Indeed, songs like “I Wanna Be A Boy” mark a landmark leap forward for Grace, affirming their own human and artistic identity while offering a gloriously anthemic voice to the voiceless. Grace has worked tirelessly in recent months and is now set to unveil their most ambitious music thus far, shot through with focused enthusiasm and glimmering with a lyrical ingenuity that celebrates their own extraordinary journey of personal growth and self-evolution. The 20-year-old singer, songwriter, and social media star - who is non-binary and uses he/they pronouns - has fast made a name for themselves as a singular new artist, showcasing their one-of-a-kind perspective through mesmerizing bedroom pop and a bold, funny, utterly idiosyncratic online persona.
No matter if she’s filming herself styling her curled pixie cut or breaking into an angsty acoustic cover of one of her favorite songs, she wants people to feel a moment of comfort or if nothing more, simply take a breath and smile.As a part of our series about rising music stars, I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Addison Grace.Īddison Grace makes personal music for a universal audience, intimate songs which somehow manage to speak what the listener feels but cannot quite put into words.
Though Grace creates art as a coping mechanism and a mode of free expression, she also hopes her content helps people understand themselves more intimately, much like other young creatives did for her. The upbeat, dynamic song is a repudiation of the common character trope that demotes whimsical, interesting women to mere sidekicks of their boring male partners. Grace has worked with producers like Robin Skinner (Cavetown, mxmtoon, Chloe Moriondo), Elie Jay Rizk (Mazie, Spill Tab) and Jake Aron (Solange, Grizzly Bear), and she was joined by Pete Robertson (Beabadoobee, Clairo) on her newest single “Manic Pixie Dream Girl” (out on May 7). With subtle hints of folk, rock and R&B, her songs have a light flutter to them, enlivened by tuneful strums, diary-like lyrics and a youthful, expressive glow. Grace’s sound is rooted in sweetly-sung indie-pop, though her sonic palette changes just as often as her clothes, hair and makeup do. Recent single “Party Killer” is her most visceral and playful track yet, displaying her feelings of inadequacy, while also depicting herself as the murderer at an innocent get-together gone horribly wrong. Another song “Honeysuckle” is a celebration of her self-love journey, which she cleverly shrouded in a third-person narrative. Her first single “Sugar Rush” was about her attraction to a girl who only saw her as a friend, and it explored her fear of being outcast for her sexuality.
After realizing that she was bisexual, Grace found catharsis in sharing her experiences online, as well as in her music. Grace was drawn to the music of Dodie and other YouTubers because she also saw herself as a shy, artsy teen, and like many of them, she grappled with questions about her sexuality. To her surprise, her TikTok audience exploded, quickly ballooning to over 3.5 million followers, all eager to watch her play a snippet of music, make self-deprecating jokes about her feelings or simply dance freely in her outfit of the day. A few years later, she started a TikTok account, initially just to watch videos and entertain herself, but soon after, she began creating her own content, showcasing many facets of her sunny personality. In her mid-teens, Grace began covering these artists and writing her own songs, and she shared clips of each on Instagram and YouTube, quickly gaining a loyal following. The 20-year-old, Utah-based singer/songwriter (who is non-binary and uses all pronouns) was always singing throughout her childhood, and she later learned to play the ukulele after some inspiration from YouTube musicians like Dodie, Conan Gray, Tessa Violet, Cavetown and Chloe Moriondo. Whether she’s writing her next indie-pop heartbreaker, decorating her bright yellow car with flowers and vines, experimenting with her bubbly, androgynous fashion sense or making goofy jokes about being young and queer, Grace is eager to share the contents of her heart with the world. Creativity radiates from every fiber of Addison Grace’s being.