Hannah Rae Lee just signed to Buckshot Records, and she’s already cutting a new single. For an independent artist, that’s the kind of move that either becomes the turning point or becomes a line in a bio nobody reads. She’s betting on the former, and she’s got reasons.

The Nashville singer-songwriter writes pop with a country spine, the type of song that takes a rough patch and turns it into a hook you’re singing before you’ve clocked what she’s actually telling you. She points to Carrie Underwood, Danielle Bradbery, Avery Anna, and Kelsea Ballerini as the artists in her DNA, but Underwood is the one she keeps coming back to. What she admires isn’t the voice so much as the command, the way Underwood takes a stage and refuses to shrink. Lee tries to carry that into her own shows, which swing between full-volume pop and quieter, talk-to-the-room storytelling.

For her, the writing came first and everything else followed. Songwriting has been the compass since she started putting words to paper, and her earliest performances lit the fire that turned into a career. The songs she writes now circle truth and love while digging into the stuff most people would rather smooth over. She calls her music gritty emotional storytelling wrapped in clean production, and she treats each lyric as both a window into her own life and a way into someone else’s.

What she’s after isn’t a chart number. It’s the song that lands the first time and stays. That’s a hard thing to aim for in a genre full of artists chasing the same streams, but it tells you where her head is.

The Buckshot signing is the real news here, and Lee frames it as a genuine turning point. The pitch from an independent artist’s side is simple: most labels sand down the rough edges, and she says Buckshot doesn’t. In her words, it’s rare to find a partner who elevates what you’re doing while staying faithful to the stories you’re telling. They’re already deep in new material, with that single shaping up as the first real statement of the partnership.

Until it drops, the catalog does the talking. All That and You Say That, her single with Blackwell, is the clearest look at what she does, emotional weight and pop polish in the same three minutes. It works as both an introduction and a signpost for where she’s headed.

The new single is the one to watch, the first real test of what this partnership can do. She’s got a clear point of view, a label that says it shares it, and a stack of songs pulled straight from her own life. You can keep up on Spotify, YouTube, and Facebook. The songs have always done her talking, and the next one’s already on the way.

Breaking into the entertainment industry is hard enough when you grow up surrounded by it. Try doing it from Lima, Peru, where the path to international work isn’t something anyone hands you. That’s the reality Diego Esquives started from, and it’s exactly why his trajectory is worth paying attention to.

Esquives trained at Asociación Cultural Diez Talentos in Lima and later at The American Musical Dramatic Academy in Los Angeles, but the interesting part of his career isn’t where he studied. It’s what he did with it. His early stage work in Peru, including productions of “Macbeth” and “Hamlet” and a gripping turn as The Creature in “Frankenstein,” earned him Best Actor nominations at the Luces Awards. For a Peruvian actor with international ambitions, those classical roles weren’t just credits. They were proof he could go toe to toe with material that intimidates most performers regardless of where they’re from.

That foundation shows up across his film work in ways that separate him from the pack. Take “Mistakes,” where Esquives plays Roman, an underground power player who orders a hit that goes sideways when his own sister gets killed. It’s a dark premise that could easily tip into melodrama, but Esquives keeps it grounded. The film earned finalist status at the London Film Club and screened at The Flight Deck Film Festival and Lift-Off Sessions. He also handled stunt coordination on the project, which tells you something about how hands-on he is with every aspect of production.

Then there’s the other side of Esquives, the filmmaker who clearly can’t sit still. His directorial work started in 2023 with the stage production “The Last Christmas Tree,” but he moved quickly into film with The Immigrants, a short he also wrote and produced. In the film, he plays Nacho, one of two cousins arguing over the path forward as immigrants searching for a better life. It’s a story that hits close to home for Esquives, and festival audiences took notice. The project picked up nominations for Best Film at both The Americas Film Festival New York and the Wolf Media Festival, and screened at festivals including Indie Film Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Lift-Off Film Festival.

Esquives also took the stage in “Water by the Spoonful” and brought “The Last Christmas Tree” and “Dreamers” to The L.A. Brisk Festival in 2024, pushing his work in front of new audiences and continuing to build an international presence that stretches well beyond Peru.

Look at his 2025 credits and you’ll see someone operating at a completely different speed. He directed and produced “Three Stories,” a short where he also plays three separate characters. He wrote, directed, and starred in “All Night Long.” He acted in “Caged Voices.” He even handled production design and set decoration on “Eve.” That range of involvement across multiple projects in a single year isn’t common, especially for a Peruvian actor carving out space in an industry that doesn’t always make room for Latino creators.

His next project, a film called “International Actor,” sounds like it might be the most autobiographical thing he’s done yet. For someone who left Peru determined to put Latino talent on the global map, the title fits perfectly.

You can follow his upcoming projects on Instagram or browse his full credits on IMDb.

There’s something inherently stubborn about an artist who spends nearly three decades making music almost entirely on his own terms. Marco De Luca, an Italian singer-songwriter from the small town of Atri in the province of Teramo, has been doing exactly that since the 1990s. His latest album, LA STAGIONE DECISIVA, is the sharpest, most keyboard-driven work he’s ever put together, and it doubles as a pointed critique of the darker corners of modern society.

De Luca’s story starts with Sine, a group he fronted in the ’90s while channeling his deep admiration for The Cure through original material and covers. When the band split at the turn of the millennium, he didn’t chase another lineup. Instead, he pulled back from live performance and disappeared into songwriting. The result was 2006’s STANZE REMOTE, a self-produced experimental album soaked in ’80s new wave influence, built entirely in his home studio. Two years later, the EP DUE brought in outside musicians for a more collaborative, pop-leaning sound that picked up airplay on several radio stations. Then came 2012’s Canzoni Inedite, a collection of songs written across different periods that leaned closer to the Italian singer-songwriter tradition.

Each release shifted direction just enough to keep things unpredictable. LA STAGIONE DECISIVA continues that pattern. Across eight tracks, De Luca leans harder into keyboards and synth work than anything he’s done before, threading Synthwave textures and electronic layers through a foundation of alt-rock guitars and vocal harmonies. His influences tell the story pretty clearly. The Cure, The Smashing Pumpkins, David Bowie, New Order, Radiohead, and Franco Battiato all left their fingerprints on his approach, and this album feels like the first time he’s managed to fold all of them into the same room. He wrote, arranged, and recorded the entire album himself in a studio, which at this point feels less like a creative choice and more like the only way he knows how to work.

What gives the album its weight isn’t just the production. It’s the subject matter. De Luca has described LA STAGIONE DECISIVA as a protest record, and the targets are specific: racism, social marginalization, exploitative television, prostitution, war. Three of the eight tracks, “VIDEOSPAZZATURA,” “IL MOSTRO,” and “UN UOMO GENTILE,” are reworked versions of songs from his Sine days, rearranged to fit alongside five new compositions. The fact that protest songs he wrote over two decades ago still feel relevant says something uncomfortable about how little has actually changed.

The album opens with “VIDEOSPAZZATURA,” where layered vocal harmonies hit hard right out of the gate. Smashing guitar riffs and a driving rhythm section give the track real urgency, and the repeated chorus works like a hook you can’t shake. It’s confrontational in the best way. “IL MOSTRO” follows with distorted guitars and solid synth lines tangled together over a stomping bass and drum groove. De Luca’s vocals walk a line between melodic and forceful, balancing aggression with clarity that keeps the emotional core intact.

The record’s quieter moments are just as effective. “LA FESTA” strips things back to a slow drum pattern, minimal bass, and warm synth textures. De Luca’s vocal delivery here is genuine and unguarded as he sings about a sad child wandering through a celebration, and the arrangement gives the lyrics room to land. It’s one of the album’s most personal tracks, and it reveals his strengths as a storyteller more than anything else on the record.

“ALLA DERIVA” pushes into more experimental territory with layered harmonies and electronic textures that twist and shift without losing cohesion. “15 ANNI” takes a nostalgic turn, built around heavy synth vibes and a chorus that cuts deep with longing. “UN UOMO GENTILE” brings back the alt-rock intensity with surrounding synth atmospheres and prominent vocal echoes that add real depth. “ASPIRANTI MODELLE” continues exploring societal contradictions through warm arrangements and compelling melodic lines, while closer “IL GIORNO” fuses everything together into something that genuinely feels like end credits rolling on a film. For the last track on the record, it fits perfectly.

Even the album cover tells a story. It features a grainy, high-contrast black-and-white photo of a vintage youth football team posed on a dirt pitch, evoking a kind of mid-century nostalgia that contrasts sharply with the record’s contemporary themes. It’s a small detail, but it reinforces the album’s tension between looking back and confronting the present.

What holds all of it together is De Luca’s refusal to settle into one mode. The album moves between dark and melodic, experimental and accessible, personal and political, without ever feeling scattered. Every synth layer, every guitar texture, every arrangement choice feels intentional. For someone who’s spent most of his career working independently from a small Italian town, the level of passion here is hard to ignore.

LA STAGIONE DECISIVA is available to stream on SoundCloud and can be downloaded on Bandcamp. You can follow Marco De Luca on Facebook, X, and Instagram.