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Famous FirstLady is thinking bigger than a debut. On EPIC LIFE, the recording artist, producer, entrepreneur, and cultural architect introduces a 13-track body of work built around elevation, self-belief, purpose, and creating a life on your own terms. Released February 14, 2026, EPIC LIFE moves through Hip-Hop, R&B, and Soul while establishing the philosophy behind Famous FirstLady’s growing creative universe. Rather than treating success as a finish line, the album explores what happens when ambition is paired with intention, healing, freedom, and a deeper understanding of what actually matters. That mindset is written directly into the tracklist. “THINK BIG” encourages expansion beyond perceived limitations, while “CROWN ME” turns self-worth into a declaration. “RISE” carries the project’s forward momentum, and “SEE THE WORLD” pushes its vision beyond familiar boundaries. Elsewhere, titles including “PRESSURE,” “TRUTH,” “CHOSEN,” “V.I.P.,” “STILL DIVINE,” “LAW,” and “COMPETITION” reinforce an album consistently concerned with identity, confidence, resilience, and personal evolution. Closing with “EPIC,” the record ultimately feels less interested in telling listeners what an extraordinary life should look like than encouraging them to define one for themselves. There is also a distinctly modern layer behind its creation. Famous FirstLady incorporates AI-assisted production into her process, using emerging technology as a tool guided by human creative direction. It fits naturally into an artistic identity already designed to stretch beyond traditional music and into fashion, wellness, beauty, travel, media, entrepreneurship, and cultural storytelling. That larger vision has continued beyond the album. Following releases including Heal Her and Twenty Twenty Six, Famous FirstLady returned August 8 with “Family Over Everything,” shifting the conversation toward loyalty, love, and the people who give achievement its meaning. “I want people to walk away from this release remembering that they have permission to choose elevation,” Famous FirstLady shares. With EPIC LIFE, that message comes through clearly. Think bigger, move with purpose, and make the life you’re building mean something. You describe EPIC LIFE as being about “choosing elevation.” What did elevation look like in your own life while you were creating this album? Elevation became a decision. I had already spent years building, reinventing, traveling, creating, and learning how to move through different rooms and different versions of myself. By the time I created EPIC LIFE, I wasn’t interested in proving that I could do more. I wanted to become more intentional about what deserved to come with me. That meant choosing purpose over pressure. Vision over validation. Peace over proving. I wanted the album to document that evolution because an epic life isn’t only about what you acquire or accomplish. There is an internal elevation that has to happen too. You have to become capable of carrying what you’ve been asking for. Your music moves through ambition, confidence, pressure, healing, truth, and legacy. Which song reveals the most personal side of Famous FirstLady that listeners may not have seen before? Of the music I’ve released since EPIC LIFE, “Heal Her” reveals the most personal side of me. That song is personal because I’m speaking to a younger version of myself, but I’m also speaking to women who know what it means to keep going while there are still parts of them that need care. People see Famous FirstLady, and they see confidence. They see the fashion, the travel, the vision, the ambition. And all of that is real. But so is the woman underneath it. “Heal Her” gave me space to acknowledge that strength and healing can exist at the same time. I can be proud of the woman I’ve become and still have compassion for the woman who had to become her. I think there is power in letting women see both. You incorporated AI-assisted production into EPIC LIFE. What role did AI actually play in the creative process, and where do you draw the line between technology as a tool and the human vision behind the music? I’m very comfortable with technology because I’ve never believed creativity has to be afraid of what’s next. AI is a tool in my creative process. It gives me another way to experiment, develop ideas, explore sound, and bring concepts into form. But the technology doesn’t have the vision. I do. I’m making the decisions about what Famous FirstLady means—the message, the emotion, the visual world, the sequencing, the identity, and the experience surrounding the music. That’s an important distinction for me. Every generation of creatives has been given new tools. What matters is what you do with them. Technology can expand the possibilities. It cannot replace the reason you created something in the first place. Your vision for Famous FirstLady extends into fashion, wellness, beauty, media, entrepreneurship, and technology. How do you plan to connect those worlds without allowing the music to become secondary? Because to me, they aren’t separate. Music is the heartbeat. Fashion is how you can wear the world. Beauty and wellness are about how you care for the woman living inside it. Media lets me tell larger stories. Entrepreneurship allows me to build ownership around the vision. Technology allows me to imagine what comes next. But they all come from the same woman and the same point of view. I’ve never wanted Famous FirstLady to exist inside one box. I think women are allowed to be multidimensional. We can build companies, make records, care about beauty, travel the world, love our families, embrace technology, and still have a clear identity. The goal isn’t to do everything. The goal is for everything I do to belong to the same universe. Your newly released “Family Over Everything” shifts the focus from personal elevation toward family and loyalty. Did becoming more successful change your definition of what an “epic life” actually means? Absolutely. Success will show you very quickly that having more and having meaning are not always the same thing. I love beautiful experiences. I love traveling. I love creating. I love reaching goals that once felt impossible. I’m never going to pretend those things don’t matter to me. But the more I build, the clearer I become about why I’m building. That’s where “Family Over Everything” comes from. Legacy isn’t only what has your name attached to it. It’s what changes because you were here. It’s the opportunities your family has because you created them. It’s the people you protect. The values you pass down. The memories that remain. Success expanded my life, but family gave that success somewhere to belong. An epic life isn’t just a life that looks impressive from the outside. It’s a life that still means something when you get home.

Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter and actress Joséphine steps into a world entirely her own with Welcome to the Cabaret, an eight-song album that transforms the glamour of Old Hollywood and classic cabaret into a sharp, playful exploration of modern femininity. Created in collaboration with Big Venti and recorded entirely live at Melrose Ave Studios, Welcome to the Cabaret draws from cabaret, jazz, vaudeville, and theatrical pop while exploring desire, ambition, independence, romance, sex, and the contradictions women are so often expected to resolve. Across tracks like “HoneyBee,” “Patriarchy,” “Skirt,” and “Love for Sale,” Joséphine moves between flirtation, social commentary, vulnerability, and satire without losing the theatrical personality holding the record together. “Bare Minimum” takes aim at lowered expectations in modern relationships, while the album’s opening track, “Dollhouse,” immediately establishes a world where familiar ideas surrounding femininity are ripe for interrogation. Rather than choosing between those contradictions, Joséphine embraces them. “3-in-1 Shampoo” examines the expectation that women should somehow embody every desirable quality at once, while closing track “Baby, I Just Want To Use You!” flips the traditionally male narrative surrounding casual sex and gives female desire permission to exist without an obligatory love story. The record separates itself from contemporary pop through its commitment to live instrumentation. Harp, accordion, flute, tuba, brass, and live rhythm players create a lush theatrical backdrop without relying on synths. The result feels less like an artist borrowing vintage aesthetics and more like Joséphine constructing an actual cabaret around her songwriting. Developed over approximately 20 months, Welcome to the Cabaret is cheeky and provocative without sacrificing sincerity. Joséphine understands that the real appeal of cabaret has always been what can happen beneath the glamour: satire, sexuality, exaggeration, vulnerability, and uncomfortable truths delivered with a knowing smile. With Welcome to the Cabaret, Joséphine doesn't simplify femininity to make it easier to understand. She celebrates its contradictions, turns them into spectacle, and invites listeners to take a seat for the show.

By Michael W. Nestor, Ph.D. Michael W. Nestor, Ph.D., is a neuroscientist and longtime independent musician who founded a nonprofit musicians’ cooperative and indie label in Baltimore. Indie rock band performing in front of colorful science-themed projections with atomic and molecular imagery. As AI, automation and concentrated funding reshape American research, neuroscientist and indie musician Michael W. Nestor argues that science is approaching the same rupture music faced after Napster—and that DIY culture offers a survival guide. In 2002, I was doing two things that had no business happening at the same time. I was touring in an indie rock band and starting a neuroscience PhD. I spent my days in a lab and my nights loading amps into a van, watching the bottom fall out of the record business in real time. A year later, I started a not-for-profit musicians’ cooperative and indie label in Baltimore because neither the major nor independent-label system was serving the people making the records. I have spent the twenty years since inside science. Now I am watching some of the same pressures we dealt with in early-aughts rock reach research: concentration at the top, the disappearance of the working middle, an obsession with measurable output, and technologies that lower the cost of making things while making the people who make them easier to ignore. The indie music world may also be a survival guide. The middle is always the first to go Everybody remembers Napster as the thing that killed the record industry. That is not quite what happened. The superstars were generally fine. The major labels shrank, merged, and survived. What largely disappeared was the middle, the working musician who could fill a 500-seat room, sell a few thousand records, and build a life without becoming famous. People kept making music, but the support system around working bands was thinning out, record stores, distributors, local press, modest guarantees, and the record sales that helped pay for the next tour. By the time streaming became dominant, listeners had access to more music than ever while most musicians were earning less and less from their tours and their recordings. What I recognize in the current American scientific moment is that same loss of a viable middle. In research, there are still stars with enormous labs and institutions built to keep winning, just as there are still musicians selling out arenas. But the path to becoming a working scientist with a lab of one’s own has narrowed. The average researcher now receives a first major independent grant at around 43, compared with about 35 in 1980, while roughly 10 percent of funded researchers receive 40 percent of the money. Music still has its stars, and science still has its star labs. What both are losing is the working middle beneath them. It is the K-shaped economy manifest in both. Loud, louder, loudest You already know the loudness wars, even if you never called them that. Since the early 1990s, records kept getting mastered louder because louder tracks cut through more easily on radio and in record-store listening stations. The tradeoff was less dynamic range and flatter-sounding records. My band did it too. In 2007, we released an album mastered at a higher loudness level than what we were comfortable with because that was the standard we were working inside. Later, we released a second version with the dynamic range restored to what we originally intended for the record. That record got caught up in and became part of a national conversation about the loudness wars. It was my introduction to the real influence the digital domain could have on the analog one outside of the standard arguments around the use of autotune or plugins for recording. When streaming became the main way people heard music, the pressure moved beyond mastering. Artists had to think about plays, skips, playlist placement, song length, and release frequency. Those numbers began influencing the songs themselves, in how quickly the vocal entered, where the hook appeared, and how long the track ran. These are versions of what economists call “Goodhart’s Law.” Once a measure becomes a target, people start changing the work to improve the number. Science has built a similar system, much of it under the banner of metascience. In trying to measure scientific performance, the field has elevated citations, impact factors, publication totals, grant dollars, and institutional rankings. Those numbers were supposed to describe research. They have increasingly determined what gets funded, published, and rewarded. Then came AI AI and automation are usually discussed as a science and technology story. They are already a music story too. In science, automated laboratories can run experiments around the clock, while machine-learning systems search huge datasets and propose compounds or hypotheses. A small group may soon be able to do work that once required a major institution. Music has heard this promise before. Digital recording and file sharing lowered barriers, but a few centralized platforms emerged to control discovery. Almost anyone could release a song, leaving every musician to compete with millions of others. Generative AI pushes this further by making nearly unlimited music available at almost no cost. Science faces the same risk: automated labs and AI-generated hypotheses may produce more research without making it easier to tell what matters. AI can make songs but it cannot create the bands, venues, labels, writers, and listeners that turn those songs into a scene. Automated labs can run experiments, but scientists still have to decide which questions are worth asking. In both fields, production is becoming cheap. Judgment, creativity, and passion are priceless. The money behind both systems Underneath both stories is a problem of time. Labels once expected some bands to take two or three records to break. As the business focused more on immediate returns, regional scenes, unusual records, and artists who grew slowly were the first to lose support. Science is under similar pressure. Long-term research is difficult to finance because the payoff may be uncertain and many years away. Low interest rates made that easier after 2008, especially in biotechnology and other speculative fields. With capital now more expensive, investors are narrowing what they will fund and for how long. Federal research policy is also moving toward milestones, portfolio reviews, shorter funding periods, and the ability to end projects when priorities change. Those tools may be useful for some applied research. The risk comes when they are used for work that cannot show value on that schedule. Both systems narrow the window available to every artist or research program to show impact and force each into a game where each must prove itself early. Bands get less time to develop, and scientists move toward projects that can produce a result before the next review, increasing the temptation to cut corners or dismiss potentially transformative work as “too early.” Music has already shown what follows: fewer strange bets, weaker scenes, and more work designed around what the system will reward quickly, with the audience losing out on real art. What we DIY basement kids figured out early What survived the collapse of the old record business? The bands and labels that had already learned to work outside it. Labels ran out of apartments and group houses, mine included. Artists pressed their own records, booked tours, traded shows, held onto their masters, and built direct relationships with listeners. That DIY infrastructure still exists, although artists now carry much more of the cost themselves. DIY meant taking on work the industry used to do. It was exhausting, but it also gave artists more control over the records, the audience, and the institutions they built around them. Science now has its own versions: open-source tools, shared facilities, remote laboratories, preprints, independent research organizations, and direct public communication. AI and automation could make those alternatives more viable. But music offers a warning. Musicians gained cheap recording and global distribution, then discovered that the platforms controlling attention had become more powerful than many of the labels they replaced. Science could follow the same path. Researchers may gain powerful models and automated labs while becoming dependent on the companies that own the compute, datasets, and infrastructure. Better tools will not mean independence if researchers must give up control to use them. Two scenes, one fight From the inside, music and science look less different than they do from a distance. Both spend years making things whose value may not be clear at first. Both rely on communities and institutions willing to support work before anyone knows whether it will succeed. And in both, new technology keeps getting sold as progress while it gets harder for the people doing the work to stay in the fight. The indie scene learned that cheaper recording and easier distribution did not make the business fairer. It mostly moved the gatekeepers somewhere else. I would like to see working musicians and scientists brought into the same room, not as a gimmick, but to compare what is happening to their work. Label founders who built direct relationships with listeners have something to teach researchers trying to work outside the grant system. Scientists building shared laboratories and open tools may have something to offer musicians confronting AI and another flood of nearly free content. Science may be approaching the kind of break music went through at the turn of the century. AI, laboratory automation, concentrated funding, rising costs, and declining trust are not separate problems. Together, they are changing who can do the work and on what terms. Napster did not end music. It made music easier to distribute while hollowing out the part of the business that allowed working bands to survive. We are still trying to rebuild that middle. Science could end up with more papers, more data, and wider access while leaving fewer people able to build a career doing research. That is the Napster moment science should fear: a flood of research produced by a system increasingly unable to sustain the people doing it. What happens to American science matters to music because both require a country willing to support work before its value is obvious. The country that stops making room for uncertain science will not keep making room for uncertain music. Anyone still trying to make a record, build a scene, or keep a band going should recognize the warning. American science should too: once the middle is gone, you can keep counting outputs for a while, but the next generation of discovery has already been cut off. Indie music has already shown American science what a country loses when the people in the middle can no longer afford to keep betting years of their lives on something that might matter.

Being an independent artist means you're rarely just making music. You're promoting it, pitching it, posting content, answering emails, planning releases, booking shows, watching analytics, networking, and somehow trying to remain creative through all of it. The pressure to constantly be doing something can make burnout feel like part of the job description. It shouldn't be. Building a sustainable music career also means learning when to close the laptop, ignore the numbers, and remember you're a human being before you're a brand. Here are 15 self-care reminders independent artists really need to hear. 1. Stop checking your streaming numbers every five minutes Refreshing Spotify for Artists isn't promotion. Analytics are valuable when you're using them to understand your audience, evaluate campaigns, or make decisions. Obsessively watching numbers move up and down accomplishes very little besides tying your mood to a dashboard. Check the data. Learn from it. Close the app. 2. Take the day off before your body forces you to Burnout isn't proof that you're more committed than everybody else. Creativity requires energy, and constantly operating on empty eventually affects your writing, performances, relationships, and decision-making. Rest isn't something you earn after destroying yourself. 3. Stop turning every experience into content Artists are constantly told to document everything. But not every rehearsal, vacation, dinner, bad day, or private moment needs to become part of your content calendar. Having a life outside your audience isn't bad marketing. It's called having boundaries. 4. Mute the artist who makes you feel like shit You can genuinely support another artist and still recognize that watching their every accomplishment isn't good for you. If someone's feed constantly leaves you feeling unsuccessful, behind, or inadequate, mute them. They'll survive. So will you. 5. Stop using someone else's career as your deadline One artist gets signed at 19. Another doesn't release their breakthrough project until their 30s or 40s. There is no universal age when you're supposed to tour, hit a million streams, get management, sign a deal, or make music your full-time career. Someone else's timeline tells you almost nothing about yours. 6. Your inbox does not need 24/7 access to you Being professional doesn't mean being permanently available. Not every email deserves an immediate response, and that Sunday afternoon DM probably isn't an emergency. Establishing boundaries around your time can make you better at your job because you're not constantly mentally clocked in. 7. Actually celebrate your wins Artists are incredible at begging the universe for an opportunity and then immediately minimizing it once it happens. You wanted the press feature. You wanted 100K streams. You wanted the festival booking. You wanted people singing the lyrics back to you. Take the win before moving the goalpost again. 8. Stop calling chronic exhaustion “the grind” There is nothing particularly glamorous about surviving on four hours of sleep, forgetting to eat, and working seven days a week. Hard work matters. So does sustainability. If your version of ambition requires destroying your physical and mental energy indefinitely, something about the strategy needs to change. 9. Have friends who don't care about your monthly listeners Spend time with people who knew you before the latest release and couldn't tell you your Spotify numbers if their lives depended on it. Your entire identity cannot rest on whether music is going well this month. Relationships outside the industry can provide some much-needed perspective when career problems start feeling like life problems. 10. Remember that social media is everyone else's highlight reel You're seeing the signing announcement, not the years of rejection. You're seeing the packed show, not the empty rooms that came before it. You're seeing the playlist placement, not the 40 pitches that went unanswered. Comparing your entire behind-the-scenes reality to someone else's carefully selected career highlights will mess with your perception quickly. 11. Rejection isn't automatically a review of your talent Sometimes your music needs work. That's worth acknowledging. But sometimes a publication doesn't have space. A festival receives thousands of applications. A playlist needs something different. A label isn't looking for your genre. Learn from legitimate criticism without treating every “no” like definitive proof that you aren't talented enough. 12. Delete something from your to-do list Independent artists are expected to function as musicians, content creators, marketers, publicists, designers, booking agents, accountants, and small-business owners. You physically cannot treat every task like it's equally important. Figure out what genuinely moves your career forward and get comfortable letting some of the other noise wait. 13. Make music you're excited about, not just music you think will perform Algorithms change. Trends die. Sounds get oversaturated ridiculously quickly. Paying attention to your audience and the market is smart. Allowing those things to dictate every creative decision can leave you with music engineered for a moment rather than a catalog that actually sounds like you. 14. Remember that you're a person before you're a brand Branding matters. Losing your entire personality to branding doesn't. You can have hobbies nobody sees. You can protect relationships from social media. You can change your aesthetic. You can take a weekend off without announcing a “social media hiatus.” Not everything about you needs to be packaged for public consumption. 15. Do absolutely nothing productive sometimes No networking. No pitching. No posting. No songwriting because you feel guilty. And definitely no “I'll just answer this one email.” Take the afternoon. Take Sunday. Go somewhere. See your friends. Watch something terrible. Sleep. The music industry has a remarkable ability to convince independent artists that somebody else will take their place the second they stop working. Building a career takes consistency, but consistency and constant availability aren't the same thing. Your career should be something you're capable of sustaining for years, not something you survive for six months before completely burning out. Sometimes the most productive thing you can do for your music career is absolutely nothing.

Some songs begin with a melody. Others begin with a story. For Crispin Brooks, "Run Away" started as a vivid cinematic scene. That visual-first mindset gives the collaboration with Shara Vallee and Willo a personality that extends well beyond its infectious dance beat. Blending EDM, soul, and Caribbean pop influences, "Run Away" is built for summer playlists while offering enough heart to keep listeners invested from beginning to end. Willo's polished production provides an uplifting four-on-the-floor groove, while Shara Vallee delivers a warm, expressive vocal performance that effortlessly carries the song's romantic energy. Together, they create a track that feels equally at home on the dance floor and during a sunset drive along the coast. Brooks' songwriting is deeply rooted in storytelling, and that strength shines throughout the accompanying music video. Rather than following the predictable wedding-crasher formula, the visual flips expectations with a playful twist that keeps viewers engaged until the final scene. Filmed across picturesque locations in Anguilla, sweeping drone shots and vibrant outdoor settings reinforce the themes of freedom, love, and choosing your own path. What makes "Run Away" stand out is its seamless fusion of influences. Brooks draws from reggae, soca, dancehall, zouk, house, pop, and R&B without allowing any single genre to dominate. Instead, the collaboration finds its own identity by embracing the rhythm and warmth of Caribbean music while maintaining the accessibility of modern dance-pop. As the first release under Brooks' new media venture, The Dream Jungle, "Run Away" feels like more than a standalone single. It serves as an exciting introduction to an artist whose passion for music, visuals, and storytelling continues to shape every project he brings to life. “Run Away” began as a visual before it became a song. How did that storytelling approach influence both the music and the final video? I tend to write visually first. A lot of times when I hear a beat, I start seeing scenes in my head before I even know exactly what the song is going to be about. When Willo sent me the beat for “Runaway,” I kept listening to it over and over, and I could see something outdoors, something romantic, and eventually this whole wedding scenario started forming in my head. Shara’s character in the song and music video had to be dominant, I thought to myself. Then the hook came, “Run, run away, run, run away, have no fear, I’ll be there.” Once I had that visual, it really helped me write the rest of the song because I was essentially writing a story. When it came time to do the video, we were able to take that original idea and expand it into something much more cinematic. I love film and television, so I never wanted the video to simply be people performing the song to camera. I wanted characters, drama, and emotion. In a way, the video is probably the closest representation of what was in my head when I first started writing the record. Your backgrounds span everything from journalism and filmmaking to artist development. How have those experiences shaped the way you create music today? I think all of those things have somehow found their way into how I approach music. Journalism taught me to pay attention to people, stories, and details. Film taught me to think visually and to understand that sometimes what you see can be just as important as what you hear. Artist development taught me that a great song is important, but there is an entire world that has to exist around the artist and the music. I also spent years working with other artists and helping to develop their ideas, so I think I learned a lot from being behind the scenes. Now that I am releasing music under my own name, I am able to bring all of those experiences together. I don't necessarily see myself as just a songwriter or producer. I look at the song, the video, the artwork, the story, and the way everything is presented as pieces of the same creative project. Shara, your performance brings so much emotion to the track while also stepping into a character in the video. What was that experience like for you? Answer from Shara Vallée:“Playing the role of the “other bride” was one of my favorite parts of the entire project. I really enjoyed stepping into that character because it felt like I was acting in a movie rather than simply filming a music video. It allowed me to express emotions and to tell the story in a way that felt authentic and cinematic. Most of my music is about love, partying, and living life, so this time it was actually fun getting to play the bad guy! It was a nice change to step into a completely different role and explore a side of storytelling I don’t usually get to show. As an artist, I love creating moments that make people feel something, and bringing that character to life made the song and video even more meaningful.” The song blends Caribbean influences with EDM and soul in a very natural way. How did you strike the balance between honoring your roots and creating something globally accessible? I don't think we consciously sat down and said that we needed a certain percentage of Caribbean music, EDM or soul. It happened pretty naturally. Willo and I are both from the Caribbean, and Shara is a Caribbean artist, so that influence is going to be there whether we intentionally put it there or not. At the same time, I grew up listening to music from everywhere. Pop, dance music, R&B, reggae, soca, rock, house music, all of that has influenced me. I also don't believe Caribbean artists or producers have to make music that fits neatly into one particular box. We can bring our culture and our perspective into records that can live anywhere in the world. That is really a huge part of what I want to do with The Dream Jungle. I want to make music that still feels like it came from us, but doesn't have geographical boundaries placed around it. With The Dream Jungle entering a new chapter, what kind of stories and creative projects can listeners expect from you next? The Dream Jungle is really about giving me a home for all of the different things I love creatively. Music is a major part of it, but it is not the only part. I have spent years writing songs, developing film and television ideas, writing scripts, and working on different creative projects, and now I am at a point where I actually want to put more of those things into the world. Musically, I have a pretty large catalog of songs I have written over the years, and I'm constantly creating new material. You can expect more collaborations, different vocalists, and records that move between dance, pop, Caribbean music, and other genres in the dance music/ EDM space. I don't want every release to sound like “Runaway.” I want people to eventually hear a song and understand that the common thread is the storytelling and the feeling behind it. Beyond music, there are film and television projects that I have been developing as well as my podcast Planet Thirty. Ultimately, I want The Dream Jungle to be a place where all of those worlds can coexist. That is really where the name comes from. I have a lot of ideas running around in my head, sometimes probably too many (LOL), and The Dream Jungle gives me a place to let them run wild.

Brazilian-born, Vancouver-based musician Ray Azevedo, also known as Raz, is turning an unforgettable night in Montreal into something louder with his alternative and hard rock track “20 Joints,” released in collaboration with BRUTAX. A session drummer, arranger, and musician with more than two decades of experience, Azevedo brings together the influences that have shaped his career, from heavy rock and groove to Brazilian rhythms. “20 Joints” puts that versatility front and center, building its identity around a rhythmic approach that refuses to make heavy music feel predictable. Inspired by a night filled with people, chaos, laughs, and unpredictable moments, the track is ultimately about being fully present. Rather than overthinking what comes next, Azevedo captures the feeling of letting go and embracing the kind of experiences that eventually become stories you keep telling. Musically, “20 Joints” hits hard while leaving plenty of room for movement. A strong half-time shuffle pocket gives the track its foundation, while dynamic shifts and touches of Brazilian percussion add character beyond the traditional hard-rock formula. Azevedo’s drumming isn’t simply keeping time here. It becomes one of the song’s defining voices, balancing power with feel and rhythmic unpredictability. That approach reflects a musician who has spent years behind the kit learning that heaviness doesn’t have to mean sacrificing groove. There’s personality in the track’s rhythmic choices, giving “20 Joints” an energy that feels loose enough to capture the chaos behind its inspiration while remaining sharply controlled. For Azevedo, the goal is straightforward: turn it up and have fun. “20 Joints” makes that invitation pretty difficult to ignore. You’ve spent more than 20 years as a drummer and arranger. What did you want “20 Joints” to reveal about you as an artist that people might not hear in your session work? “20 Joints” groove is about my instinct and my love for blending different influences into a sound that reflects my personality. “20 Joints” was inspired by an unforgettable night in Montreal. What happened that night that made you realize there was a song in the experience? I wasn’t there that night, but the story became a starting point for the composition. I just got involved in translating the energy into the groove and arrangement of the track. The track combines heavy rock with a half-time shuffle and Brazilian percussion. How did you find the balance between those different rhythmic worlds without losing the song’s raw energy? I think it was mostly about letting the groove tell a bit of the story too. I remember feeling something laid-back and fun in the story/arrangement so I played the shuffle for the verse, then the straight kick and snare with some funk swing on the ride cymbal for the choruses. They enjoyed it. The Brazilian percussion came along naturally and added another layer without taking away from the energy. Drummers are often expected to support a song rather than define it, but rhythm feels central to the identity of “20 Joints.” How do you approach making the drums part of the storytelling? I think grooves can change the way we feel a song. For me, it’s not just about what we play, but also how we want the whole thing to feel. Growing up in Rio de Janeiro and now creating music in Vancouver, how have those two environments shaped your musical instincts, and where do you want to take your sound next? Moving to Vancouver actually brought me closer to Brazilian rhythms, West African and Latin grooves. Working as a session drummer, I’ve had the opportunity to work on different projects and styles, and it made me want to dig deeper into my own culture. I really enjoy bringing the Brazilian elements into different musical worlds. I’d like to keep exploring that and see where it takes me.

Italian-born, Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter Prima Apollinaare has released 23, a four-track EP that finds the independent artist turning some of her most personal memories into music. Following 2021’s Songs EP, 2023’s Alignment, and her 2024 album 22, the project marks a more autobiographical chapter in Apollinaare’s evolving pop catalog. Her path to music has hardly been conventional. Growing up in Monza, Italy, Apollinaare was surrounded by entertainment through her singer-songwriter mother and father, who managed performers, yet she was discouraged from pursuing music herself. After leaving Italy and building a new life in Los Angeles, including an acting career with appearances in Carnival Row and Mozart in the Jungle, she eventually returned to the creative ambition she had put aside. That history sits at the heart of 23. “Didn’t Look Back” revisits the childhood experience of being dropped off at boarding school, transforming the image of watching someone leave without turning around into an emotional exploration of abandonment and memory. “Automobile” pulls from another formative experience, recalling trips to the Monza racetrack with her father and the childhood collision of speed, glamour, danger, and fear. Rather than simply retelling these moments, Apollinaare uses them as emotional building blocks, allowing the distance of adulthood to reshape their meaning. For Apollinaare, music has become both an act of reclamation and a way of processing the past. That purpose extends beyond her own career, with the artist ultimately hoping to establish a free music school for children and others unable to afford lessons. With 23, Apollinaare isn't erasing where she came from. She's finally giving those memories somewhere to live. Your journey into music happened later than you originally wanted. How has reclaiming that dream as an adult changed the kind of artist and songwriter you’ve become? It didn’t change me; it simply shaped me into the musician I am today. I had to work hard and learn. Music is a serious craft, and I just put my heart into it. “Didn’t Look Back” revisits the experience of being left at boarding school as a child. What made you feel ready to turn such a specific and painful memory into a song? I have forgiven my father, and therefore I wrote a song to release my pain. “Automobile” takes a completely different childhood memory and examines it through an adult perspective. Has creating 23 changed the way you understand your own past? No, it has not changed the way I understand my own past. It simply encouraged me to write about it and release it. You’ve described music as something sacred and deeply connected to healing. When you’re writing, where is the line between processing something privately and deciding you’re ready to share it publicly? I go by the way I feel in the moment. I don’t decide anything. Whatever I feel in a particular moment when I am in the studio, I write. I like to live in the moment and be present with what I feel. It’s energy and flow for me, not plotting or premeditation. Your long-term vision includes opening a free music school for people who might otherwise be excluded from music education. How much of that dream is connected to giving others the opportunity you wish you had growing up? Not being able to live your dreams when your heart and soul are calling is extremely difficult. Therefore, opening a music school for people who dream of being musicians and, for whatever reason, cannot is all connected and equally important for me to achieve. Can you imagine living a life that you don’t want to?

Vancouver-based artist Alexandria Maillot has released “Cherry Pit,” the latest single from their forthcoming album Cryptomnesia. Blending baroque alt-pop with dream pop, indietronica, psychedelia, and alternative R&B, the new track offers another look into Maillot’s signature “swoon rock” sound. Raised on Vancouver Island and now based in Vancouver, Maillot has spent years building a catalog rooted in immersive songwriting and cinematic production. On “Cherry Pit,” that approach becomes particularly introspective as they examine the memories and emotions that remain long after a relationship, chapter, or former version of ourselves has ended. The song’s central metaphor is deceptively simple. Like the pit left behind after eating a cherry, certain memories remain even after the sweetness surrounding them is gone. Maillot doesn’t attempt to package that experience into a clean story of heartbreak and healing. Instead, “Cherry Pit” sits comfortably within the contradiction, exploring how nostalgia can simultaneously comfort us and reopen old wounds. Lush synths and hypnotic grooves create a dreamlike backdrop for Maillot’s gritted, nuanced vocals, allowing the production to feel expansive without overpowering the song’s emotional core. There’s an almost cinematic quality to the track, making its reflections on love, loss, vulnerability, and growth feel bigger with every listen. “Cherry Pit” continues an already notable run for Maillot, whose music has received support from CBC Music and SiriusXM and appeared in productions from Netflix, Fox/Hulu, MTV, Hallmark, and Syfy. They were also nominated for Breakout Artist of the Year at the 2020 Western Canadian Music Awards. With Cryptomnesia on the horizon, “Cherry Pit” suggests Maillot is entering one of their most experimental and emotionally compelling chapters yet. What drew you to the idea of memory as the emotional foundation for “Cherry Pit”? Cherry Pit came when I was working through a pretty difficult time in my life. Much like looking back on a memory, your body doesn't always know where to place it. Your relationship to a memory can change over time, like how an embarrassing moment can lighten into a funny recollection or a harrowing event can become an impressive anecdote dished out at dinner parties. Some memories fade entirely while others stick to you like dried spackle bubbling under paint. Cherry Pit is very much about the pit in your stomach that grows after experiencing a type of hurt that takes years of distance to heal from, and the various methods one attempts to stop the bleed in the interim. The song explores nostalgia as something that can be both comforting and painful. How did you translate that tension into the songwriting and production? Tension is something I always look at exploring in a song, largely in pursuit of a release that feels earned. I always imagine a song as if I am casting a fishing lure into the water; There is a moment of calm, and then suddenly, there's a tugging. In that moment, your senses are activated, and you become ever present in the world. The role of tension in music is much like the pulling on a fishing rod from something alive on the end of its hook. The tension and the release, the strike and the catch, it all feels a bit like a dance. One of my favorite songs that plays with tension in an incredibly impactful way is Lark by Angel Olsen. "To forget you is to hide / There  is still so much left to recover." The strings ebb and flow throughout, tension and release over and over until it culminates in a massive crescendo, with strings that feel like water splashing ferociously. By the end of the song, my cheeks are rarely ever dry. It's a beautiful song about grief and loss and heartache, all told from a very thoughtful and unassuming place. The choreography of it all is achingly perfect. “Cherry Pit” blends dream pop, psychedelia, indietronica, and R&B. How has your approach to genre evolved while creating Cryptomnesia? The album is a bit of a vegetable medley in that it leans into all of those elements in more defined ways, whereas on previous albums, I felt an internalized pressure to pick a single genre and make it the focal lens. To continue with the food analogy, previous releases have felt like the ingredients were puréed, like a tomato bisque. Whereas, for Cryptomnesia, the ingredients are more roughly chopped, like a minestrone... Now I'm hungry. You’ve described your sound as “swoon rock.” What does that term mean to you, and how does “Cherry Pit” represent where that sound is heading? Swoon Rock for me means the music has dynamic elements and heightened emotional moments. Catharsis is a key component, which translates to less compression and more headroom in the mix to allow for the song to have a dynamic arc. Story is important, which I often find comes out observational and rooted in curiosity over anything particularly certain, even if the music sounds to be of a strong conviction. As a genre, I think it describes the emotional stakes of a song and the cinematic elements that complement its narrative. As “Cherry Pit” introduces listeners further into the world of Cryptomnesia, what can we expect from the album that we haven’t heard from you before? This is the first album where I’ve sat in the producer’s seat for a number of the songs, as well as in the engineer’s chair. You can expect to hear my slightly-above-sub-par drumming on a track or two, my partner Daniel’s journey learning to play a pocket trumpet, and possibly a couple of expletives buried deep within the mix to convey the technological woes one experiences when producing an album out of their small home studio to keep the whole thing feeling immersive.

After years of releasing singles and building momentum, Los Angeles indie pop artist Tess Clare is making her boldest statement yet with her debut album, Diva 98. More than just a collection of songs, the 13-track project serves as a declaration of self-belief, chronicling the complicated journey of embracing confidence in a world that constantly encourages self-doubt. Created during a period of creative frustration and personal uncertainty, DIVA 98 represents the moment Clare stopped waiting for permission to make the album she had always envisioned. Instead of chasing external validation, she leaned into authenticity, crafting a cinematic indie pop record that transforms vulnerability into strength. Drawing inspiration from artists including Charli XCX, Lorde, Caroline Polachek, Prince, and Tracy Chapman, the album blends theatrical production with intimate songwriting. Across tracks like "Hourglass," "Hit List," "It Girl," and the title track "Diva," Clare explores ambition, identity, insecurity, relationships, and the desire to become the fullest version of herself. Already boasting more than two million global streams and recognition from Spotify, Apple Music, the GRAMMYs, and Live Nation's Ones To Watch, Tess Clare enters this new chapter with unmistakable confidence. Diva 98 isn't simply an introduction; it's the arrival of an artist fully embracing her voice and inviting listeners to do the same. You describe DIVA 98 as the moment you stopped waiting for permission to make the album you always wanted. What was the turning point that gave you the confidence to take that leap? Making this album saved me from burnout. I was at a point where I had been releasing music for years, but I had somewhat lost the freedom of making music just for the love of it. I was way too concerned with external validation. This album allowed me the time to slow down and really enjoy the process and the art of writing songs, both alone and with a wonderful, evolving group of co-writers. It was truly liberating and helped me to focus and not worry so much about where I was in terms of the music industry's standards of numbers. The title "Diva" has followed you since childhood, but you've completely redefined what that word means. How has your relationship with that label evolved over the years? The label “diva” has evolved for me over the years as I’ve shifted into the woman I am today. When I was younger, I was called a diva when I was too loud or too confident. Said as a way to embarrass me, the word made me angry. Later on, my high school class gave me the superlative “biggest diva.” At this point, my sense of self was more solidified, and to me, I took this as a compliment, indicating that people truly saw me. Now, I wear the label with pride and have even made it my Instagram handle. The album balances vulnerability with theatricality. How do you decide when to reveal the most personal parts of yourself versus creating a larger-than-life character through your music? To me, theatricality and vulnerability go hand in hand. My favorite artists beautifully portray this duality. In their work and in their lives, they understand that to have highs, you must have lows, and to understand light, you need to experience the dark. I think there’s something freeing in outwardly expressing my life experiences and performing a full, authentic range of vulnerable, raw feelings. You've cited influences ranging from Charli XCX and Lorde to Prince and Tracy Chapman. Which artists had the biggest impact on DIVA 98, and how did you make those inspirations feel uniquely your own? Charli XCX and Prince. The throughline with both of these artists is how their craft isn’t just writing and performing a collection of good music, but the sonic and visual worlds they have both designed within their artist projects. My favorite kind of artists, especially when it comes to making an album, are the ones who go beyond the art of writing and singing and imagine their own alternate reality and ego to draw in others. Neither let commercial success control them. After achieving playlist support, millions of streams, and sharing stages with artists like Billie Eilish and The 1975, what does success look like to you now that your debut album is finally complete? Success is such a funny concept because when you put my career in terms of millions of streams and having played a festival with well-established musicians, it seems like “I made it.” However, I still feel like I have so much to build and grow upon when finding my community of people with whom my music resonates. I still aspire to tour my music to cities all over the country and world, be able to do music as my full-time job, collaborate with other creatives who I look up to/ am inspired by… To quote myself, I’m “never gonna not want more.” Accepting that reality is the closest I come to being at peace with an insatiable hunger for what’s to come.

If you love music, you already know the right song can change your whole mood. A bad day softens. Suddenly, your workout seems doable. But the surprising part is that this same power works its magic when you’re gambling, too. Researchers have spent years digging into the details, studying how everything from tempo to nostalgia to the artist blaring through your headphones can sway your decisions at the tables, way more than most players grasp. Your brain on a beat Turns out, music and gambling light up the same circuits in your brain. Hit a win, get close to one, or even just anticipate a slot spin, your reward pathway fires up. Music sets off those same sparks. That overlap isn’t an accident, and it explains why gambling designers lean so hard on sound. Casinos, whether brick-and-mortar or dotted across the internet, have known this for ages. It’s why slot machines never sit quietly in the corner. Silence just doesn’t bring in bets. Online casinos turn up the volume Physical casinos have been fine-tuning their soundtracks for years, but online gambling houses have arguably taken it further. Every move is tracked digitally, every soundtrack is tailored or tweaked. A 2025 survey by Digital Gambling Insights found 93% of online casinos now use adaptive audio that shifts based on what you’re doing in real time. Hit a cold streak, and you’ll hear one kind of music. Start winning, and it switches, but you probably won’t even notice the change. The whole gambling industry is tuned into this now. Take sites like Betway.co.za; they mix sports betting with all sorts of casino games, virtual sports and local offers, especially for players in South Africa. On sites like these, the audio isn’t an afterthought. Every track, jingle, and ambient loop is purposefully chosen, part of the same design playbook researchers have studied for years. Tempo trickery If you pay attention to beats-per-minute, this gets even more interesting. Old lab studies already showed that fast music makes people bet faster, while slower tunes keep them playing, stretching out their time at the table and gradually stacking up smaller bets. And that’s just the start. A study in the Journal of Gambling Studies looked even closer. It found that shifting tempo mid-game can actually steer both how quickly you bet and how much risk you’ll swallow. A track that starts steady and slowly speeds up isn’t just building dramatic tension; it’s actively nudging your decisions while you play. Losing track of time Anyone who’s stumbled out of a casino into the darkness outside, totally shocked at how late it is, knows this feeling. And sound is a big reason why you lose all sense of time. A March 2025 study from the University of Nevada put players in rooms with carefully engineered audio backgrounds. On average, those gamblers thought they’d been playing for 35% less time than they actually were. No clocks, no daylight, and a custom-built soundscape can shrink a half-hour into ten minutes in your mind, and that really matters if you’re trying to stick to a limit. Your favorite song betrays you This one stings a bit if you love music. It’s not just about the tempo; it actually comes down to which song is playing. Researchers Halko and Kaustia found that people take bigger bets when they really like the background song. If it’s a tune they hate, they suddenly get cautious, pulling back. That might be part of why announcements about big artists make such a stir. When Drake was set to headline all three nights of Wireless 2025, lots of fans pointed out how his confident, larger-than-life tracks just make you want to go big on decisions, and that includes gambling. It’s a small example, but it really shows how an artist’s whole vibe can keep nudging your choices long after the song ends. It runs deeper than just mood, though. A 2025 study in Frontiers in Psychology tracked how emotion from music shifts money decisions. They found your mindset while listening is even more important than tempo or genre. And if you’re stressed, it gets trickier. Previous research on music and cortisol proves sound changes your physical state, and when your nerves are shot, your risk judgment takes a hit. Music is the foundation It’s not that music’s out to get you. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying a killer playlist that boosts your confidence while you spin a few reels. But research makes one thing clear: Sound isn’t just background noise. It’s a real factor shaping your choices, speeding up your bets, making risks seem reasonable, and warping your sense of time. If you love music, that’s worth keeping in mind.