8 names to keep an eye on right now

Taken from the new print issue of THE FACE. Get your copy here.

The American rap underground is on fire right now and Nettpsend (real name: Gunner Shepardson) is the scene’s breakout star. The 17-year-old, who looks like a fresh-faced Kurt Cobain, instigated massive moshpits at his debut London show at Village Underground in June and had sweat-drenched fans mobbing the merch stall to cop £60 T‑shirts emblazoned with his slogan ​“BAFK” (“badassfuckingkid”). Nettpsend’s songs, most of which run for less than two minutes, have been categorised as jerk – a restless subgenre built with twitchy rhythms, blown-out bass, deep-fried drums and garbled vocals. It probably sounds like a mess to most rap fans over 30, but surfing the jerk wave is clearly paying off for Nettspend – he recently relocated from his hometown of Richmond, Virginia, to the Hollywood Hills. ​“I feel like I’m setting a new standard for the underground,” he declares. ​“A new standard for music.” DR

@nettspend_

Sadie Soverall doesn’t mind if you missed her appearance in Saltburn. As Annabel, the 22-year-old was ​“only” the first of the many girls of Jacob Elordi’s Felix. But for the South London-born actor, being cast in Emerald Fennell’s film was a breakthrough moment. Still, Sadie has been acting since she was 17 – she was talent-spotted by an agent during a school production of Twelfth Night. Then she was cast in the supernatural series Fate: The Winx Saga and has been broadening her range ever since: Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard in the West End, dystopian horror movie Arcadian alongside Nicolas Cage and, most recently, ​“toxic teen” drama The Gathering on Channel 4. ​“Acting gives me a feeling like nothing else. It’s infinite and singular, and I love that,” she says. ​“I think being in entertainment also helps you empathise with others – which is something we all need more of!” We second that. JW

@sadiesoverall

“I manifested winning with crystals! I have a rose quartz in my bag, which is good for blocking negative energy, and a big Labradorite at home.” So says Patrick Garvey, winner of the L’Oréal Professionnel Young Talent Award at this year’s Central Saint Martins BA Fashion Show. Inspired by his Catholic upbringing, the 23-year-old knitwear designer developed a unique crystal-growing technique that involves dunking garments in a solution to create instant ​“embroidery” – ​“like this idea of holy water and making the clothes divine,” he says. There are big things ahead for the young Liverpudlian: he’s about to move to Paris to do a master’s at the prestigious Institut Français de la Mode. Has anyone – or his crystals – dispensed any career-building wisdom? ​“Someone told me that you shouldn’t call your brand after yourself. I think it was Tom Ford who told me that.” Yeah, and what does he know? TL

@patrickjgarvey

For Oisín McKenna, it was seeing a statue of Oscar Wilde on a school trip to Dublin that sparked the idea of a career in writing. ​“That was the first time I’d heard of a gay person being celebrated because he was this witty, good writer,” says the first-time novelist from Drogheda. ​“I wanted to be like that.” Now, he is – just ask the readers who made his book Evenings and Weekends one of the buzziest debuts of the year. A warm, intimate story about a group of interconnected characters that unfolds during a weekend heatwave in northeast London, in many ways, the book is the 32-year-old’s love letter to his adoptive city – not least the place he describes as London’s hidden gem: Central Station, ​“an old-school gay pub with really good karaoke” in King’s Cross. Oisín’s go-to track to belt out on a Saturday night? ​“DJ Sammy’s Heaven.” TL

@ois_mck91

There are lots of sausages in Olivia Sterling’s art. There are also lots of eclairs, bananas, hot dogs and, er, grass snakes – like Olivia, they’re native to Lincolnshire. Her paintings are absurd, camp tableaux which use food and comedy (and reptiles) to lampoon oppressive, gammon figures, rendering them in fleshy pinks, often only from the neck down. ​“I did a painting of some UKIP men turned into Lincolnshire sausages,” says the 27-year-old. ​“It feels very fun to transform these villain figures into food.” Having trained at London’s Royal College of Art, Olivia has already exhibited solo shows at galleries including Guts in Hackney and Meyer Riegger in Berlin. Next up: another Guts show in September, which is all about dating. As she puts it: ​“Painting is so wonderful, you can get so close to a different world.” How, then, would she describe the world of her works? ​“Full of fat bitches!” TL

@oliviaster

Haunted Mound were brought together by the internet. Fronted by 23-year-old Sematary (above), the group consists of fellow Californian Hackle, 23; childhood friends Oscar and Buckshot, both 22, from Wicklow, Ireland; and their DJ, Anvil, 27, who hails from Portland, Oregon. Known for their horrorcore sound, which blends drill, witch house and black metal, the rap collective met through Instagram and bonded over a love for memes and artists such as Chief Keef and Bladee. ​“Back then, the shit we were listening to wasn’t just handed to you on TikTok,” says Semetary. ​“We had to really dig.” Having wrapped a 17-city European tour in June and a packed North American tour before that, it’s been a successful year for the underground collective. What’s their secret? ​“This is all DIY so you gotta make it work,” says Sematary. ​“It doesn’t just come – we worked really hard to be here.” TL

@semataryy
@hauntedmound

When then-16-year-old Tife Kusoro saw the first series of Michaela Coel’s Chewing Gum on Channel 4 in 2015, something clicked. ​“I immediately saw myself in her,” says the Nigerian-British playwright. Inspired by Coel’s breakout sitcom, she wrote her first theatre piece We Have Sinned in 2017, ​“about Catholic school kids discovering themselves through sex”. Having moved to east London from Lagos at 10, Tife always felt like a misfit growing up. ​“Worrying about whether my parents had money or how I looked was amplified by moving to a completely different environment.” But since then, the 25-year-old has become an accomplished writer and actor, performing her one-woman play Last Black Girl on Earth at Camden’s Roundhouse earlier this year. ​“I always strive to have a feeling of hope [in my work],” she says. ​“Regardless of how difficult the subject matter is, [I want] to have moments of joy and love.” Tife’s brilliant coming-of-age play, G, is currently showing at the Royal Court Theatre – catch it before it’s gone! TL

@boluwatifs

“Everyone wants to come to our parties with the tiniest outfit, the tiniest skirt!” says Tedesco, animatedly. The 24-year-old DJ from Venezuela is one of the core trio of 2cPerrea, the sultry Latinx DJ collective and club night beloved by ass-shaking Londoners. Tired of endless techno at queer parties and the macho energy of your average reggaeton night, Tedesco, Josefa (29), Yampi (27) and their friends decided to set up the collective in 2022, throwing parties all around London. Their mission: to create a place ​“where people dance from beginning to end”, says Yampi. And that statement is no joke. ​“We started doing events until 8am and at least half the people were still there screaming at 6am!” says Josefa. Do the trio have a favourite drink to power them through the late nights? Course they do: margarita for Josefa, tequila ginger beer for Yampi and another margarita – ​“spicy!” – for Tedesco. TL

@2c_perrea

STYLIST’S ASSISTANT Miranda Mikkola