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The Austin 100: Kady Rain

Nina Hawkins
/
Courtesy of the artist

Hometown: Austin, Texas

Genre: Pop

Why We're Excited: If pop music is rooted in chemistry, then there's an elusive element on the Periodic Table called Jepsenium (Je), which transforms an ecstatic little summer jam into a full-blown pop juggernaut. Kady Rain's got Jepsenium in her blood, and "R.A.D. Moves" is her "Call Me Maybe" — the sort of song that, if it hits, could enjoy a pop-chart shelf life measured in years, not weeks.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Stephen Thompson is a writer, editor and reviewer for NPR Music, where he speaks into any microphone that will have him and appears as a frequent panelist on All Songs Considered. Since 2010, Thompson has been a fixture on the NPR roundtable podcast Pop Culture Happy Hour, which he created and developed with NPR correspondent Linda Holmes. In 2008, he and Bob Boilen created the NPR Music video series Tiny Desk Concerts, in which musicians perform at Boilen's desk. (To be more specific, Thompson had the idea, which took seconds, while Boilen created the series, which took years. Thompson will insist upon equal billing until the day he dies.)