Erica Campbell

Dylan Fraser and Alaska Reid were never meant to be in a band. For the two singer-songwriters, their solo endeavors have been the main focus for the past few years. But sometimes between artists, there’s a certain spark — a ‘twin telepathy,’ if you will — that becomes undeniable.

What better way to celebrate Rolling Loud’s 10th year of undisputable festival fun Miami than with the Queen of the fest herself, Bunny Zingler? Married to festival co-founder Matt Zingler and the beauty mogul and content creator behind Bunny’s Bae Bar — a dedicated space offering complimentary glam services and sanitary products to festivalgoers since 2019 — she’s been bringing positive vibes and championing women in hip-hop since the event’s inception.

Being a true music lover ain’t for the faint of heart. But, as PAPER witnessed earlier this week, the art of musical worship has not completely lost its purity, and hours of idolization — and in this case — streaming, can sometimes pay off.

From a rapper’s grandiose penthouse delight to the sleaziest dive bars spinning vinyl, PAPER is giving you a first-hand look into the Big Apple’s most hype-worthy music experiences in Seriously, What Are You Doing? — straight from the music editor's mouth. Are you or someone you love feeling restless in the city that never sleeps? Here’s what you should be doing (seriously!).

As 2024 draws to a close, what better way to pay homage to the past 12 months than with a song about nostalgia, love and timid optimism? Lucky for us, Los Angeles singer-songwriter Talker (Celeste Tauchar) is doing just that, with a little inspiration and reimagination of The Killers’ decade-old track, “Smile Like You Mean It.”

PAPER's first listen of Blondshell's If You Asked For A Picture is during a listening session in a Chelsea Hotel room. In the small space, in between bites of cheese and sips of wine, Sabrina Teitelbaum's second studio album starts to take shape. Her track "T&A" plays on vinyl — its distorted guitar opening and her echoing vocals pour out evenly around the lyrics, "Why don't the good one's love me?" According to Teitelbaum, she wanted to write something "romantic and sexualized" with the song and somehow hit both those marks. "I think there’s a misleading dichotomy between romantic and sexual songs," she tells PAPER. "In real life those feelings don’t have to exist in the absence of one another. I wanted all of the songs on the album to feel realistic and representative of in-between spaces."

Bartees Strange’s latest record, Horror, deals with one of the most avoided emotions known to man: fear. “Fear is a powerful thing,” he tells PAPER. “It can ruin your life. If you don't learn how to face them, then you become a slave to them and if you can move through them, you can become a more actualized version of yourself. I struggle with my fears and this record is me trying to make sense of and move through them in real time so I can connect with other people who look around and feel scared.”

When you grow up in the South, it can be hard to see it as a magical place. But, when you venture out, whether by force or choice, you start to realize that its culture — the Taco Mac you go to after church, the Mexican restaurant where you buy margaritas the size of your head, or the cul de sac you used to dream on — holds a new kind of magic.

Spacey Jane’ s “All The Noise” is a bouncy track about the soul-crushing nature of rejection. It's the kind of indie rock offering that makes you remember why you’d even fall in love in the first place, spelling out truths and vulnerable revelations over driving guitar parts and buoyant drums. The music video for the track, premiering today on

Sadie Jean’s new track “Nice Knowing You” explores the “raw, in-the-moment emotions of processing [a relationship] was really over.” In the music video, premiering today on PAPER, she roams around Greenwich Village — her old NYU stomping grounds — and replays the highlights of a romantic relationship before the fall-out, inspired by Before Sunrise.