GREATER TORONTO AREA ARTISTS | 100K AND BELOW
BY BRENESSA ROACH | FEBRUARY 14 2023
There are many amazing underrated and emerging artists from the GTA (Greater Toronto Area) that deserve to be heard more. Since I am always on the hunt for new music, I have 6 artists with 100K monthly listeners and below to share with you in this blog.
As always, you can find a Spotify playlist with my favourite song of each artist mentioned at the bottom of this article!
Let’s get started…
Jayde is an alt-pop singer-songwriter from Toronto, Canada. She started posting covers to her YouTube about 5 years ago and was actually recognized by Jessie Reyez for a cover. She started posting music to digital streaming platforms on April 6, 2018 with her debut single “lines”. She released her five song EP sad songs about sad things on April 16, 2021. This EP features her most popular song “sad af” which was actually released in May 2020. “sad af” currently has 494K streams on Spotify.
I heard about Jayde because my friend took some photos of her when Jayde performed at Lyle Kam’s EP release party at The Cameron House in November 2022. I unfortunately didn’t attend but I started listening to Jayde’s music after and I really love her song “f this” which was released in March 2021.
Listen to “f this” by Jayde on Spotify:
Check out Jayde on Instagram: @itsjaydemusic
Avry is an indie singer based in Toronto, Canada. His genre is a blend of dance, pop and R&B. He started posting music to digital streaming platforms in April 2022 with the release of “Favours”, which is a collaboration with another Canadian singer JON VINYL. This is the song that I discovered Avry by. His latest release was on November 25, 2022 with the release of his first EP bloom. Avry performed live for the first in Toronto on November 29th, 2022 at School Night Toronto at the Drake. My favourite song on the EP is “Deserve You”.
Listen to “Deserve You” by Avry on Spotify:
Check out Avry on Instagram: @avry.music
Keris is a Korean pop and R&B singer from Toronto, Canada. She started posting covers and original music to her YouTube in 2019. She is affiliated with EXPOSITION. Keris made her debut on November 3rd, 2020 with the single “여우비 (Yeoubi)” which literally translates to “fox rain” but, it also means “sun shower”. In April 2022, she released her first EP SPACEBAR, which consists of five songs. Her latest release from January of this year is titled “through spring, summer, and fall”. This one is my favourite song of hers because it really shows her vocal style and range.
Listen to “through spring, summer, and fall” by Keris on Spotify:
Check out Keris on Instagram: @kerischoi
Kennen is an indie-pop singer originally from Waterloo, Ontario and now based in Newmarket. His musical style is very bedroom pop, retro and has that DIY (do it yourself) sound. He started posting music to streaming platforms in January 2021 with the release of his EP Kennen’s Cassettes. Kennen is an artist who uses his music to express feelings and send messages from his own perspective as a queer Asian-American. His song “Timothée Chalamet” is a great example of him expressing himself. This is also his second most popular song of 1.5 million streams.
His most popular song is “1 2 365 4 Me” which has 1.6 million streams and is my favourite song. I first heard Kennen’s music in early 2022 and this song is still a bop. Kennen hasn’t released any new music since June 2022, but hopefully we get some more music in the future since he has a really unique style and delivery.
Listen to “1 2 365 4 Me” by Kennen on Spotify:
Check out Kennen on Instagram: @itskennen
priyana is an 18 year old singer-songwriter from Toronto, Canada. She started posting music to digital streaming platforms in December 2021 with her song “forever is a long time”. In July 2022, she released her first album titled little thoughts which consists of 11 songs. She has a song on the album with the same name “little thoughts” and that is my favourite song on her album besides “my friend on the moon”. priyana only has about 1K monthly listeners but hopefully that will go up this year. On February 24, she is coming out with a new song titled“video game” which you can pre-save here. Additionally, she will be performing at “We Found New Music” in Los Angeles on February 28. Entrance is free so RSVP here.
Listen to “little thoughts” by priyana on Spotify:
Check out priyana on Instagram: @priyana.music
Ali Shah is an independent pop singer, songwriter and producer from Markham. He released his first single “Kiss Somebody” on May 28, 2021 which was actually the lead single on his debut EP No Man’s Land, which was released in August 2021. This EP was produced and written fully by Ali. I started supporting Ali’s music with the release of “Uncharted Territory” in April 2022. I came to know Ali because he goes to the University I graduated from and I had a class with a few of his friends. On September 2, 2022, Ali released the single “Maybe Maybe” which is currently his most popular song of 7K streams. His latest single “Jinx It” just came out on February 10 and it’s a really fun song. If you like artists such as Troye Sivan or Conan Gray then Ali’s music is perfect for you!
Listen to “Maybe Maybe” by Ali Shah on Spotify:
Check out Ali Shah on Instagram: @notalishah
You can find the songs mentioned in this article on our Spotify playlist below:
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