SXSW 2026
MUSIC FESTIVAL
SXSW Reveals First Wave of Artists for the 2026 Music Festival.
SXSW Art 2026. Courtesy SXSW.
SXSW has revealed the first wave of artists set to perform at the 2026 edition of its Music Festival, which runs March 12–18 and marks the event’s 40th year. The initial lineup already suggests a global conversation in motion: musicians arriving from different scenes, languages, and traditions, each bringing their own interpretation of what the future of music might sound like.
AUSTIN TX, By Pablo Herrera
Every year, SXSW reminds us that the future of music doesn’t arrive fully formed — it emerges in fragments, experiments, and small rooms where something unexpected is happening onstage. The first announcement for the 2026 edition makes that clear: SXSW festival still believes in discovery.
You can already sense the range and intention behind this year’s programming. From Brighton comes Milo Korbenski, a masked performer twisting lo-fi art-pop into something theatrical and unsettling. Los Angeles brings DJ_Dave, whose sets unfold through live coding — music built in real time, visible as it happens. Mexico City’s La Texana pushes post-punk toward the dancefloor without losing the grit of the street. In Brooklyn, Hudson Freeman continues to develop a kind of folk songwriting that feels handwritten and close to the skin, while Austin’s own Bayonne blends loops, percussion, and synths into intimate, emotional crescendos.
Scenes overlap and answer each other across continents: the sharp indie urgency of Indonesia’s Grrrl Gang, the cold tension of Irish post-punks Chalk, the brat-energy of LA’s The Sophs, the cinematic hip-hop storytelling of KOAD, and the steady, deliberate voice of Joyner Lucas — a reminder that established artists and emerging ones breathe the same air at SXSW. The point is not hierarchy; the point is exchange.
This is how SXSW operates at its best: a space where different artistic languages recognize each other, collide, and sometimes, accidentally, create something new.
Since 2024, TMN® has been covering SXSW across music, film, and innovation, involving more than ten young creators in the process. 2026 won’t be any different. Photo: Creator Abigail Donkor by Pablo Herrera for TMN®.
Why We Go Back
This will be TMN®’s third year on the ground in Austin, working alongside the festival rather than just observing it. For us, SXSW is a classroom without walls — a place where young creators learn directly, urgently, surrounded by real stakes and real audiences.
Our team comes from different cities, different backgrounds, and different stages of experience. Some are photographing their first major festival. Some are conducting interviews that will shape their professional confidence. Some are simply there to absorb and make sense of the culture around them.
But every year, something essential happens: they realize they belong here.
Because the music world is not a closed door — it’s a conversation. If you show up with intention, you get to speak.
What You’ll See From TMN
Throughout the festival, we’ll be sharing the process in real time: the conversations with artists just before they step onstage, the late-night reflections when the city is still buzzing, the photographs that capture not only performance but atmosphere, and the interviews where young creators learn how to hold space, listen deeply, and ask the right questions.
What matters to us is not only what happens under the lights, but also the walk between venues, the quiet moments where doubt turns into commitment, the realization — sometimes small, sometimes overwhelming — that this is where their work belongs.
We’ll be releasing this coverage on our SXSW Playlist on the TMN® YouTube channel, which now hosts nearly 100 videos featuring artist interviews, performances, and much more. We update the playlist regularly, so don’t wait to join — close, real, unpolished, and honest.
Join us on our YouTube channel.
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