The last week of September was loud with big names: Taylor Swift's Encore, Tinashe's Popstar, U2's announcement. Underneath it, four artists on the rise each released or announced something that deserves a closer look. One is a debut album, one a debut that's days away, one a surprise drop and one a comeback with a date attached.
Jae Stephens, Audacity
Jae Stephens spent years writing for other people, including Jennifer Lopez's “Rebound,” Ne-Yo's “What If” and TWICE's Jihyo, before releasing music of her own. Her debut album, Audacity, came out Sept. 25 via Def Jam and Issa Rae's Raedio imprint, and Pitchfork calls it a “stellar major label debut.” Its 11 tracks are written and produced largely with Dallas Caton and Lita Caputo, with MNEK and PinkPantheress among the contributors, according to Billboard.
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The persona is the draw: a smart, snarky pop lyricist who rules a city where, as Billboard puts it, women view men as sources of money and attention. Pitchfork hears an “encyclopedia of acclaimed Black pop artists and producers,” from the Janet Jackson-style snap of the opener “Crush” to the Timbaland-era sound of “Gymnastics.” Stephens frames the album this way: “I have the audacity to take up as much space as I feel I deserve, and this album is exploring that.” Songwriting, she told Rolling Stone, is “the one place I’m allowed to be the villain.”
AUDACITYJae StephensListen on Apple Music
Dexter and the Moonrocks, Friends That I Don’t Like
The self-proclaimed “four dumbasses from West Texas” have coined their own genre, “Western space grunge,” and, with songs Billboard says would sound at home in '90s Seattle, are part of the rock revival on its charts. Their “Freakin' Out” spent five weeks at No. 1 on Alternative Airplay and reached No. 33 on the Hot 100, their first entry. The debut album, 14 tracks, is out Oct. 2, with Treaty Oak Revival on “12 Steps” and the rising country singer Avery Anna on “Why Don't You Say So.” Drummer Ryan Fox says the duet came together in 72 hours.
They're talking big. “We get to set the tone of what this culture is going to be, what rock music is going to be, for the next three to five years,” Fox told Billboard. The band started a tour of theaters and festivals across the U.S., Canada and Australia on Sept. 24, which runs through February 2027.
Friends That I Don't LikeDexter and The MoonrocksListen on Apple Music
Klein, My Own Fairytale
The London composer and vocalist released My Own Fairytale with no warning on Monday (Sept. 28) through her own Parkwuud Entertainment label. A press statement calls it her “take on a dark Disney soundtrack,” and its 12 mostly instrumental songs, per Pitchfork, meld spectral ambient, high-drama classical and the noise guitar of her 2025 album, Sleep With a Cane. The one feature is violinist and composer Sasha Scott, who co-wrote and arranged “Siren Reloaded” for the London Sinfonietta. There's a video for “Man in the Mirror,” and earlier this year she released Turn Up, a YouTube-only joint EP with Mica Levi.
Brakence, Marrow
The Ohio singer-songwriter is back with a date: Marrow arrives Oct. 23 via Columbia, his first album since 2022's chronic-pain-inspired Hypochondriac, with “Ready or Not” as the first single. In between he has guested on Quadeca's 2023 track “A la Carte,” two songs on Colliding With Mars' 2024 album Time to Meet God, and Aries' “Sleepwalker,” Pitchfork notes.
What links them
Mostly, they share a lack of one scene: a pop writer stepping out front, a Texas rock band on a hit streak, a London composer on her own label and an Ohio songwriter returning after four years. A week this dominated by the biggest names is a good moment to point at the margins. (For more at the other end of the genre map, see AZ Chike's debut and Mei Semones's Howl.)
Sources
Added to the High Grailed archive on October 12, 2026.
