Her debut single “Strangers” has made her everything but a stranger, amassing over half a billion streams, featuring in more than three million Instagram and TikTok videos, and etching her name in history as only the second female artist to top the UK Singles Chart with an entirely self-produced release. This July, Kenya Grace brings her electrifying presence to EXIT Festival!
From a 25-year-old tattoo studio employee to a chart-topping sensation, Kenya Grace‘s life transformed within months. Her bedroom-made music videos, showing her with a MIDI controller and microphone, soared to the top of the Billboard Hot Dance/Electronic Songs chart for five consecutive weeks. She clinched the top spot on the Shazam Dance Chart and third place on the global Spotify chart, landed in the top 5 on Billboard Global 200, and earned a nomination for BBC Radio 1’s Sound of 2024. Just over a month after releasing “Strangers,” she made history as only the second female artist ever to hit number one on the UK Singles Chart with a release she wrote, produced, and performed herself, a feat only previously achieved by Kate Bush with “Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)” nearly half a century ago.
As a teenager, Kenya Grace immersed herself in the drum’n’bass scene of the UK, the genre’s birthplace, which shaped her unique sound. She began composing, recording, and sharing snippets of original songs on social media, while “Strangers” marked the tipping point from hobby to staggering global success. The song’s teaser went viral, with tens, then hundreds, and eventually hundreds of thousands sharing it across social networks, fueling unstoppable hype weeks before its official release. “I noticed people started using the sound to make really cool videos.. and then I got quite a few DMs from people saying they wanted it out. It was not done. I literally just wrote the chorus,” Kenya recalled in an interview.
Within six months, a snippet of the song was played an astonishing three million times in TikTok and Instagram videos, and the track amassed over half a billion streams across platforms. Her raw talent and meteoric rise caught the attention of music industry veterans Nick Huggett and Nick Shymansky, known for shaping the careers of icons like Amy Winehouse and Adele. This led to her first transatlantic record deal with Major Recordings, recently expanded into an exclusive global administration deal with Warner Chappell Music.
Following up, Kenya released “Only In My Mind,” a track leaning into trance, and (in her own words) “a sad acoustic version” of “Strangers” shortly after. She showcased another genre shift in early December with the UK garage single “Paris.” She has also announced an album for this year, describing it as “dark, moody, and dance-inspired.” Meanwhile, on Instagram, Kenya continues to share snippets from her room, revealing her creative process and teasers for what’s in store for the upcoming EXIT Festival!
The next edition of EXIT Festival, carrying the EXIT Starseeds theme under the slogan “Awakening Our Superpowers Together,” is set to take place from July 10 to 14, 2024, at the Petrovaradin Fortress. A special Starseeds Takeover performance on the Tesla Universe stage is reserved for day zero. Four-day tickets are available here.
