The Hottest Independent Artists In The World: Justice for the Damned, Mstf, Lizzy McAlpine, Showtime Damion and Beren Olivia

Over the past few weeks, you’ve probably seen our Hottest Independent Artists In The World series, in partnership with digital talent discovery specialists, Instrumental.

Instrumental’s ‘hot score’ flags independent artists daily that are seeing exceptional performance across a range of key metrics.

This is the very same algorithm that tipped acts like Surfaces, Tones and I, Lil Tecca and Anson Seabra months before they went mainstream.

Here are another five of the most exciting prospects from around the globe from within Instrumental’s current batch of ‘hot’ artists…


Justice for the Damned – Hardcore, AUS

Almost three years after the release of their debut album, Justice for the Damned have returned with a full second album, Pain Is Power.

Since its release in May, the Sydney four-piece have experienced a weekly follower growth of over 6%. Their monthly listeners range in the 50,000 mark.

For a look into their process and their time spent in songwriting, check out this article and for a list of merch and music platforms, swing by their link tree.


Mstf – Rap, DE 

Bosnian-born underground rapper, Mstf, shot up from 0 to 1.3 million playlist followers this month after appearing on Spotify’s “deutschrap brandneu” (brand new German rap) playlist.

In two days, he increased his artist follower count by 170%, which is now at over 4,000. These increases coincide with the release of two 2020 releases, Flous and Jebo Musik – the latter of which has over 440,000 streams on Spotify in just over four days.

To hear the two tracks, head to Mstf’s YouTube channel.


Lizzy McAlpine – Folk, US

Folk-focused East Coast-based Lizzy McAlpine enters the list after going ‘hot’ on March 8 this year.

She’s released 10 singles and a full album since first appearing in 2018.

Her most popular works are her most-recent single, Apple Pie (Dec, 2019), which sits at over 600,000 streams – twice as high as any previous track. 

To check out her latest covers, head to Instagram and to watch her live Pickup Session performance of Lady in Blue, head to YouTube.


Showtime Damion – Reggae Dancehall, UK

Showtime Damion has been producing regularly since 2016, but his latest single, Pon a Millionaire (released in May, 2020) already has more streams than all but one of his previous tracks.

The track in question is Lo La La, a collaboration that went viral online to the tune of 30m YouTube views back in 2018.

You can view Damion’s YouTube channel here.


Beren Olivia – Pop, UK

Rounding off the list is London-born pop singer, Beren Olivia. She’s released three singles since the start of the year and picked up 260,000 streams across platforms, appearing on Spotify’s ‘New Pop Revolution’ playlist and generating 11,000 likes on TikTok.

She combines her music output with photography and lifestyle blogging, which you can see more of on her Instagram and YouTube channel. 


Want to be the first to find out about the hottest new artists with real commercial promise?  Instrumental are offering a 14-day free trial for their daily Hot Artist Alerts. Click here to sign up now.Music Business Worldwide

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