Rolling Stone - USA (2019-07)

July 2019 | Rolling Stone | 61

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ALENT MANAGERS Daniel Awad and Danny

Kang are the music industry’s unofficial kings

of virality. When Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road”

first hit SoundCloud and TikTok, they saw its

potential and reached out to offer some career advice; when

yodel-boy-turned-country-hitmaker Mason Ramsey made

his viral Walmart appearance, they signed him and landed a

major-label deal. (When a picture of an egg became the most

liked photo on Instagram? Awad, 26, and Kang, 31, were

working with the elusive character behind that too.) The

pair have been at it for a while, but “it’s taken a few years to

convince people that what we do works,” Kang says. “We’re

finally starting to see the fruits of our labor.” ELIAS LEIGHT

HOT TASTEMAKERS

Daniel Awad and

Danny Kang

SEARCHING FOR THE NEXT “OLD TOWN ROAD”

Kang and Awad’s secret? “Really understanding internet culture and memes,”

Kang says. Here are their picks for three soon-to-be-inescapable artists.

ARIES

Minor YouTube-star-turned-

genre-blurring-rapper-and-

singer. “He’s nailing this niche

so much better than so many

other artists,” says Awad.

OLIVER TREE

Kang says this Santa Cruz,

California, singer, whom he

and Awad manage, is “going

to be the Andy Warhol of

memes and music combined.”

SLAYYYTER

“She’s creating her own

world,” Awad says of this St.

Louis pop-trash connoisseur,

known for her shameless,

irreverent online presence.

PHOTOGRAPH BY CJ Harvey

ANNEQUIN PUSSY’S Marisa Dabice has a voice you can’t ignore — a

punk yowl with a soul singer’s flair for raw passion. Her Philadel-

phia foursome raise a ferociously emotional racket on their new

album, Patience, one of the year’s most intense rock statements.

See “Drunk II,” a witty ballad about partying through misery: “I forgot we

were broken up/I still love you, you stupid fuck.” As you might guess from her

excellent band name, Dabrice has a confrontational side to her personality. As a

kid, she took guitar lessons from a Philly session musician who played with Hall

and Oates. “One day, one of them came in,” she recalls. “I gave him an angry

look — ‘ Hey, this is my guitar time!’ ” (Was it Hall or Oates? “I have no idea. The

blond.”) Mannequin Pussy came together when she started playing with child-

hood friend Thanasi Paul. “That became my cathartic outlet,” she says, “just

screaming onstage.” With each album, they’ve gotten even more fearless; Dab-

ice says several songs on Patience are about an abusive relationship. “I never

wanted to write about those things,” she says. “But I see a song as an opportu-

nity to work through the experience and then say goodbye to it.” ROB SHEFFIELD

M

Mannequin Pussy

HOT PUNK SCREAMERS

Paul, Dabice,

drummer

Kaleen Reading

and bassist

Bear Regisford

(from left) in

Philadelphia