Kenya Grace

Kenya Grace is a South African-born British singer whose sleek fusion of club-driven pop and drum’n’bass won her a mainstream audience in the early 2020s. Her 2023 single “Strangers” became a viral success and topped the U.K. pop chart, earning her a place alongside Kate Bush as the only other British female artist to achieve that feat with a self-performed, self-written, and self-produced song. Grace was born in South Africa but raised in Southampton, England. After graduating from Guildford’s Academy of Contemporary Music, she put her songwriting skills to work and began releasing electronic pop singles in 2019, taking influence from artists like Banks, Flume, and Nao. After a move to North London in 2022, Grace’s output increased and became more focused with songs like “Orange” and the shimmering “Venus,” a collaboration with Homebodi. By mid-2023, she’d established a sleek and catchy electronic style that caught the attention of Warner Bros.′ dance imprint Major Recordings. Using classic drum’n’bass production, she released “Meteor,” which started to gain some mainstream traction. Her next single, a home-recorded and entirely self-played and self-produced drum’n’bass track called “Strangers,” came out in July 2023, and over the next three months grew exponentially into a number one U.K. hit that charted throughout Europe as well. After a “slower and sadder” remix of “Strangers,” Grace followed up with the propulsive “Only in My Mind.” ~ Timothy Monger