JAMES MARRIOTT
Thursday on the Festival Republic StageThursdayTBA
KEN CARSON
BBC Radio 1Xtra StageSundayTBA
In the Summer of 2021, Ken Carson released his full-length debut Project X, which marked a turning point in his career. For years, the Atlanta native sharpened his skills in melodic rap, culminating in a deal with Playboi Carti’s OPIUM Records/Interscope in 2019. However, Ken has evolved rapidly in the past year and is testing new waters as he readies his next project. Having made music since he was 13, the Atlanta native eventually cut his first track Geeked Up, which showed his promise as a burgeoning young act. In 2018 Ken began his talks with Playboi Carti, inking a deal with Carti’s OPIUM Records in 2019. As the pandemic raged into 2020, Ken took it as an opportunity to up the ante, releasing a series of EP’s, including Boy
Barbie, Lost Files and Teen X, the latter of which featured “Yale,” which cracked 13.5 million streams on Spotify alone. Ken kept the momentum going into 2021, re-upping Teen X with Teen X: Relapsed, Lost Files 2, and his critically acclaimed debut album Project X, marking a gradual shift in Ken’s sound, tempering his signature melodic rap delivery with more lyrically driven songs that centered around storytelling. The album’s lead single Rock N Roll continues to make its rounds, as the music video is an electrifying psychedelic trip, complete with vivid animations and out of body experiences. Ken is hard at work on his follow-up project, which he promises to pack with more experimentation, more evolution, and a chance to keep growing with his fans.
THE KILLERS
Main Stage EastSundayTBA
The Killers are a Las Vegas-based four-piece who formed in 2003, featuring the talents of singer/keyboardist Brandon Flowers, drummer Ronnie Vannucci, guitarist Dave Keuning and bassist Mark Stoermer. The band has received countless accolades for their artistic achievement, including multiple Grammy nominations, American Music Award nominations, MTV Video Music Awards, NME Awards and more. Their first album, Hot Fuss, was released in 2004 to worldwide acclaim. The album contained the singles “Mr. Brightside” and “Somebody Told Me,” in addition to the anthemic song “All These Things That I’ve Done,” which has since been referenced by the likes of U2. The band toured for two years straight behind Hot Fuss, playing more than four-hundred shows, and eventually returned to Vegas to begin to work on the follow-up album with legendary producers Alan Moulder and Flood. The result, a love letter of sorts to their hometown entitled Sam’s Town, was released in 2006 and spent forty-two weeks on the Billboard Top 200. A b-sides collection entitled Sawdust was released in 2007, followed by their third studio album, Day & Age, which was released to widespread critical praise in 2008, anchored by massive single “Human.” The Killers released Battle Born in September 2012, which saw them expanding their world tour into countries they’ve never visited before, and finally were honored to perform at the world-renowned Wembley Stadium, one of the most monumental and significant shows of their career. After a decade of making music, in November 2013, The Killers released a “Best Of” collection, Direct Hits, which featured two incredible new songs alongside classics from the band’s revered catalogue. The band, who have sold over twenty-five million albums worldwide, and headlined all of the world’s top festivals (Coachella, Lollapalooza, Glastonbury), released their chart-topping album, Wonderful Wonderful, in September 2017. It garnered the band their first No. 1 on the Billboard Top 200 chart the week of its release in the U.S., as well as topping the charts in the U.K., Mexico, and Australia. In 2020, The Killers released Imploding The Mirage in 2020; hailed by critics as one of the best records in the band’s already stellar catalog, the album was the band’s sixth consecutive number one in the U.K., and Brandon Flowers’ eighth U.K. number one overall, making the band the first international act to receive six consecutive #1’s in the United Kingdom. Imploding The Mirage also went Top 10 on the Billboard Top 200 album chart, making it their sixth Top Ten album in America. In 2021, The Killers released their eight album, Pressure Machine, a quieter, character-driven document of life in small town America inspired by frontman Brandon Flowers’ upbringing in rural Utah. In 2022, they embarked on their largest, sold out tour to date, playing stadiums in North America and beyond.
BICEP LIVE
Main Stage WestSaturdayTBA
HOLLY HUMBERSTONE
Main Stage EastSundayTBA
Holly remembers watching the BRITs at home with her parents every year, and being totally awestruck by the artists coming together. It felt like another universe. Now Holly has been named the BRITs Rising Star 2022, picked by the BRIT Awards and hundreds of tastemakers as the next big artist to come out of the UK, with previous winners including global superstars Adele, Sam Smith and Florence + The Machine. Being nominated for the songs that started in the four walls of her family home, Holly says it “doesn’t feel real,” but she is an artist who has captured the hearts and minds of fans across the globe with her personal storytelling, revealing “the chaos in my head”. Writing is the only way Holly knows how to process life’s messiness.
The 22-year-old’s music started life in her haunted childhood home – a quintessentially spooky, strange house that is now crumbling down. Like most unusual houses of its ilk, its most intriguing parts are in its subterranean layers. There’s a dungeon and a room full of meat hooks, and a climate so damp mushrooms grow out of the walls. Friends find the whole house so creepy they’ve been known to make excuses to avoid sleeping over there.
RINA SAWAYAMA
Main Stage EastFridayTBA
Rina Sawayama is a Japanese-British musician, model and actor who started her solo music career after graduating from Cambridge University in 2012. Rina rapidly attracted the attention of press around her early releases which saw her included in the Dazed100 list and grace the covers of Clash Magazine and Sunday Times Style. In April 2020 she released her debut album “SAWAYAMA” via independent label Dirty Hit which was applauded by critics across the globe and has led her to be featured on the covers of Billboard, NME, King Kong, Time Out, DIY and Crash Magazine as well as garnering support from Vogue, BBC, CNN and VICE. In 2021 Rina was nominated for BRITs Rising Star and later that year she was also named as one of TIME Magazine’s Next Generation Leaders. In recent years Rina has collaborated with the likes of Elton John, Charli XCX, Pabllo Vittar, Bloodpop, Shamir and more. Alongside her music career she has also modelled for Balmain, MAC, Versace, Skull Candy, Mercedes Benz Fashion and GCDS.
BECKY HILL
Main Stage WestFridayTBA
DECLAN MCKENNA
Main Stage EastFridayTBA
Back in early 2020, British musician Declan McKenna was psyching himself up to release his dazzling second album, Zeros. It was a bold statement of a record, packing punches and wisdom in equal measure. But then March arrived and Declan (like the rest of us) was stuck at home, stewing on what should have been. He needn’t have worried though, throwing caution to the wind just few months later, Zeros was released to near faultless acclaim pitting him in a heated chart battle for the top spot with The Rolling Stones. Zeros was pipped by Mick & co on the final day, but really it was the record itself that left the lasting impression.
BAKAR
Main Stage EastFridayTBA
For almost a decade, Bakar has been captivating his community of over 3.5M+ monthly listeners on Spotify with his unique brand of music, and has already earned himself accolades with appearances at some of the biggest U.K. and global platforms – including supporting Travis Scott at his sold out London O2 Arena tour in 2022, Reading & Leeds Festival, ColorsxStudios – and an appearance on BBC Radio 1Xtra, where he performed a tribute track in honour of late rapper Mac Miller.
The 28-year-old singer-songwriter is breaking musical stereotypes alongside quickly cementing his name in public consciousness following collaborations in the fashion world (walking for Virgil Abloh’s inaugural Louis Vuitton collection in 2018, and again in 2019 where he also modelled for Prada’s A Gift To Give campaign), and due to his fresh take on the Indie Rock sound; combining honest lyricism and catchy hooks into irresistible sounds.
SUB FOCUS B2B DIMENSION
BBC Radio 1 Dance StageSaturdayTBA
LOYLE CARNER
Main Stage EastSaturdayTBA
ARLO PARKS
Main Stage WestSundayTBA
“A colossal talent” – Vogue
“Parks achieves an emotional resonance that’s unflinchingly sincere” – Rolling Stone
“No wonder she is being talked about as one of the voices of her generation” – The Times
My Soft Machine will be the follow-up to Arlo’s critically-acclaimed and award-winning debut Collapsed in Sunbeams; a record which received two Grammy nominations for Best New Artist and Best Alternative Music Album, won the BRIT Award for Best New Artist, received the Hyundai Mercury Prize, and won the BBC Introducing Artist Of The Year Award. Her debut album also reached the top 3 on the UK Album Charts and won the AIM Awards for Best Independent Album and UK Independent Breakthrough. On top of all this, Arlo was also nominated for Breakthrough International Act at the BET Awards, was named as the youngest ever high-profile supporter of UNICEF and an ambassador for the British mental health charity, CALM. She has plans to continue her extensive work with both charities into 2023.
Along with the towering awards garnered last year, Arlo’s debut album was included on almost every ‘Best Albums of 2021’ list and received critical acclaim from the likes of The Guardian, Rolling Stone, NME, The FADER and many more. Arlo performed singles from her debut album on Later…With Jools Holland and The Graham Norton Show in the UK. She also performed on Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, James Corden, CBS This Morning: Saturday, and Ellen DeGeneres in the US.
Her songwriting has seen her gain new fans in Billie Eilish, Florence Welch, Michelle Obama, Angel Olsen, Phoebe Bridgers, Massive Attack and renowned writer Zadie Smith, amongst many others.
LANCEY FOUX
BBC Radio 1Xtra StageFridayTBA
SEA GIRLS
Main Stage WestSaturdayTBA
SAM FENDER
Main Stage EastSaturdayTBA
If Sam Fender’s debut album, 2019’s “Hypersonic Missiles”, introduced a smart, street-wise British songwriter with a penchant for euphoric, hard-hitting guitar anthems, it was 2021’s peerless “Seventeen Going Under” that sent the Newcastle artist stratospheric. An acute observer, Fender turns the mirror not only on the streets he grew up walking, but on himself too. The record is a tough-talking but also tender account of Fender’s childhood. It’s also a coming-of-age story, marrying relatable family themes and broken friendships with devastatingly colossal choruses.
“Seventeen Going Under” is already a record that has taken Sam right across the globe, playing to bigger rooms and wider stages, whilst reaping a clutch of awards too (including BRITs, NMEs, Ivor Novellos, and a first Mercury Prize nomination).
FOALS
Main Stage WestSaturdayTBA
While ‘Antidotes’ immediately established Foals as a critical and commercial success, they were one of several breaking British alternative/indie bands making waves at the time. But as they achieved five consecutive Top 10 albums from their debut to Part One of ‘Everything Not Saved…’ Foals now seem to be almost the last ones standing. And they have flourished on their own terms. Their biggest moments – ‘My Number’, ‘Mountain At My Gates’ or ‘In Degrees’ – feel just at home on the Radio 1 airwaves as they do during the band’s electrifying festival headline sets. They might place greater or lesser importance at various moments on big riffs, dance beats or sprawling psychedelia, but their reputation and following has grown with each record.
BILLIE EILISH
Main Stage EastFridayTBA
21-year-old Billie Eilish remains one of the most treasured singer-songwriters of her generation. Writing and releasing music both observational and reflective on her own life experiences and society – something all the greatest songwriters have done before her. Billie Eilish released her highly anticipated album ‘Happier Than Ever’ on Darkroom/Interscope/Polydor Records last summer to critical acclaim globally, and immediately topped the album charts in both the UK and US as well as seventeen other countries worldwide. She then embarked on a world tour, which included headline slots at Glastonbury and Coachella and six nights at the O2 Arena in London – her concert film recorded over these shows, Billie Eilish Live At The O2, is nominated at the upcoming 65th GRAMMY® Awards for Best Music Film. Alongside ‘Nobody Like U’ (from Turning Red) with her brother FINNEAS also receiving a nomination for Best Song Written for Visual Media, Billie Eilish’s total number of GRAMMY® nominations now tallies eighteen. At the 64th GRAMMY® Awards, Billie Eilish was nominated for seven Grammys for Happier Than Ever, including Album, Record and Song of the Year. Earlier this year, Billie Eilish surprised fans with Guitar Songs: two songs, the previously heard and much loved ‘TV’, and a brand-new track titled ‘The 30th.’ ‘TV’ closes with live vocals from her audience, recorded in Manchester’s twenty-one thousand capacity AO Arena.