The ultimate new music nepo baby power ranking
Ah, nepotism, the issue forever on everyone’s lips because we never can seem to go much longer than a few weeks without a new baby popping up.
They’re seemingly everywhere, scattered across every industry. But in the entertainment world, and especially in the music industry, it appears that at every turn, from local venues to the major awards shows, there is no escaping the kids of famous faces.
Nepo babies have been the butt of the joke for a while now as people moan and mock the blue hyperlinks that haunt the Wikipedia pages of new and exciting talent. Some new band or new artist pops up and quickly they’re found out for having a leg up.
Some don’t try to hide their roots, as they head out on the road with their parents, but others can’t seem to resist putting their foot in it with statements like Gracie Abrams blocking her ears and claiming “I know how hard I work, and I know how separate I’ve kept [my parents] from every conversation about anything career-wise.”
But really, to many, it’s a bigger issue than the jokes make it out to be. When we talk about lack of access to the creative fields, and about how the cost of living, and the cost of art, is making it less and less viable that a working-class person with no connections will make it work, nepo babies stand at the ultimate antithesis of that, and the ultimate example of how the wealthy can get ahead.
However, we have to give some of them their flowers. While famous parents can get you in the door, it does eventually have to come down to talent. Some have so much of it that their privilege can be forgiven. Others, on the other hand, do not.
The new music nepo baby power ranking, from worst to best:
Villanelle
Sometimes, when your parents are so crazy famous, the question of ‘why?’ simply has to be asked. It must be tough if you’ve been raised around rock bands your whole life, and so have naturally forged your own passion for it. But realistically, if your old man is Liam fucking Gallagher, you are literally never getting out of that shadow.
Villanelle could be the biggest band in the world and still people would always punctuation Gene Gallagher’s name with a notice of who his dad is. It’s the exact same reality for Lennon Gallagher and his band Automotion. But the thing is that neither of them will be the biggest band in the world, because neither of them are very good.
Automotion have something going for them as they lean towards a grungier, more shoegazey direction. But as Villanelle shared their debut single ‘Hinge’, going straight for the kind of boisterous rock that Oasis are kings of, they were doomed. They’re also doomed because Gene can’t really sing. So there’s also that issue.
Jesse Jo Stark
For those who don’t care about the world of luxury fashion, the Stark family have likely never crossed your radar. But as the owners of Chrome Hearts, a brand launched in 1988 and still worn and beloved by many a famous face, the net worth of the business and its founders is said to be well over a billion. Take a second to peek at any of their social media accounts and you’ll get proof of that.
Jesse Jo Stark is the eldest daughter of the family and also the goddaughter of none other than Cher. As well as designing for the brand and dating Yungblud, Stark has a music project that is sometimes incredible and sometimes absolutely painfully awful. As the family’s brand is so supported by rock and roll idols, Stark is often found being hyped up by people like Sex Pistols’ Steve Jones, but the music always kind of just feels like a rich LA girl doing rock and roll without any of the grit or angst that makes the genre run.
There is value, like on ‘Ladybird’, the folk-ish ‘Tangerine’ or ‘Fallout’, but it again begs the question of whether art needs to be, to a degree, hard won in order to be truly great.
Maya Hawke
Don’t get me wrong, Maya Hawke has worth. She has more than proved her talent outside of the looming legacy of her father, Ethan Hawke, and mother, Uma Thurman. The pressure must have been immense with that calibre of breeding. But she proved herself the second she stepped onto the screens for Stranger Things.
Her music, on the other hand, is a perfect example of deeply middling nepo baby music. There are moments of greatness with tracks like ‘Therese’ or ‘Missing Out’, which cautiously address her unique circumstances. But broadly, there’s just not much there. It all lacks a spark or an excitement that possibly comes from having to fight for something. If you can call up anyone in the world and pay for any fancy studio space you want at the drop of a hat, no wonder the tunes lack a firiness.
Gene and Dean Wean’s kids
You might be forgiven for not immediately recognising the names of Ashton Freeman and Michael Melchiondo, but if we were to tell you that these were the children of Gene and Dean Ween, and have been performing together under the moniker Not Ween, then it’s possible that you might start making some links.
Ween formed as teenagers in New Hope, Pennsylvania, during the early 1980s, and while Aaron Freeman (Gene) and Mickey Melchiondo (Dean) went on to establish a cult following through their erratic and experimental approach to songwriting, they’re no longer an active unit.
Their children, however, who insist that they are not the second coming of their fathers, have quietly been releasing their own solo material under the respective names of Souperfruit and Bugger, and are doing their best to let the spirit of Ween live on as they united for the first time earlier in 2025 for a live performance. It may not amount to much in the way of continuing their fathers’ legacy, but they’re certainly going about things the right way in terms of establishing themselves as separate entities from the previous generation.
Lola Kirke
Lola Kirke feels like an alternate Jesse Jo Stark, where if Stark is Los Angeles pretending to be a New Yorker, Kirke is in New York pretending to be Nashville. Again, Kirke is the result of a powerful combination of fashion and music as her mother owned a famed boutique in NY and her dad is Simon Kirke, the drummer of Bad Company and Free. The result of that is that Kirke grew up in a world where David Bowie attended her family parties.
But you know what, I’m not mad. In all three of the Kirke sisters, including actor Jemima Kirke, there is something utterly alluring and a real sense of rebellion against their breeding. For Lola, as the youngest, that’s even more complex as her music navigates her feelings towards being the black sheep of the family while also desperately trying to impress them, and also the weirdness of being raised with privilege but absolutely no stability. As an actor, writer and musician, she’s proven her worth far beyond the family name.
Of all the nepo babies, Kirke is one who addresses it head on in both her music and her writing and so not only does that have to be respected, but it’s always done with clear talent beyond the level that can be bought.
Gracie Abrams
At Glastonbury 2025, Paul McCartney watched Gracie Abrams from side of stage – that’s what you can get if your dad is the huge film producer JJ Abrams, and your current boyfriend is Paul Mescal, who is playing McCartney in the upcoming biopics.
Don’t get me wrong, Gracie Abrams has some good songs. ‘That’s So True’ is endlessly catchy, while her older lo-fi work, like ‘Camden’ or ‘Rockland’ from 2021, still stand up as truly beautiful and moving songs. The issue is that Abrams is the definition of vanilla, but it’s vanilla shot quickly to the sky.
Abrams plays the O2 now, which feels baffling given that there still seems to be obvious breath control issues in her live performances, and her songs are certainly not yet arena scale. There is a clear sense that if Abrams didn’t have the benefits that come with connections and privilege, she’d merely be another one of the indie girlies battling it out for 15 minutes of TikTok fame. But she had a cheat code.
Romy Mars
If there is one nepo baby I can have no issue with, it’s Romy Mars. Is her music amazing? No. It is simply the fact that Mars is so obviously a Sofia Coppola creation that it feels genuinely fascinating to watch and exciting to be seeing unveil itself.
With Coppola as her mum and Phoenix’s Thomas Mars as her dad, and you know, the entire Coppola dynasty as her relatives, Mars has the ultimate cool genes. Realistically, she first came into focus thanks to a swiftly deleted viral TikTok of her and her nanny making pasta after Mars claimed she’d been grounded for trying to charter a helicopter just to go for dinner with her friends.
Now that she’s finally been let loose with her own social accounts, the hilarity keeps on coming as Mars is completely unshaken by her platform and brushes off any sense that she should be humbled. She behaves like any other teenage girl, but one with a family of icons. She’s like a Bling Ring character come to life in the 2020s, or a modern-day Marie Antoinette.
That’s why musically, Mars has serious potential. Her star power smacks you round the face the second she opens her mouth to even chat about something random, and so with the promise of her first few singles like ‘A Lister’ and ‘Stuck Up’, she captures her unbothered cool girl energy. It’s maximalist pop with an infectious nonchalance, and surely there are big things coming as she crafts her sound more and more.
Black Country, New Road
Perhaps the most covert and niche instance of nepotism comes from Black Country, New Road. Realistically, does it even count? Does a person in a band that came up at Brixton’s Windmill like everyone else actually get any sort of leg up if they say, ‘oh, my dad is in Underworld?’ But either way, the band’s Tyler Hyde can brag that.
Sure, your dad being Karl Hyde must have benefits in terms of money and especially access to musical know-how, connections, instruments, or even just support. Suppose your dad is a famous musician from an electronic duo big in the ‘80s and ‘90s. In that case, you’re not exactly going to be hit with the classic dinner table conversation telling you to look for a more realistic or stable path. Perhaps that’s why Hyde and her own band have remained so steadfast in their dedication to being left-field. There is the same boldness to BC, NR that is also found in an act like Underworld, and maybe that’s the ultimate benefit of famous parents, maybe it’s all in the encouragement.
Inhaler
I know I said before that if your father is super, especially famous for being in a band, maybe you shouldn’t even try. However, Inhaler might be the exception, as to plenty of younger music fans, Elijah Hewson has more than stepped out of his dad’s shadow. Ask any of the young Inhaler fans screaming in the front row, and they probably wouldn’t even know who Bono is, let alone sing you a U2 fan.
Inhaler have pulled off the impossible, really, as they exist in the exact same world as U2 but are merely the modern equivalent. They’ve become one of the biggest bands around in the world of indie rock, capturing the same market as U2 by being the same brand of utterly inoffensive but instantly hooking. You hear one of their hits once and you know it forever, one of their songs comes on shuffle and even if you don’t love it, you’re not rushing to turn it off. In fact, I’d actively turn the volume up on tracks like ‘Your House’ or ‘Dublin In Ecstasy’.
One thing Inhaler do very right, though, is using their platform. Obviously well aware of the privilege they’ve been afforded, the band have always been vocal when it comes to politics and social injustices, with the latest example being that they’re billed to play Paul Weller’s Gig for Gaza.
Samia
The nepotism debate is a tough one. Because yes, your mum being Kathy Najimy and your dad being Dan Finnerty will help you out. You will get to be born in Los Angeles and have the entertainment world around you from day one. At 15, you’ll get to move to New York and be embraced by that world too, attending the best schools and specifically schools dedicated to creativity. Yes, you’ll have more money to throw at your artistic endeavours, and you’ll have the ability to reach out to and be helped by bigger names. But, at the end of the day, money can’t buy you talent – especially a talent like Samia’s.
Even if you go way back to 2017 and to Samia’s debut single ‘Someone Tell The Boys’, the talent smacks you round the face. Not only are Samia’s vocals incredible, displaying incredible range, but her lyricism is sharp, irreverent and perfectly balanced between hooks and nuance. It’s no wonder that she was quickly plucked from the hectic pool of Spotify and gained attention, long before the masses clicked that her Wikipedia had her parents’ names in blue.
As the years have gone on and her work has developed, Samia’s abilities have only grown. Her latest release, ‘Cider Blocks’ is a new gold standard of it as she weaves lyrical references together for an emotional collage. Or, as her older track ‘Pool’ sees a revival of attention, it’s her ability to articulate tricky feelings that keeps her in the spotlight rightfully and regardless of privilege.
