With another year of Love Supreme wrapped up, the UK’s largest jazz festival has become a petri dish for emerging artists. In their fourth appearance and first headline slot, Mercury Prize-winning Ezra Collective acknowledged the festival’s importance, with drummer Femi Koleoso stating: “We wouldn’t be where we are if they hadn’t taken a chance”. The booking at Love Supreme has become emphatically forward-facing, handing now-megastar Olivia Dean her first-ever festival headline back in 2024, ensuring the future of music is free to cross-pollinate on the fields of Glynde Place. As soul, jazz and their subgenres continue their mainstream resurgence, here are five artists that should be on your radar after Love Supreme 2026.

Olympia Vitalis

Blending the smoky vocals of Joy Crookes with Amy Winehouse’s confessionalism, Olympia Vitalis’ neo-soul influences are evident. With some truly spectacular vocal runs and a candid stage presence, Vitalis honours soul’s lineage while tackling heavy subject matter from postnatal depression to music-industry struggles with real maturity.

Listen to: ‘Daze’ and ‘Baby Blues’

Knats

Perhaps best known as the backing band of Geordie Greep, Knats stepped firmly into the limelight before Love Supreme with a Jools Holland appearance alongside Angine De Poitrine and Shania Twain. Blending freeform jazz with barked post-punk sprechgesang, Knats are unapologetically Geordie in their delivery. With spoken word from Cooper Robson reflecting the realities of working-class life, their high-energy experimental jazz translates lived hardship into sonic punches that are at times challenging yet striking in their rhythmic fluidity.

Listen to: ‘Wor Jackie’ and ‘Carpet Doctor’

James Emmanuel

Nigeria-born but Scotland-raised, James Emmanuel has a voice seemingly ripped straight from the 1970s. With a smooth baritone evoking Barry White, Emmanuel’s Gospel background and booming vocal projection lend him a striking preacher-fronting-a-soul-band stage presence. Paired with his unrelenting optimism, James Emmanuel’s presence alone will have you feeling ready to conquer the world.

Listen to: ‘Sweet To Me’ and ‘Time’

Kofi Stone

While already known in hip-hop circles, Kofi Stone’s introspective boom-bap rap seems ready to follow collaborator Loyle Carner into the mainstream. Moving from the boastful ‘King David Flow’ to the lovesick ‘Talk About Us’, Stone’s discography eschews our expectations of rap’s overt masculinity, in favour of hope, understanding and openness. 

Listen to: ‘It’s Ok to Cry’ and ‘Venice’

LULU.

With her mission statement, “Afro for the soul and soul for the feeling”, LULU. is a multi-hyphenate with an already iconic name. Sharing a name with someone so well-established would usually be a hindrance, but her brand of unafraid afrosoul has seen her featured on tracks with the likes of Kokoroko. While established as a guest vocalist and just twenty-two, LULU. has the range to step into the spotlight with her own material and claim the name as her own.

Listen to: ‘Yesterdays’ and ‘Save Me’

Keir Shields

@ke1rshields_

If you enjoyed reading this article, please consider buying us a coffee. The money from this pot goes towards the ever-increasing yearly costs of running and hosting the site, and our "Writer Of The Month" cash prize.