Jon Bellion

“Wu-Tang raised me, but Death Cab changed me,” Jon Bellion sang on his first mixtape in 2011, summing up his influences in one rhyme. Born in 1990, the Long Island native grew up absorbing hip-hop, emo, pop and electronic and his own music reflects that upbringing, as he tops a fusion of all four styles with a voice as versatile as his songwriting. Bellion was fresh out of high school when his self-produced mixtape found its way to Warner A&R exec and American Idol judge Kara DioGuardi, a songwriter with an enviable track record. Publishing deal in hand, he spent two years learning how to pen hit records, holed up in daily writing sessions with artists of every stripe. On the side, he kept grinding, dropping three more mixtapes between 2013 and 2014. He co-wrote Eminem and Rihanna’s “The Monster”, then sang on Zedd’s “Beautiful Now”, but it was his debut album, 2016’s The Human Condition, that cemented his triple-threat status as a singer, songwriter and producer. That record’s mix of styles found its perfect balance in songs like “All Time Low”, with its Ben Gibbard-influenced falsetto, skeletal boom-bap beat and post-EDM synths (not to mention the emo-referencing title). On 2018’s Glory Sound Prep and subsequent singles, Bellion has kept polishing his singular sound, zigzagging between effortlessly unconventional beats (“Crop Circles”), fission-powered epics (“Good Things Fall Apart”) and acoustic versions stripped down to the artist’s inimitable voice and unerring melodies. As he sang of his guiding principles on that long-ago mixtape: “It’s Dilla in the pocket but it’s so Paul Simon.”