The twelfth Wireless Festival takes place in Finsbury Park, London this year from the 7th-9th July. The R&B weekend features the headliners Chance the Rapper, Skepta and The Weeknd. However, it isn’t just these big names that should be on your radar if you’re attending the festival – having scoured through the festival’s line-up, we’ve picked four other artists playing across the weekend that you definitely should not miss.
Noname (Friday 7th July)
Hailing from Chicago, Fatimah Warner aka Noname is an American rapper and poet who first entered the music scene back in 2013 when she featured on the track ‘Lost’, from Chance the Rapper’s mixtape, Acid Rap. Since then, she has worked with several hip-hop artists, including collaborations on numerous other tracks with Chance, so fingers crossed we could see Noname join him on stage for his Friday night headline slot. She released her own collaborative mixtape, Telefone, in July last year, which was very well received and features tracks with various unknown and likely underrated R&B artists. A personal favourite is ‘All I Need’, a duet with American singer-songwriter Xavier Omär. At the moment, Wireless is the only UK festival/show that Noname has been announced to play this year, so definitely take the opportunity to see her perform whilst you can.
Post Malone (Friday 7th July)
Austin Richard Post, known as Post Malone to us, is one multi-talented guy; singer, rapper, songwriter and record producer – and he’s just 21 years old! His success began back in 2015 when he released his debut track ‘White Iverson’ via SoundCloud, which rapidly became popular and led to him uploading four other songs before being signed by Republic Records in 2015. Following this, he’s worked with the likes of 50 Cent and Kanye West, and was the support act for Justin Bieber on his Purpose World Tour (their collaboration on Post Malone’s track ‘Deja Vu’ is absolutely golden). His debut album Stoney was finally released in December last year after much anticipation and several delays. The album features tracks with Kehlani, Quavo and of course, Justin Bieber. He recently announced the title of another project, Beerbongs and Bentleys, which could potentially be another mixtape, so hopefully Wireless could be a preview of some new material. It is also his only UK show this year – be sure not to miss it.
The Age of L.U.N.A (Saturday 8th July)
A Google search doesn’t lead to you finding out much information about R&B/hip-hop foursome, The Age of L.U.N.A – which stands for “Live Under No Authority” by the way – but perhaps that’s because they are arguably still in the infancy of their career. The group from West London is comprised of rappers Butch and Kyote, producer NKOK and frontwoman and saxophonist Daniella. They have been releasing music gradually since 2015, with their debut single ‘Six Feet Deep’ having over a million streams on Spotify. Their debut EP, Coco, came out last month and consists of five songs. It is a perfect balance of Daniella’s smooth vocals and the raps from Kyote and Butch, reminiscent of music from American band The Internet. You can catch The Age of L.U.N.A at Glastonbury and Tramlines festival in Sheffield this summer, but in an interview with MTV Kyote and Daniella were quoted as saying that playing Wireless is one of their career highlights thus far.
Yuna (Sunday 9th July)
The fourth and final act that we strongly advise you do not miss if you’ve got a ticket for Wireless next month is Malaysian singer-songwriter Yuna. She began writing songs when she was only 14 and started releasing music in 2008 with her debut self-titled EP. However, it wasn’t until 2011 that her musical success became international and she put out the Decorate EP following her signing with New York record label Fader. She’s now had her music produced by the Grammy Award winner Pharrell Williams and her third album, Chapters, released in May last year features collaborations with Jhene Aiko and Usher. The LP was also awarded 7th place in Billboard Critics’ Picks for Best R&B Album of 2016 which solidifies Yuna’s enormous talent as a soulful and emotionally driven performer. The same as Noname and Post Malone, it appears that Wireless is Yuna’s only UK show so it should be something special indeed.
