Will Linley

A singer and songwriter of heartfelt relationship songs, South Africa’s Will Linley found an international audience for his warm and tuneful contemporary pop on social media. His viral breakthrough, 2021′s “miss me (when you’re gone),” led to the major-label release of his debut EP, 2022′s kill all my feelings. These sparkling, partly acoustic early songs were followed by fleshier, full-band arrangements on singles like 2022′s “Last Call” and 2023′s “Tough (The Girls Song).” Hailing from Cape Town, William Peter Nel Linley grew up in a musical family and started writing songs around the age of 16, but it was during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, while half-heartedly pursuing a college degree, that he began applying his trade in earnest. He started sharing song fragments and solo video performances of his typically upbeat, earnest pop songs on TikTok in 2020. Steadily garnering a following for both his music and charismatic lifestyle posts, he was 20 years old when his lip-synched video for his recording of “miss me (when you’re gone)” went viral in the later part of 2021. BMG came calling and gave the full song a proper label release in 2022, leading up to the July 2022 major-label delivery of his first EP, the mostly acoustic kill all my feelings. All the while, Linley continued to beef up arrangements, which came to climax on the EP’s effervescent, plugged-in closing title track. He showcased radio-friendly full-band accompaniment on subsequent singles, such as 2022′s “Last Call,” which cracked the singles chart in Ireland, and 2023′s “Tough (The Girls Song)” and “Maybe.” The singer played his first shows in the U.S. that October. ~ Marcy Donelson