Dave Wiskus is the founder and CEO of Nebula, the creator-owned streaming service he launched in 2019 with a group of independent YouTubers, and of Standard, the talent company behind it. Before building a streaming platform pitched as an A24 for online video, he was a respected human interface designer who co-founded Q Branch with John Gruber and Brent Simmons to make the note-taking app Vesper. He also fronts the New York synth-rock band Airplane Mode and co-hosted the podcast Unprofessional.
Natalia Panferova is a Swift developer, author, and co-founder of Nil Coalescing - a technical education company built on the premise that understanding why SwiftUI works the way it does beats memorizing what it does. A former Apple SwiftUI Frameworks Engineer who was recruited after Apple discovered her blog, she personally built APIs (AttributedString, Markdown in Text, sheet detents) now used by millions of iOS developers daily. She publishes books, a blog, and the Nilcoalescing newsletter from a small town in New Zealand's wine country.
Lexa Gates (born Ivanna Alexandra Martinez) is a Queens-raised rapper, singer, and performance artist blending jazz-soul atmospheres with spoken word rap and stream-of-consciousness lyricism. Known for a calm, unhurried delivery packed with emotional density, she broke through with the viral single 'Angel' (2023) before signing to GoodTalk/Capitol Records and releasing her acclaimed label debut *Elite Vessel* (2024), followed by the 18-track solo statement *I Am* (2026). A Colombian-Puerto Rican artist who dropped out of school at 15 and started recording at 17, Gates has become one of New York's most distinctive emerging voices - equal parts Sade and Mac Miller, with a flair for conceptual stunts like locking herself in a glass box in Union Square for 10 hours on album release day.
Lola Young is a Grammy-winning British singer-songwriter from South London whose raw, confessional dark soul-pop has taken her from South London open mic nights to Coachella and a Grammy podium. Her 2024 single 'Messy' - a candid anthem about being imperfect and unapologetic - exploded globally after going viral on TikTok in November 2024, racking up a UK #1 and US Billboard Hot 100 #14. Her second album 'This Wasn't Meant for You Anyway' cemented her as one of the most arresting voices of her generation, blending confessional lyricism with muscular soul-pop production. She has collaborated with Tyler, the Creator, performed at Coachella, won the Ivor Novello Rising Star Award, and taken home a Grammy for Best Pop Solo Performance in February 2026.
MOIO (Moyo Mobolaji) is a Nigerian-Irish singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer from Dublin whose 2023 single 'Moments' went viral in late 2024 - racking up 19M+ Spotify streams and hitting #1 on Spotify's Viral 50 in the US, UK, Ireland, Canada, Norway, Denmark, and New Zealand. His debut EP 'Earthday' (October 2025) announced him as one of Ireland's most compelling new artists, blending R&B warmth with indie introspection and self-produced bedroom-pop textures. A co-founder of the Chamomile Club collective in Dublin, he now performs internationally and is signed to Republic Records.
Natanya Popoola is a British-Caribbean-Nigerian singer, songwriter, and producer from North-West London whose music fuses R&B, alt-pop, neo-soul, jazz, and Caribbean influences into what she calls an 'unboxable' sound. Born September 5, 2002 to an Indo-Trinidadian mother and Nigerian father, she trained at the Julian Joseph Jazz Academy, earned a degree in English Literature at UCL, and released her debut EP 'Sorrow At Sunrise' in 2023. Her 2025 EP 'Feline's Return' (via Human Re-Sources, co-produced with Oscar Scheller) earned co-signs from SZA, Doechii, Tyler, The Creator, and Janet Jackson, a BBC Radio 1 premiere, and features on Billboard's '15 Hip-Hop, Caribbean and R&B Artists to Watch in 2026.' Her alter ego 'Feline' - a catlike seductress with a signature cat-eye - anchors a fiercely self-directed creative vision that has drawn comparisons to early-era SZA while carving out entirely new territory.
Sophia Stel is a 27-year-old Vancouver-based Canadian alt-pop artist, singer, and self-producer whose music blends dreamy synths, auto-tuned alto vocals, skittering breakbeats, and rave-adjacent textures into something critics call the 'sonic lovechild of Ethel Cain and 070 Shake.' Growing up on Vancouver Island in a large religious household with 10 siblings, she taught herself production on GarageBand before building a makeshift studio in a nightclub basement. After years of bartending to fund her art, she broke through with her 2024 debut EP Object Permanence, scored a viral TikTok moment with 'I'll Take It' (8.6M+ Spotify streams), walked the Ann Demeulemeester SS26 runway, graced the NME cover, and in early 2026 became only the second artist signed to A24 Music - all while recording mostly from home on a 2013 MacBook.
Yel (채옐) is a Korean-Singaporean singer-songwriter and bedroom-pop artist based between California and Seoul. Growing up in Singapore before moving to the University of California, Irvine, she began releasing lo-fi R&B sketches on SoundCloud in 2020 and has since built a devoted following through a string of intimate, memory-soaked EPs. Her 2025 breakthrough project Perfect Blue - described by OnesToWatch as 'sticky, sultry' and landing her a spot on their Top 30 Artists to Watch in 2026 - cements her as one of the most exciting emerging voices in love-spell R&B and sultry bedroom-pop.