John Glacier

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Born and raised in Hackney – once a rundown area, today one of the most vibrant neighbourhoods in East London – but of Jamaican descent, John Glacier grew up listening to reggae alongside pop and hip-hop classics, developing a style of writing dense with cross-contamination. Her earliest songs, still rough around the edges but already showcasing an effortless flow, began circulating on SoundCloud in 2018, home recordings made by tinkering with GarageBand and Logic. The EPs "SHILOH: Lost For Words" in 2021 and "JGSG" in the summer of 2023 revealed a talent in constant growth, enough to place her among the potential "next big things" of the new London hip-hop scene. A poet, rapper, songwriter and video director, in 2024 she finally established herself thanks to the release, within the space of a few months, of the twin EPs "Like A Ribbon" and "Duppy Gun", which together ideally form a twenty-five-minute mini-album of real quality, with a sound that is underground (thanks to the lo-fi beats) yet stylish at the same time: it's no coincidence that Glacier's music is increasingly in demand as a soundtrack for fashion shows — indeed, she herself, alongside Skepta and Shygirl, was chosen by Burberry as the face of its 2023 promotional campaign.

John perfectly blends a laid-back, at times narcotised form of hip-hop with the experimental nu-soul attitude of Little Simz and the urban poetry declaimed by Kim Gordon: "Satellites", the opening track of "Like A Ribbon", is an excellent example of this. What Glacier does is a genuine stream of consciousness, small tales of ordinary urban life laid over electro beats weaving trap/hip-hop grooves. The lyrics speak of introspection, of interpersonal relationships, of the complexity of living in a big city — themes compressed into ultra-short songs, none of which exceed three minutes, written as a form of self-therapy by an artist who doesn't hide a certain physical discomfort: afflicted by Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, Glacier can't stand on stage for long. She has racked up plenty of prestigious collaborations within just a few months: a muse to Vegyn, one of the most sought-after British producers of recent years (Frank Ocean, Travis Scott, JPEGMafia), she duetted with Eartheater on "Money Shows", the standout track on "Like A Ribbon", and lent her voice to "Dafodil", one of the tracks included on "In Waves", the comeback album from Jamie XX, one of the most eagerly awaited releases of 2024.