The Washington DC artist fleshes out his retro-futurist musical vision in this playlist, featuring Steve Lacy, Hall & Oates, his hero Michael Jackson and more

NME’s latest star of The Cover, Kanii, has shared a playlist exclusively to accompany the story’s launch – check it out below.

The Washington DC artist is on this week’s (April 8) edition of The Cover, a renewal of NME’s commitment to supporting emerging talent across the globe on a weekly basis. Every week, a rising artist will feature on The Cover – you can read the profile of Kanii here, written by Kyann-Sian Williams and featuring photography by Kristen Jan Wong.

Accompanying the story is an exclusive playlist of songs Kanii has compiled to flesh out his musical vision of ‘retro-futurism’, featuring Steve Lacy, Hall & Oates, his hero Michael Jackson and more. Listen to the full playlist on Spotify below and on Apple Music.

Though he’s known for Jersey club TikTok hit ‘I Know’, Kanii has also been mining ’80s pop and 2010s jerk music, and recently dropped a collaborative EP with Riovaz and Nimstarr as The Heart Racers. He’s also working on an album: “I’m working on creating the best music that I can and putting my all into it, because I know that real music speaks. So as long as I’m trying my hardest, it’ll get to somebody.”

Find out more about Kanii in the full Cover story here and see who else has been on The Cover here.