Taken from this week’s Future Pop mailer. Click here to subscribe.
Last week the BBC Sound of 2018 list was released (coincidentally on the same day two of the artists listed were featured here in Future Pop), and there was one act included who I’d never heard of: Yaeji. Once I’d gotten over the embarrassment, I quickly set about checking out this mystery artist, and I was pleasantly surprised to discover that she is actually a female producer – something we are desperately in need of in today’s music scene. Kathy Yaeji Lee is a Korean-American DJ, conceptual artist and singer who performs in English and Korean, and has a hipster-cute vibe (i.e. she’s my new style icon). Her music combines breathy, girly vocals with a heavy, reverberating bassline, reflecting the contrast of her youthful sweetness with the urban edge of Seoul, as shown in her video for Drink I’m Sippin’ On. My favourite of her tracks is the poppy spoken word single Feel It Out, which includes the refrain “shit is crazy, shit is Yaeji.” She’s signed to Godmode, the same label that brought us Shamir, and although they’re not musically similar, they do both have a very fresh and futuristic feel. They represent a new generation of artists that couldn’t have emerged outside of the current digital era. Yaeji will probably never make a big pop hit, but the fact she exists is exciting, and the fact that a music industry panel see a successful 2018 in her future is even better.