Alright listen… rising artists 2026 are honestly ruining my sleep schedule and I’m not even mad about it anymore.
I’m sitting here in my tiny overpriced Brooklyn walk-up (yes I still live in Bushwick in 2026, sue me), the radiator is making that dying-cat noise again, there’s half a cold brew sweating on my desk, and my For You page won’t stop shoving these new names in my face. Like, I’m trying to doomscroll in peace and suddenly I’m crying over a 22-year-old’s lo-fi bedroom pop set filmed on a potato iPhone. It’s embarrassing. But also beautiful. Anyway.
Here are the rising artists everyone’s actually talking about in 2026—at least in the group chats and dive-bar bathrooms I still frequent.
Why These Rising Artists 2026 Feel Different This Time
I swear every January someone on Twitter (sorry, X) screams “THIS is the year for new talent!!!” and then we all forget by March. But 2026? Something’s actually sticking.
Maybe it’s because half these kids grew up during two pandemics, three recessions, and the definitive death of the attention economy. They don’t even pretend to want the old gallery → dealer → auction pipeline anymore. They’re just… posting. And somehow the algorithm gods decided to anoint a few of them.
These images capture the chaotic energy of new-gen creators ditching the old gallery-dealer-auction pipeline for raw, direct-to-timeline virality:
Here’s who I can’t stop thinking about.
1. kai$ha (yes the dollar sign is mandatory)
First time I heard kai$ha was at 2:47 a.m. when my roommate’s boyfriend left his aux on. It’s this disgusting, gorgeous blend of chopped & screwed cloud-rap and what I can only describe as “Catholic guilt trap.” She’s 21, from South Side Chicago, records in her aunt’s basement between DoorDash shifts. Her last single “exorcism on installment” has 29 million streams and counting. The music video is literally just her crying in a Dunkin’ drive-thru while the beat goes insane.
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And a glimpse into the low-budget magic: recording in her aunt’s basement between DoorDash runs, pure DIY South Side energy:
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You can (and should) check her out here: kai$ha on SoundCloud or stalk her very chaotic Instagram.
2. Lio Mariposa
Okay real talk: I ugly-cried in the subway last week because of this person.
Lio makes these long-form, semi-improvised piano + field-recording pieces that sound like someone mourning inside a burning greenhouse. They’re non-binary, 24, grew up between Manila and Oakland, currently crashing on different friends’ couches in Bushwick (we’ve definitely shared the same laundromat). Their latest piece “wet season elegy” went semi-viral after someone stitched it with footage of the 2025 California floods.
I’ve listened to it 47 times this month. I’m not okay.
Quick listen → Lio Mariposa Bandcamp
13+ Thousand During Heavy Rain Royalty-Free Images, Stock …
3. glitch fairy (they just go by lowercase)
This is the one that makes me feel old.
glitch fairy is 19, from Atlanta, identifies as “post-human,” and makes hyperpop that sounds like if 100 gecs and Arca had a baby raised by corrupted .wav files. Their live shows are half performance art/half rave/half religious experience. Last month at Knockdown Center someone threw actual glitter bombs and the entire room smelled like burnt sugar for three days.
I went. I lost my left AirPod. Worth it.
Catch their latest chaotic drop → glitch fairy on Spotify
Quick Bonus Mentions Because My Brain Won’t Shut Up
- vesper.exe — AI-assisted visual poet from Seoul, their NFT-free digital chapbooks are somehow selling out physical zine print runs
- Jade 199X — Jersey-born drill-adjacent artist who samples 90s mall commercials and makes them sound haunted
- the last saturn baby — literally just one person and a modular synth living in a van in Joshua Tree, dropping 45-minute ambient freakouts every full moon
Look… I know this list is messy and incomplete and probably missing five people who’ll be huge by next Tuesday. That’s the point. The rising artists 2026 scene is moving so fast that by the time you finish reading this post someone else already dropped a career-defining track in a Discord server with 73 members.