Festival season is in full swing and that means a jam-packed lineup at the staple New York City three-day outside concert, The Governors Ball! This year’s festivities will kick off on Friday, June 10, and end on Sunday, June 12 in Queens, New York at Citi Field Park. While the festival’s headliners are Kid Cudi (Friday), Halsey (Saturday), and J. Cole (Sunday), there are more than a dozen independent artists we recommend you check out while you’re there including Grammy award winner Flume, nominees Japanese Breakfast + Black Pumas, and many more.
To grab your latest minute admission packages or day passes, click here to be redirected to The Governors Ball’s official website.
Friday, June 10, 2022
Black Pumas (ATO Records)
Singer and songwriter Eric Burton and guitarist and producer Adrian Quesada, of music duo Black Pumas, turned their unplanned meeting into a Grammy-nominated act with songs that have racked up millions of streams and won overwhelming critical praise and multiple sold-out tours across North America and Europe. The album was nominated for Album of the Year at the 2021 Grammy Awards. Quesada had a storied reputation from playing in bands like Grupo Fantasma and Brownout, accompanying artists from Prince to Daniel Johnston, and producing such acclaimed projects as 2018’s Look At My Soul: The Latin Shade Of Texas Soul. For the tracks that kicked off this project, though, he had a different direction in mind. “I was looking for somebody with their own identity,” says Quesada, “who liked Neil Young as much as Sam Cooke.” Burton’s taste, range, and experience proved to be exactly what Quesada was seeking. “We just take to the same kind of music,” he says. “I listen to East Coast hip-hop, old soul music, folk music. We were on the same wavelength from the get-go.” KCRW would eventually describe their sound as “Wu-Tang Clan meets James Brown.” The duo also knew that they didn’t want their sound to be too retro or imitative. “We didn’t want to just do throwback soul and pretend that hip-hop never happened,” says Quesada. “It had to feel sincere coming from us. I have a certain aesthetic in the studio, Eric has a voice that evokes a certain era, but I don’t think we reference that too directly.”
Beabadoobee (Dirty Hit)
Born in the Philippines and raised in London, Bea Kristi began recording music as Beabadoobee in 2017. At just 20 years old, Beabadoobee has built her huge, dedicated Gen-Z fan base with her flawless output of confessional bedroom pop songs and DIY aesthetic. Her first track, ‘Coffee’ gathered hundreds of thousands of streams in a matter of days, through a fan-uploaded video. Since then, her songs have amassed millions of streams between her own self-released recordings and her three EPs on independent London label, Dirty Hit, Patched Up, Loveworm, and Space Cadet. Her debut album Fake It Flowers released on October 16th, 2020 was met with critical acclaim alongside a global hit on her track ‘Deathbed (Coffee For Your Head)’. The track stayed on the Billboard Top 200 for over 23 weeks and has reached over 2 billion streams worldwide.
Samia (Grand Jury Music)
Samia’s 2020 debut album, The Baby, was a testament to her impressive vocal might, irresistible tunefulness, and vulnerable lyricism, both clever and illuminating in equal measure. After emerging as one of the most exciting up-and-comers in indie rock, Samia released a companion album this past January titled The Baby Reimagined, a collection of covers and remixes featuring Bartees Strange, Anjimile, Field Medic, Palehound, former tourmate Donna Missal, and more. Samia spent much of 2020 in self-reflection, and she also made various life changes that left her feeling more earnest and centered. “I got back into therapy and started thinking about boundaries, I moved to Nashville, I did yoga sometimes,” she says. During this time, she wrote a handful of songs that make up Scout, an EP released on July 23, 2021.
Paris Texas (Paris Texas LLC)
Rap duo, Paris Texas, is a combination of two odd misfits who have no correlation with the city, or the 1984 Harry Dean Stanton film, which shares the same name. Both members were raised in the melting pot of South Central Los Angeles, where they found themselves embedded into a clusterfuck of influences via the internet, ranging from post-hardcore bands like Dance Gavin Dance to underground rap acts like Snub-nose Frankenstein. The duo defies any and all classifications, even referring to them as a ‘rap duo’ is beside the point, they’d prefer to let the music do the talking.
Between Friends (Z Entertainment)
Between Friends is an all-encompassing creative outlet for siblings Brandon and Savannah Hudson. While the duo’s candy-colored, experimental pop is the main focus, their 360-degree approach includes doing everything from fashion design to building sets and music production. All of those elements come together on Between Friends’ kaleidoscopic upcoming project Cutie, which is equal parts EP and modern art installation.
Julia Wolf (Poorchoice Music)
Julia Wolf (aka WOLF) is an indie-pop singer/songwriter, born and raised in New York. A prolific lyricist with a unique and captivating tone, WOLF began releasing short freestyles and snippets of her music on social media at the end of 2019. Almost immediately she began garnering heavy buzz from both early adopter fans and industry professionals alike. In just over a year, WOLF has accumulated over 18 million streams and has developed a passionate and rabid fan base — all out of her bedroom in Queens, NY.
Ultra Q (Royal Mountain Records)
Not to add to the deluge of artistic clichés brought on by the Global Event Which Shall Not Be Named, but spending more or less a year in the house offers plenty of time for reflection, reevaluation, and revision. Though there was a lot to process already in those months, it was an opportune time to try and get your shit together, whatever that may mean for you. For Jakob Armstrong—in addition to many other things like the rest of us—part of it meant fine-tuning a collection of songs first recorded in late 2019. A prolonged process led to five of the seven songs on Get Yourself a Friend being retooled into their better-than-even final form. Fusing together the skyward lift of Interpol, the clever guitar interplay of the Strokes, the maudlin romanticism of the Cure, and the often impressionistic narrative gifts of Arctic Monkeys, Ultra Q’s growth since their 2019 EP We’re Starting to Get Along has been exponential. A traditional alternative rock sound was baked by the California heat, shards of broken glass gleaming in the sunlight, spanning the distance from Berkeley to Rodeo Drive. Over blaring guitars and thunderous drums, Armstrong’s voice is carried by a very familiar lilt. 2020’s In a Cave in a Video Game, self-recorded by Armstrong on a whim while quarantined, could easily be slotted between the blown-out, lo-fi tones of early Wavves and the works of intentionally harsh-sounding Columbus band Psychedelic Horseshit.
Plastic Picnic (Plastic Picnic)
Plastic Picnic is an indie rock band based in Brooklyn, NY. Despite all having roots in the Pacific Northwest, the members didn’t come together until the two separate duos of singer Emile and guitarist Lincoln and drummer Gordon and bassist Marshall met in New York in 2016. Since their formation, the band has been creating a unique brand of orchestral indie pop, showcased on their two EP’s Plastic Picnic and Vistalite. Plastic Picnic’s distinct sound has garnered their festival appearances, song placements on hit TV shows like Homeland and Shameless, and over 150,000 average monthly listeners on Spotify. Plastic Picnic is set to release their highly anticipated debut full-length album in 2022.
