego, I always want to be honest."
THE SOUND SCIENTIST
At only 26 years old, Laura Sisk won a Grammy for her engineering work on Taylor Swift’s 1989, which won the 2015 Album of the Year award. “People don’t usually assume I’m an engineer,” reveals the Bay Area native. “I’ve even been asked if I’m in the studio because I’m someone’s girlfriend!” Having signed on for Lorde and Bleachers’ sophomore albums, we’d say she’s more than proven her chops.
THE ALT-CLASS HERO
Chances are you first heard of Maggie Rogers when a video of her playing a recording of her song “Alaska” for an emotional Pharrell during a master class at NYU Tisch’s Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music went viral. But Maggie is so much more than Internet famous. As her recent EP, Now That the Light Is Fading, proves, the musician, who plays the banjo and guitar, has a gift for creating songs that rest between ethereal dream pop and electro-tinged folk. “I feel like my job is to be a fulcrum for energy—to take in everything from the crowed, filter it through my work, and then reflect all that same energy and goodness back on them,” says the 23-year-old. “There’s so much power in completely committing to be your full, weird self.”
THE YOUNG GUN
Although she grew up playing the ukulele and piano and singing in the Los Angeles Children’s Chorus, Billie Eilish, 15, never dreamed she could make a music career a reality. That is, until she and her older brother, Finneas O’Connell, created a track for Billie’s dance teacher to choreograph to that went viral. “We uploaded ‘Ocean Eyes’ to SoundCloud, and it started getting a lot of plays pretty much immediately,” recalls Billie, whose unearthly voice doesn’t sound like it could possibly come from a teen. Now, a year and a half after her initial hit, the songstress is working on both a debut EP and an album and is about to embark on a fall tour across the U.S. “I don’t know how to function without music,” she says. “When I’m not making it, I’m listening to it. It gives me courage and takes care of my mind."
THE FUTURE OF R&B
Raised in Miami, Sabrina Claudio was into salsa and merengue dancing long before she considered a music career. “A cover song I uploaded to YouTube my freshman year went viral at my high school,” says the 20-year-old. “That’s what pushed me to pursue singing.” Released last year, her debut EP, Confidently Lost, recalls iconic ’90s R&B anthems but with dreamy, sultry vocals that are all her own. “I like being carelessly but cautiously creative,” reveals Sabrina. “I love the endless amounts of places that you can take music and that music can take you.”
THE NEW NASHVILLE
“Feminism is a huge part of my music. Everything I write has an empowering tilt to it,” says 22-year-old country artist Kalie Shorr, whose hit single “Fight Like a Girl” encourages women to face their problems with confidence and strength. The Portland, Maine, native moved to Nashville when she was 18 and became involved with an all-female singer-songwriter community called Song Suffragettes. “I want to change how women treat each other,” she says. “We are wild, multidimensional creatures—why does society say we have to be in competition?”
THE INSTRUMENTALIST
Melina Duterte, who is known professionally as Jay Som, is a musical wunderkind. Not only does the 23-year-old write, sing, record, and produce all of her own music (her soundproofed bedroom doubles as a studio), but she is also responsible for all of the instrumentals featured on her tracks; she plays the guitar, bass, drums, keyboard, and trumpet. “Music has given me the confidence to showcase my vulnerability to others who might feel the same way—it’s cathartic,” says Jay Som, who is a bit of an anomaly in the indie-pop scene as a queer Asian-American artist. “I fit many boxes of marginalized groups who don’t have the opportunity to have their stories heard,” she continues. “There needs to be more women, people of color, LGBTQ, and more in the music industry."
THE TURNTABLE TEEN
“Music turns down the noise of the world and causes you to feel, love, and breathe,” says New York City DJ, producer, and drummer Callie Reiff, who’s opened for dance-music greats such as Skrillex and Zeds Dead. The kicker? She’s only 17. “I want to see women and nonbinary artists being treated equally in the music industry,” she reveals. “I want to inspire people by proving they can do anything they put their minds to."
THE RAPPER’S DELIGHT
Destiny Frasqueri, aka Priness Nokia, is the artist the world needs right now. The 24-year-old rapper, who has lectured at Harvard University about her views on urban feminism, champions in her lyrics body positivity, universal acceptance, and honoring your ethnicity. “Music has empowered me through poverty, abuse, and mental-health issues,” says Princess Nokia, who spent part of her childhood in foster care. At 16, she began hosting parties in her native New York City, and released her first album, Metallic Butterfly, in 2014. Now, with a second album, 1992, as well as two campaigns for Calvin Klein under her belt, there’s no doubt about it: She’s earned her throne. “Music gives me a focused purpose. It saves my life every day.”
Meet the female artists who are changing the music game as we know it.
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