Morray

Fayetteville, North Carolina, singer Morray toiled away at music for a few short years before a tip from one of his most trusted critics helped steer his writing in a new direction. “I would always give my wifey songs like, ‘Listen to this song,’” the Up Next honoree told Apple Music. “And she'd be like, 'It's hot 'cause you're you, baby, but damn, do something different.' That kind of changed my attention of what I was writing about, 'cause I started tapping into who I really was.” That offhanded pep talk inspired him to write “Quicksand”, the 2020 breakout smash that chronicles the hardships he bested to become the rising star he is today. Morray’s debut mixtape, Street Sermons, is filled with songs that speak to the struggles of the people he grew up with, the singer using an endless amount of off-kilter flows to talk about where he comes from, his experiences as a reckless youth and what he believes he owes his success to. On “Trenches”, he takes on the role of motivational speaker, assuring listeners that if he did it, you can too: “We all experience pain and we have our own struggles,” he says at the outset of the song. “It's all about how you come out of it: What don’t kill you make you stronger, and what don’t break your pockets make your money longer.”