Cannons originally formed in 2013, when childhood friends Ryan Clapham and Paul Davis met Michelle Joy. The two grew up on the same street in Santa Clarita, CA and had been trying to start a band for years, but nothing had quite clicked until their paths crossed hers. Michelle's effortless vocals melded perfectly with Ryan and Paul's densely layered productions.

The band's unique blend of 70's grooves and 80's electro-funk creates a dreamy and melodic world of its own that has attracted passionate fans from around the world. They originally found support in LA, where they became favorites among KCRW DJ's and saw their music licensed all over television, eventually hitting the No.1 spot on Billboard's Top TV Songs chart for May 2020, after the single "Fire For You" appeared on Netflix's original series Never Have I Ever, while simultaneously making Billboards Hot Dance/Electronic Songs chart for five weeks straight.

With a slew of EP's, 2017's album Night Drive and 2019's Shadows behind them, Cannons have been hard at work perfecting their brand of electro-pop. Shadows is full of pulsing baselines, reverb soaked guitars and Michelle's hypnotic vocals. On standout's like "Fire For You" and "Talk Talk", they perfectly capture that feeling of sunset joyriding.

R&B music is undoubtedly on the rise once again, with the genre capturing mainstream's attention just as fiercely as its hip-hop sister. It's now more inclusive than ever, with the genre expanding its reach beyond American soil. Elaine, a 21-year-old newcomer who hails from South Africa, is breaking continental boundaries by giving R&B a fresh face.Born Ndivhuwo Elaine Mukheli in Pretoria, the singer cites the late Lebo Mathosa and Brenda Fassie as helping pave the way for South African female singers, along with Whitney Houston, Lauryn Hill and Beyoncé as early inspirations. Influenced by her father (who was a choir conductor in high school), she joined the pre-school choir. Elaine was shy from an early age, but a particular song helped her find her true calling. "My teacher gave me a solo: ‘Silent Night.' I had to sing during an annual concert in front of so many relatives and friends," the singer recalls. "Being up on that stage really changed my life. Ever since that day, being a musician is what I've been working towards and praying for." From that point, Elaine partook in multiple talent show competitions both as a soloist and part of the choir, even winning a gold medal at 2014's 8th World Choir Games in Riga, Latvia.

She began to write music in high school, but it wasn't until 2018 --her first year as a law student at Johannesburg's University of the Witwatersrand --where the singer officially decided to transform her growing passion into a career. It was also Elaine's father who convinced her tostudy law, as he thought it would help her better navigate the music industry and understand the language of contracts. "Law really helps you to think twice and read the fine print," she explains, "that's what this industry is about."While studying in school, Elaine had the urge to create her first project that later shaped into the now-Platinum Elements. Self-released in September 2019, the debut EP is a journey through love, heartbreak and renewal. Its blend of mellow yet sweet R&B melodies with hints of trap-inspired moodiness in the vein of Jhene Aiko and Summer Walker, ended up making history: Elaine became the first female independent artist to reach No. 1 on the Apple Music Sub-Saharan African charts. It also received airplay on The Joe Budden Podcast and Ebro In The Morning, and breakout single "You're The One" is currently 3x Platinum (combined with Spotify and Apple Music).

The continuous success of Elements was the result of a year-long process that Elaine describes as an adventure. The singer didn't have any connections to anyone in music prior to its release, so she used social media to reach out to the EP's two producers Clxrity and Elizée. It was a humbling experience, with Elaine combating loud residential students while recording it in Clxrity's dorm room in between class lectures and during lunch breaks.

As Elaine continues to work on her debut major-label album that will discuss newfound independence and learning accountability, she aims to shed light on South Africa's burgeoning music scene. "I've got a completely different story to tell. I'm a representation of every African girl that doesn't want to be boxed in."

Born in the suburbs of Cincinnati, Jack's parents had him involved in music early on, playing the drums when he was three and being classically trained on the piano in elementary school. The four schools of saxophone followed; Jack then later taught himself the guitar and bass. To date, he can play nearly ten instruments, as well as having a graduated level of music theory and music technology.

Music was Jack's superpower, though he didn't realize it until it was almost too late. His mental health wavered, starting at a young age, and by the time he graduated high school Jack was in harm's way. "I had to leave my parents' house," he remembers. "I was really mentally ill and doing a lot of drugs and living with my friends. I was just in a really bad place." Music came to the rescue. "It was during this time that I started making music and really finding myself." Holed up with his friends in a house with no electricity or heat, Jack laid the foundation for what was to come, but he needed to level up and didn't know how.

He had his collection of songs in reserve, waiting for the moment to make it all happen. "I had all of these songs, knowing it was going to work one day," he recalls. "So I stuck to it." He cut the track "Morbid Mind," an introspective sleeper hit that worked its way up the Spotify ranks thanks to a double-punch of TikTok clips (with the caption "Posting every day until y'all notice me") and a music video from media company Soul Serum. The song garnered attention from fans and kept growing; just as Jack predicted, a career as an artist was within his reach.

"Gin N Juice," the fifth track on his album, stands in between Jack's two worlds of Hip-Hop and Folk. "It is the first song I ever wrote on the guitar," he explains, as he's rapping on the track and reflecting on his life. "Everything is going so fast and I'm just staying in the same place and not caring." The sound is a rebellious amalgam that he defines as Punk and is the crux of his debut album MIXED EMOTIONS. "My album is two halves: the first half is hip-hop and the second half is acoustic guitar," he expresses, representing the two parts of his life, from hitting rock bottom to building himself back up. His sound lives at the intersection of Juice WRLD and Lil Peep, combined with elements that place Jack Kays in a class by himself.

With a powerful falsetto and a knack for tender, soulful storytelling, Q Marsden is well on his way to capturing the hearts and minds of a generation.

Q was five years old when he started recording music. Raised by musician parents, the 21-year-old singer-songwriter from Pembroke Pines, Florida fondly remembers laying his first tracks down in studios his father, who produced hits for reggae and dancehall legends Sean Paul and Wayne Wonder, brought him to Jamaica. His mother—a former keyboardist for bands associated with Jamaican acts like Beenie Man, Bounty Killer and Dennis Brown, and the musical director of their church where Q sang in the choir—showed him the art of performance. At home, his parents introduced him to Michael Jackson, prompting Q to learn to appreciate pop artistry at the highest level.

Despite his early foundations in music, Q was never taught how to play the piano, guitar, and drums that grace his stirring, melodic songs. "I would listen to it and try to play it piece by piece," Q explains about teaching himself to play the keys by ear and using classic Mozart as a guide. Soon enough he was programming beats into his mother's Triton keyboard. When he heard Drake's 2013 album Nothing Was The Same, Q was inspired to make production his focus, and even sold a guitar he had bought in order to get the computer equipment he needed to strengthen his sound.

Fast forward to 2018, the year Q released his first project, the self-produced Thoughts—a heartfelt, acoustic-driven collection of folksy R&B ballads. "It was me practicing vulnerability, just practicing expressing how I feel in a certain way," Q says about the raw, emotive album, adding "I used to suppress my emotions and wouldn't talk to anybody but the microphone." Not one to write lyrics, Q is most comfortable using the mic as his journal, giving his vocals an intuitive, impulsively expressive edge. "The song has to speak before I put the lyrics down, I have to feel what the beat is saying," he explains. 2019's Forest Green finds Q experimenting with his sound, from expanding his production to include drums to singing in a lower register. A promising body of work from the young artist, Forest Green is home to single "Lavender", already at millions of streams, and NBA 2K20 soundtrack pick, "I Might Slip Away if I Don't Feel Nothing".

"My music now has no resemblance to Forest Green or even Thoughts," Q says about the evolution of his sound and new, collaborative music on the horizon with the likes of awe-inspiring, emerging chanteuse Baby Rose. He's in a different place now, and so naturally, the music is different. As he gears up to release his new project, Q wants to focus on his message: "Evolve and change and hope, nothing more and nothing less," he says. "Because in life, a lot can happen."