Shamir: Electro-Pop Wunderkind

It’s been a breakout year for the 20-year-old artist Shamir Bailey, who records under his first name. His debut album,Ratchet,has garnerednearly universal acclaimand lots ofattention forhis lovely countertenor voice, which seems to float above infectiouswaves of deep house-inspiredbeats.

Raised on country and folk music, Shamir dabbledin punk and lo-fi as a teenager, eventuallysettling— if onlyfor the time being —into his current electronic sound(witha bit of rap thrown into the mix, too).Kurt Andersen’s full interview with Shamir is coming up in this week’s episode, but you can watch Shamir and his band playing their single “On the Regular” below.