Stephan Folkes enters the musical space with Hazard, an expansive, genre-fluid debut that feels like a personal diary stretched across the stars. It’s cinematic, sonic poetry — at times spacey and introspective, at others grounded in pain and grit. The Leytonstone artist makes clear: this isn’t just an album, it’s an experience.

From the first shimmering notes of What Should You Do (For Your Whole Life)?, Folkes invites us into a world that oscillates between dreamy exploration and radical self-accountability. The production is lush, echoing influences like Prince and Billie Eilish, but never derivative — Folkes crafts something wholly his own, futuristic yet familiar.

What’s particularly captivating is how each song serves as a lesson in resilience. Is This Paradise? hits like a journal entry after loss, while Say It Like You Mean It is the confident rebirth that follows — rhythmic, swaggering, unashamed. Folkes shows range not just in sound, but in emotional terrain, mapping love, grief, doubt, and transformation with care.

His lived experience informs every note. Whether it’s surviving near-death as a child or navigating a world not built for neurodivergent minds, his voice carries both a weight and a clarity. Hazard, especially in its closer moments, offers more than music — it offers perspective.

A debut this refined and audacious doesn’t just introduce an artist; it signals the start of a movement. Stephan Folkes is forging new paths for expression — and Hazard is his first masterpiece.

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