Spotlight On: ARLO PARKS

ABOUT THIS WEEK’S SHERO IN THE SPOTLIGHT:

There is a feeling you get when you hear a new artist for the first time and know, in your bones - this artist is going to be big. Each announcement of a new song, or collection of songs comes with anticipation and excitement, and then this sense of wonder - like, WOW. There it is, again. It is a rare thing. And from the get go, songwriter and poet Arlo Parks had That Thing. Born Anais Olowatuyin Estelle Marinho, Arlo Parks is half Nigerian, born to a Parisian mother, and was raised in West London. While still a teenager, she released her first single in 2018 and caught the attention of the BBC. Soon thereafter a pair of EP’s arrived in 2019 - Super Sad Generation, followed by the EP Sophie. The accolades and press was nearly immediate. Arlo Parks was longlisted as a breakthrough act of 2020 in an annual BBC poll of music critics, Sound of 2020. By July, she was gracing the cover of NME, and the following month won the AIM Independent Music Award for One to Watch in 2020, that sentiment shared by Amazon Music, NME, and the BBC. At long last her hotly anticipated full length debut Collapsed In Sunbeams is here, just released on Friday January 29th, and as predicted, it lives up to its promise. Now just 20 years old, and right on the cusp of having her biggest year yet, Arlo Parks is this week’s SHERO In The Spotlight.

Our playlist features new music from North Ireland’s Jealous of the Birds, classic Massive Attack from their debut Blue Lines (which will be 30 this year), and a newly updated - and female - cover of a Simon & Garfunkel song by Courtney Marie Andrews with Liz Cooper and Molly Sarle. We also celebrate two SHERO Birthdays this week: Bettye Lavette is 75 on 1/29, and Laura Marling is 31 on Monday 2/1. 

The Radio SHERO of the week is Gini Mascorro, Music Director and Evening Host at KXT in Dallas, TX. She treated us to a track from her SHEROES The Slits, with a song about the radio “FM”.