We last heard from the Maisie Peters team in 2020, when the British artist was early in her development but had already hit a plethora of major milestones. Those included selling out London’s 2k cap. Shepherd’s Bush Empire and picking up a legion of fans across press and radio.
Her career has only gone from strength to strength since. Peters hit #1 on the U.K.’s Official Albums Chart in June 2023 with her second set, The Good Witch, and has racked up over 1.5b streams. Her debut, You Signed Up for This, reached #2 in the U.K. in 2021.
In the live arena, she supported her mentor Ed Sheeran on his stadium dates, toured with Coldplay, Noah Kahan, Taylor Swift and Conan Gray and played the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury. For her own headline shows, she is now an arena artist, having played London’s Wembley last year and Australia’s Melbourne Margaret Court Arena earlier this year, as well as selling out New York’s Radio City Music Hall and the Hollywood Palladium in L.A.
“She is a first-class British entertainer who has really done her 10,000 hours of live performance,” says Atlantic Records U.K. Co-President, Briony Turner. “She is an exceptional storyteller, and her wit and wry narrative give her a really unique place in the landscape of amazing female artists who are dominating the global stage right now.”
After completing her busy 2024 live schedule, Peters will be working on her third album. Liz Goodwin, GM at Atlantic U.K., says continuing to build audiences in Europe, Southeast Asia and Australia, as well as the U.K., is also a priority, alongside “focusing in on her rich catalog of songs and her highly engaged and growing social platforms.
“The U.S. is a huge focus for us every day, and we’re hoping she and the band will spend a lot of time there, particularly around the third album.” Peters has already made appearances on Today, Jimmy Fallon and James Corden.
The ultimate ambition, according to Turner, is “super-serving her existing fan base as well as making sure that her music reaches as many people across the world as possible.”
Jordan Adetunji, who describes himself as equal parts rock and rap star, has been climbing up the charts on both sides of the Atlantic this year with “Kehlani.” The track peaked at #8 on the U.K.’s Official Singles Chart, #25 on the Billboard Hot 100 and has tallied over 300m worldwide streams.
He caught the attention of the Warner Records U.K. team after they noticed the then-independently released “Kehlani” bubbling on TikTok. It’s his second major-label deal, after previously being signed to Sony. “We’d been long-term fans of Jordan and had admired him from afar for a while,” says Tobi Omoloja, A&R consultant at the Warner label. “He was someone we really wanted to work with, and we felt he represented everything we stand for as a label.” The team brought in 300/YSL to have a global partner, and Adetunji was signed within a week.
Jordan’s DIY approach to making music makes him truly special, according to Jerome Porritt, head of A&R at Warner Records U.K. “His creation process is incredibly quick, he has a completely unique voice, and his writing style is a fascinating duality between underground and pop references, which is a real breath of fresh air.”
“Kehlani” has been boosted by a feature from Kehlani herself. That precedes some “amazing features” from artists in New York, London and Belfast that Omoloja promises will appear on a project that Adetunji will release later this year or early next. In the meantime, the plan is to keep building his profile to lay the groundwork for what Omoloja says will be an important milestone in his career.
“We see him as an artist who can sit between the Internet and pop culture—who takes an underground sound and style to the mainstream—and we want to help facilitate that as best we can,” he adds.
The U.S. is a big focus, as is the rest of the world. “There really is no ceiling for Jordan,” concludes Porritt. “There is no reason he can’t sit alongside the Drakes and Weeknds of the world. We want him to continue making authentic, groundbreaking music, and we want to help him reach as many people as possible.”
