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We may not be able to watch many artists in concert in 2021. But there will still be artists to watch.
Even though we could barely break out of our houses in 2020, there have still been breakout music stars during the COVID-19 pandemic. And as the coronavirus crisis continues — and hopefully ends in 2021, with the vaccine rollout underway — you can expect several new artists to make big waves, including these five musicians from Wisconsin.
In 2020, many of them already did. There’s a Milwaukee rapper who just celebrated his national label debut, and a singer-songwriter set to make his first on another revered label. One artist is part of an exciting new class of female rappers, and another landed on Billboard’s 21 Under 21 list. And one veteran composer (and podcast host) proved it’s never too late to begin a bold new musical adventure.
Here are five artists from Wisconsin to watch in 2021.
For nearly a decade, Carl Nichols was making a name for himself in Milwaukee’s music scene with his guitar skills. But when he helped form folk duo Nickel & Rose with Johanna Rose in 2016, Nichols’ stirring voice and striking songwriting seized the spotlight for the first time. “Americana” and “Another Man,” two Nichols-helmed songs about systemic racism, are among the most powerful from a Milwaukee act in the past few years.
“Before Nickel & Rose … I didn’t care about what was being said,” Nichols said of his songwriting. “When you are just standing there with an instrument and voice … I felt like I had to say something, if not important, at least interesting.”
More people are bound to hear what he has to say in 2021, with some help from a fellow Milwaukee native with strong ties to the music industry.
In between tours, Nichols said, he picked up an old pastime of playing old blues songs on acoustic guitar. Last year, he started posting his covers on Instagram.
“It just kind of built its own momentum … and started growing in the guitar community and blues community,” he said.
One of the people who caught his videos was Ryan Matteson, a Milwaukee native who runs Ten Atoms in Austin, Texas, the management agency behind Black Pumas, the Mountain Goats, Whitney, Bully, Japanese Breakfast and other indie acts.
Nichols partnered with Matteson in December 2019, launched a solo career as Buffalo Nichols, and hit the ground running. He toured with Robert Randolph and the Family Band and Drive-By Truckers in early 2020, and signed a deal with esteemed blues and rock label Fat Possum Records.
“I was going to keep touring and have an album out by summer or early fall, but everything stopped,” Nichols said.
Unable to play shows because of the pandemic, Nichols focused on writing music. He came up with about 40 tracks, many of them storytelling-style songs he describes as “uniquely Midwestern stories” about “wanting to be somewhere else but having strong pride in where you do come from.”
He also veered away from the traditional blues sound that led to his management and record deal, with Matteson and Fat Possum’s full support.
“The isolation of all the shutdowns allowed me to write freely,” he said. “I didn’t have any intention of what kind of songs I wanted to write or what artist I wanted to be. … I just wanted to write the best songs I could, and it just meant putting it all out there and not worrying about where it lands in terms of genre.”
This fall, Nichols moved to Austin, where he could get more work playing socially distant shows. In September, he started recording with a full band for his debut album at Sonic Ranch outside El Paso, a famed recording studio where Bon Iver did work for “i,i.” Nichols expects 10 tracks will end up on the album he hopes will be released in early spring.
“It had been such an insular thing,” he said of Buffalo Nichols. “It was the first time I would have to just give the songs up and let somebody else take ownership of them and put their own humanity into it. It was a big release to get the songs into the air for the first time.”
Carlie Hanson was going through a massive life change when she worked on “DestroyDestroyDestroyDestroy,” her fall EP for Warner Bros. Then like everyone else on the planet, she went through another one because of the pandemic.
In 2016, Hanson was working as a cashier at a McDonald’s in her native Onalaska in La Crosse County when she entered an iHeartRadio contest to win tickets to a Zayn concert. Her cover of his single “Pillowtalk” went viral, and Hanson was invited to work with Toronto producers House of Wolf. She had a breakout single, “Only One,” that ended up on a Taylor Swift-curated Apple Music playlist. Tours with Troye Sivan and Yungblud followed.
“I wrote this EP for the most part when I was just learning to be an adult in Los Angeles … without my family and friends and away from my hometown (where) I have been for my whole life,” she said. “It’s been a complete switch-up the three years of being here.”
Then the pandemic switched things up again, sidelining live shows but giving Hanson the opportunity to better channel her feelings into her exceptional EP.
“Because of quarantine, I didn’t have to rush as much,” she said. “I sat with myself and listened to the songs, and was perfecting them, rewriting them, mixing them, and also thinking about what the common theme for all the songs were and building this world.”
The result is a cathartic, vulnerable and catchy pop EP about “self-destructiveness, and wanting to run away and take out all the pain on things that may not be so healthy,” she said.
“At 19, you are always going through a crisis, and trying to figure out who you are,” she continued. “I was trying to figure out how I wanted to portray my sexuality to the world, and I had anxieties about dumb (expletive) I shouldn’t be stressed about. … There’s a lot of emotion that came through on this project and angst about how to overcome these bad parts of yourself … and find other ways to better yourself.”
On “DestroyDestroyDestroyDestroy,” Hanson has become a better artist. The song “Stealing All My Friends” was inspired by Lil Peep, Mac Miller and Juice WRLD, artists Hanson looked up to who died in recent years from drug overdoses. Hanson processes her own insecurities and addictions, yearning to get off medications and questioning if she’ll ever “see my face and not want to erase it” on “Is That a Thing?” And she pairs up with Iann Dior, who teamed up with 24kGoldn on the 2020 Billboard Hot 100 chart-topper “Mood,” for her gnarly pop-punk jam “Ego.”
Even without tours and festival gigs, “DestroyDestroyDestroyDestroy” found a big audience. Hanson has about 100 million streams and counting to her name, landing her a spot on Billboard’s 21 Under 21 list alongside Billie Eilish, Chloe x Halle, Gabby Barrett and other breakouts.
“I just want to continue talking about the important things like mental health,” said Hanson, who says she’s now in “album mode” and learning to produce on her own. “The only way things will progress is by continuing to share my own personal experiences, to show people it’s OK to talk about these things, and there’s no such thing as normal.”
Joe Wong has a far deeper résumé than most people you’d find on an artists-to-watch list.
He started playing around his native Milwaukee when he was 14, from gigs at long-gone clubs like the Unicorn and the Globe to shows at Shank Hall and the Jazz Estate. And he launched a lucrative TV and film composing career in Milwaukee, beginning with the documentary “The Yes Men” in 2003, co-directed by Chris Smith and Sarah Price, who made the Milwaukee-set documentary “American Movie.”
Since then, Wong’s composing credits include “Master of None” with Aziz Ansari, and the hit Netflix film “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before” and its sequel. Wong also has played in some bands, most notably Parts and Labor, and hosts “The Trap Set,” a podcast interview series featuring notable musicians that has aired nearly 300 episodes since 2015.
But one thing Wong hasn’t done is make his own album — until “Nite Creatures,” released on Universal’s Decca Records in September.
“It’s something I wanted to do for a long time,” Wong said over the phone from his home in Los Angeles. “I had been developing these tools as a composer for close to 20 years, and I started asking myself why it was possible to write dozens of albums’ worth of material for other people’s film and TV projects every year, and why it was so hard to prioritize a statement of my own.
“I think it was fear … and I just wasn’t emotionally ready.”
Wong was inspired in part by Natasha Lyonne and Fred Armisen, who made their own artistic leaps with Netflix’s “Russian Doll” and “Standup for Drummers,” respectively. Wong composed the score for the former, and produced Armisen’s “personal” comedy special.
He hired friend and rocker Mary Timony to produce “Nite Creatures” so he could be “accountable to someone besides myself,” and found noted collaborators in Mary Lattimore, the Flaming Lips’ Steven Drozd, the War on Drugs’ Jon Natchez and others.
The result is a gorgeous psychedelic pop-rock opus. The album is inspired, Wong says, by seminal ’60s artists like the Zombies and the Walker Brothers, and it makes exquisite use of his orchestral skills with lush strings and radiant horn sections.
Wong was set to tour behind “Nite Creatures” with a 20-piece band before the pandemic ruined his plans. But the album still found an audience — the opening track, “Dreams Wash Away,” ended up in the season finale of the Netflix series “The Midnight Gospel” (Wong did the score for that show too), and he’s been thrilled by YouTube covers of his “Nite Creatures” songs. He is already well on his way with his second album, in addition to six other TV and film projects.
He may also continue to make one-off singles, like a cover with Timony of John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s “Every Man Has a Woman Who Loves Him,” released in honor of the 40th anniversary of their album “Double Fantasy.” Ono herself shared the cover on Twitter.
“I’m not above the cheap thrill of social media,” Wong said.
Aspiring Milwaukee rapper Lakeyah was in Atlanta for her 18th birthday, and there was one key place on her travel itinerary: Quality Control Records, home to Migos, City Girls and other hot hip-hop acts.
“I took a picture (I shared online) and said, ‘This is who I want to be signed to,’ ” Lakeyah said.
By the time she was 19, she was.
This past July, Lakeyah signed a deal with Quality Control, meeting label stars Lil Baby and Lil Yachty on the same day. Six months later, she released a song and music video with City Girls, “Female Goat,” from her debut mixtape on the label “Time’s Up.”
Four videos have been released for “Time’s Up” tracks; combined, they have been seen more than 5 million times on YouTube. More videos, and a second mixtape, are already in the works.
“I was crying all day,” Lakeyah said of signing with Quality Control. “It’s super exciting having my first tape with a major label, and having so much positive feedback on Twitter and Instagram.”
What’s even more remarkable is that Lakeyah didn’t have much original music to her name when Quality Control came calling.
She started posting her own versions of hit songs in 2016 on Facebook, going viral with her rendition of Monica’s “So Gone.” She ultimately moved over to Instagram, where big artists like Chris Brown, Rod Wave and Jhené Aiko shared and commented on Lakeyah’s versions of their hits. Her Instagram following grew from 50,000 in 2017 to 476,000 today.
With a big push from her fans on social media, Lakeyah grabbed the attention of Quality Control co-founder Pierre “Pee” Thomas, with her version of City Girls rapper JT’s track “First Day Out.” Then in July, Quality Control’s biggest star, Lil Baby, praised Lakeyah’s version of his single “We Paid,” leading to the record deal a couple of weeks later.
Lakeyah admits to being intimidated when she started making songs for Quality Control, but she had a lot of support from Thomas, Yachty and others at the label she said treated her like a “little sister.”
There isn’t a shred of hesitancy on a bold label debut that showcases multiple facets of her personality and skillset, from the pain of a toxic relationship in R&B-leaning “Windows,” to the unflappable swagger of boastful banger “BigFlexHer.” While Lakeyah is living in Atlanta now, the music video for the latter was shot in Milwaukee, its sound recalling the city’s street rap scene that’s found millions of fans on YouTube but has been largely overlooked by major labels.
With Lakeyah, that could change.
“I love that (Thomas) put the sound out for the world,” Lakeyah said. “I say all the time that I am always going to represent where I am from. … There is a lot of talent in Milwaukee, and that is one of the most slept-on cities. … I’m hoping to shine a super big light, and I hope that people try to look for more talent there.”
If you’re going to measure the greatest Milwaukee hip-hop albums over the last decade, one project has to be part of the discussion: Lorde Fredd33’s 2018 full-length album “Norf: The Legend of Hotboy Ronald,” a one-of-a-kind album that unearths catharsis through spiritual cleansing and visceral rage.
“That’s one of those things that took my whole life to make in a way,” Fredd33 said. Despite being released with minimal fanfare, the adventurous work and its creator attracted some attention, including a glowing review from Pitchfork, and a deal with Downtown Records, which released Fredd33’s gripping follow-up EP, “Folklorde,” this past summer.
“I wouldn’t want to start with any other label,” Fredd33 said. “They had Santigold, Gnarls Barkley, people that reinforced to me how important it was to be true to yourself and how to be influential and say what you need to say.”
As part of the deal, Fredd33 had just four days to record “Folklorde” in New York last December.
“This was my first national release, so to speak,” he said. “With the initial thought process that I could die any day, I’d be damned if I didn’t say what I wanted to say.”
So Fredd33 spoke his peace on songs like the simmering “Reparations,” offering strength in the fight for racial equity, following “generations of deep atrocities that were committed” against Black people. About six months after it was recorded, the song helped to fuel the soundtrack for Black Lives Matter marches in Milwaukee.
Fredd33 tried to keep the tracks’ running times and sounds Spotify playlist-friendly, like the equally sensual and unsettling “Summer Breeze,” a collaboration with fellow up-and-comer Travis Mendes. But “Folklorde” still illustrates the kind of experimental, unexpected instincts that made Fredd33 interesting in the first place, as on the chaotic punk-rap rager “Jumper” at the EP’s end.
“My agenda is simple: Be yourself to free yourself,” Fredd33 said. “I feel strongly that what’s in the cards for me is growing as a producer and songwriter and an industry staple. That’s what I always wanted to be.”
Bands to Watch 2020: Where are they now?
It wasn’t the year anyone expected or wanted, but some artists profiled for our Wisconsin Bands to Watch list for 2020 made the most of the tough conditions. Here’s some of what they accomplished.
- Amanda Huff joined forces with local producer This Random Machine, an artist she’s collaborated with in the past, to form a new trip-hop duo, You Win !!!. Their debut single behind the moniker — the brooding, cutting “Shrap.nel” — landed at No. 2 on the Journal Sentinel’s list of best songs of 2020.
- Brothers William and Kevin Bush of synthpop duo Immortal Girlfriend released their riveting EP “Ride” in April, and a standalone single this fall. William also branched out with a promising instrumental electronic side project, Black Challenger.
- Rapper Kaylee Crossfire released a single this year, “Baptized,” and released a merch line, but her big focus was launching the Fueling Your Fire Music Academy, offering four-week courses that cover live performance, marketing and other need-to-know topics for aspiring artists.
- Rose of the West released an instrumental version of their superb 2019 self-titled debut, and their song “Roads” landed a placement on “The Twilight Zone.”
- Eau Claire-based road warriors Them Coulee Boys adjusted to live-stream concerts, and retreated to the studio, where they finished recording their fourth full-length album. It’s expected to be released in 2021.
Correction: An earlier version of this story misidentified which album Bon Iver worked on at Sonic Ranch studios in Texas.
RELATED:Five Wisconsin Bands to Watch in 2020
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Contact Piet at (414) 223-5162 or plevy@journalsentinel.com. Follow him on Twitter at @pietlevy or Facebook at facebook.com/PietLevyMJS.
Piet also talks concerts, local music and more on “TAP’d In” with Jordan Lee. Hear it at 8 a.m. Thursdays on WYMS-FM (88.9), or wherever you get your podcasts.
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