WHAT IT IS: Layton Greene has lived a life that belies her 20 years. Growing up in East St. Louis, Ill., she discovered her musical gift at the age of seven—when she sang Keyshia Cole’s “Love” to her mother. By the time she was a teenager, she auditioned for (and was rejected by) both X-Factor and America’s Got Talent. What would have been a crushing blow for most didn’t faze her. Greene was focused on becoming a professional singer no matter what. In 2017, she went viral after remixing Kodak Black’s “Roll in Peace” and uploading the homemade video to social media. This led the singer into the studio with producer G-Styles. “Roll in Peace Remix” gained more than 3.5m SoundCloud plays in its first month and jumped into the Top 15 of Billboard’s Hot R&B Songs chart. She found a home with Quality Control’s Pierre “P” Thomas and Kevin “Coach K” Lee, signed in February and, in the spring, released “Leave Em Alone” f/Lil Baby, City Girls & PnB Rock, which has since amassed 85m+ streams and reached #1 on YouTube Music’s “R&B on the Rise.” This early in her career, she has a combined global streams number around 350m. Her first body of work, the Tell Ya Story EP, doesn’t shy away from real life—her struggles and her triumphs. “I get real vulnerable on it,” she says. “I talk about things people don’t really talk about anymore.” In a world that oftentimes forces us to smile, Greene hopes that Tell Ya Story inspires others to do just that, to be imperfect, to be real.
ALBUM: Tell Ya Story (EP)
RELEASE DATE: 9/27
SINGLE: “Leave Em Alone”
RADIO: Impacted Urban and Rhythm; heading Top 10 on Urban published chart; 120m audience TD; Top 20 at Rhythm
INTERNET: 1.8m monthly Spotify listeners; 116m+ global streams; single doing 1.7m+ weekly streams; 43.6m+ views on YouTube (official video + lyric)
PRESS: Featured by Fader, HotNewHipHop, Billboard, Complex, UPROXX, more
MANAGEMENT: Prophet/ 50/50 Management