“People still think we’re one person,” says Dijon Duenas, who sings and produces in the R&B group. But actually, says co-producer Abhi Raju, “We’re two different people making music with two different backgrounds.”

Growing up in Maryland, Raju says he mostly listened to Indian music and later, rock. Duenas, meanwhile, found his base in R&B and hip-hop. Together, the pair explore the pensive outer reaches of contemporary R&B music. They’ve been gradually tweaking the formula since their 2013 debut.

Raju and Duenas say they have creative clashes all the time. But those battles don’t make it into the finished product — including on their cohesive new EP, Montana (listen below), where Duenas’ wispy, reflective vocals and Raju’s sumptuous co-production sound like a fated match.

“The thing we share in common is immediacy and warmth,” Duenas says. “Whatever that means to anybody else we can’t say, but… warmth means the same thing musically to both of us. I think that’s the most important thing.”

That warmth began to take shape with “Twelve,” a 2013 track with rhythms you could find on an Aaliyah single. (The duo even brought traces of Aaliyah and producer Timbaland to “Baby Girl,” a song they produced for Talib Kweli’s surprise 2015 release, F— the Money.) Their 2015 EP, Stay Up, remains rooted in their influences, but forges a path toward a more spacious sound.

“For our last EP, we were like, ‘Yo, let’s do everything that we can possibly do,’” Raju recalls. “Now we’re more concise with it.”

On Montana, Duenas’ soft singing melts into sprawling, pulsating instrumentals. The five-track release lingers on fragmented emotions, from pettiness in “Ignore” to wistfulness in “Often.” While Stay Up felt mildly nostalgic, Montana sounds like growth.

What started as a hobby for the two self-described introverts has evolved into an “expressive exercise,” Duenas says.

“We don’t want to get caught in just any wave,” the vocalist says. They aspire to make music that’s as “sonically forward-thinking as possible without overthinking it.”

After Abhi//Dijon took a brief hiatus this year to figure out post-grad life and move from Ellicott City to Los Angeles, where they’re focusing on their craft. A top goal: refine their live show.

Onstage, Duenas says, “I never felt like I was representing myself the way I wanted to.” He struggles with anxiety, and he’s felt hampered by preconceived notions of what an R&B performer should do.

“Dijon’s not Usher,” Raju jokes.

“Seriously,” Duenas agrees. “That was the existential thing because, like, I’m not an R&B dude.” So he’s simply decided to perform more honestly. “It’s more about owning up to who you are,” he says.

Lanterns, their March 2015 debut, was a journey through the cosmos with suspended, airy beats and dreamy vocals. The firmer, more direct “Beasts” is the cornerstone of the followup EP, Note to Self, which offers a much-needed landing, with April George’s precise vocals venturing into more gravelly territory and Matt Thompson’s production taking a more inquisitive turn.

George explains that “Beasts” came together as they were trying to figure out their place and their direction in music. (The full EP arrives July 28.)

“It was kind of like we were venturing through uncharted land,” she says. “It felt like we were going through a very primal stage in our career, like we were beasts moving through some type of jungle.”

“Perseverance is what it’s about,” Thompson adds.

The two Maryland residents currently work as graphic designers, but as they keep pushing to find new audiences, they’re hoping the double-career life can merge into one just focused on music.

“I just want to live off of music for real,” Thompson says, laughing.

Following Lanterns, George had the chance to collaborate and tour with fellow DMV artist Goldlink (a 2015 XXL magazine “Freshman Class” honoree) after meeting him through a mutual friend.

“There’s a lot of value in collaboration,” George says. “It really introduced me to a new way of thinking, music-wise, because [Goldlink’s] music is dance-y, very upbeat. So it helped me with my writing, just my understanding of music. I’ll be able to take the things I learned with him and his crew to what we did.”

Musically, George says she and Thompson have the “same brain,” but their approaches can differ.

“I’m really into raw, dark imagery and April’s really into colors and things that are vibrant. So we initially clash sometimes but we always really find a dope middle ground,” Thompson says.

When they do find it, it’s contemplative and sincere.

“I always say that you go through things to help other people,” George says. “I really do believe that the experiences we have in our lives, we experience them because we can help someone else deal with whatever they’re dealing with. You can only help someone if you are super honest about where you are.”

April + VISTA perform July 23 at 7DL Studios on 2008 8th St. NW.

Their names were Billy Stewart and Van McCoy, and this weekend they’re remembered at a free event called “D.C.’s Unsung Native Sons.” It’s part of a larger remembrance project organized by filmmakers Beverly Lindsay-Johnson and Michelle Jones, who began their work when Jones — whose aunt served as the first president of Billy Stewart’s fan club — shared with Lindsay-Johnson her admiration of the two native Washingtonians and her desire to help preserve their legacies.

A panel of those who knew or studied Stewart and McCoy are expected to shed light on their music and lives at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library in downtown Washington Saturday afternoon.

One panelist — who will also sing — is Stewart’s first cousin, Calvin C. Ruffin, Jr. Eleven years younger than Stewart, he was dazzled by the singer’s chops. He used to watch him and his other cousins sing and fight over girls.

“He was my idol,” says Ruffin. “Always has been — even though he was my first cousin.”

A soulman, Stewart first achieved acclaim in the 1950s and reached the charts in the 1960s with his unique, upbeat take on George Gershwin’s “Summertime” and his own suave “Sitting in the Park.”

Stewart came from musicians on both parents’ sides, and he performed in family gospel and secular groups as a kid. These days, Ruffin looks back glowingly on his late cousin’s talents. But he acknowledges that Stewart had personal problems, too.

Discovered by Bo Diddley and signed to Chess Records, Stewart released a song in 1962 called “Fat Boy” that referred to his own large size. When others mocked him for his weight, it was a different matter.

“When I was with Billy he had an entourage, before we had even heard of the term ‘entourage,’” says Ruffin. “If someone called him ‘fat boy,’ he pulled out a gun on them. I was with him at that time. The only reason I know that is the gun’s barrel is about as big as I was. Real long. He would always get an attitude if someone called him that. He had a real complex when it came to his weight, as he was real heavy.”

While Stewart wrestled privately with his health, his fans seemed aware only of his multifaceted vocals. He harmonized with Marvin Gaye as fellow substitute members of The Rainbows, and developed a distinctive variation on jazz scatting, where he repeated words in a powerful yet sweet, church-developed manner.

“If someone called [Billy Stewart] ‘fat boy,’ he pulled out a gun on them.” — Billy Stewart’s cousin Calvin C. Ruffin, Jr.

“Billy did jazz, Billy did blues, he did lots of things that fit his style of music,” Ruffin says. “The thing that excited him most was when he did George Gershwin.” He adds that many people, including record-label executives, failed to understand Stewart’s desire to fit jazz, blues and R&B into his sound.

In January 1970, several months before his 33rd birthday, Stewart and members of his band were killed when their Ford Thunderbird collided with a substructure support of a bridge, then plunged into a river in North Carolina.

Ruffin says that two months before the crash, Stewart told him that, because of his struggles with his weight and with the record industry, he knew he hadn’t treated people as kindly as he once had.

“It was almost like Billy was confessing to me — all the people that he stepped on, all the people that he hurt, and that he was going to change and come back a different person,” Ruffin says. “He was going to help me out and some of my female cousins. He wanted to make amends.”

* * *

Van McCoy is best known for his huge 1975 disco hit “The Hustle,” with its distinctive flute melody. He also wrote and produced R&B songs for many artists throughout the 1960s. Like Stewart, McCoy learned to play the piano when he was young, sang in the church, and later emoted street-corner doo-wop in a high school vocal group. His ensemble was called The Starlighters.

McCoy later enrolled at Howard University, but after two years, music beckoned and he moved to Philadelphia where he started his own record label.

The D.C. native’s songwriting skills caught the ears of songwriter/producer greats Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, who hired him as a staff writer and arranger. McCoy was soon writing songs for Jackie Wilson, Gladys Knight and The Pips and Barbara Lewis. For the latter, he penned the hit “Baby I’m Yours,” later featured on the Bridges of Madison County soundtrack.

McCoy also worked with D.C. R&B artists such as Peaches and Herb and The Choice 4 before he scored his biggest hit with “The Hustle,” which he co-wrote in New York City after checking out the disco scene there.

Four years after “The Hustle” made it big, McCoy died suddenly of a heart attack at age 39.

Mark Puryear of the Smithsonian Folklore Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, who will be moderating Saturday’s panel, describes McCoy as “very focused.” He “directed and mastered his craft,” arranging strings, horns, an orchestra and a rhythm section. Production-wise, Puryear says, “there was nothing he couldn’t do.”

“Billy Stewart and Van McCoy: D.C.’s Unsung Native Sons” takes place June 25 from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library.

In the video for Rare Essence’s 1992 hit single, he’s front and center in a white Norfolk State sweatshirt, commanding you to “Work the Walls.” In the video for “Lock It,” released the same year, he’s in denim shorts, leading a ferocious front line. He’s Donnell “D” Floyd, the go-go talker and saxophonist who fronted Essence for nearly 20 years, and now leads Team Familiar.

Floyd helped write Rare Essence’s most enduring songs: “Body Snatchers,” “Uh Oh (Heads Up)” and “Overnight Scenario,” plus “Lock It” and “Work the Walls.” Critics say today’s go-go bands have failed to deliver the same caliber of original tunes that the scene’s luminaries once did. That’s one reason Team Familiar, Floyd’s band since 2001, is taking part in Go-Go New Music Day. The first annual event kicked off today.

But while Go-Go New Music Day strives to smash perceptions that go-go has run out of ideas, its primary mission is to honor the genre’s founder, the late Chuck Brown. Floyd, who performed with Brown in the past, says he’s proud of Team Familiar’s role in maintaining the go-go innovator’s legacy.

To mark Go-Go New Music Day, Floyd’s band Team Familiar dropped a hard-edged track called “Straight to the Bar,” joining a range of other groups releasing new music, including The Chuck Brown Band, Be’la Dona, Backyard Band and Junkyard Band.

Team Familiar has long billed itself as a “grown and sexy” group, but “Straight to the Bar” reminds fans how versatile the ensemble — which features two members of The Chuck Brown Band and six expats from Rare Essence, including Floyd — really is. Uptempo, body-shaking numbers such as this one balance out their sultry R&B covers. Floyd says he’d like to record a whole album of originals, which the group hasn’t done since their early years, when they were still called 911. There’s just one problem.

“It seems to me a good while ago radio abandoned go-go,” Floyd says. “When you spend upwards of $15,000 to 20,000 in the studio and radio doesn’t support it, it’s very difficult to get the money back from it.”

Go-Go New Music Day doesn’t necessarily clear that roadblock — participating bands are releasing their new music digitally, and much of it isn’t available online yet — but the event draws attention to the fresh and vibrant sounds still emerging from the scene.

At a Team Familiar show, it doesn’t feel like go-go is in a rut. Onstage, vocalists Ms. Kim, Marquis “Quisy” Melvin and Frank “Scooby” Sirius hit the high notes, with Sirius and Melvin launching into the occasional falsetto battle between choreographed dance routines. A roar emerges from the back of the stage, as a grinning “Jammin’” Jeff Warren flicks his sticks on the trap drum set, Milton “Go Go Mickey” Freeman slaps the congas and Eric “Bojack” Butler wails on his timbales.

Floyd, meanwhile, seems as lively as he was in those ‘90s music videos, leading vocal chants, shouting out audience members and deftly guiding the band with hand gestures.

Floyd has a flair for the dramatic. In 2015, he organized an anniversary show for Team Familiar vocalist Ms. Kim, a 20-year veteran of the scene. She performed from a regal throne upholstered with red fabric. At Floyd’s own 30th anniversary gig at the Howard in 2013, band members rocked the grooves while situated on scaffolding above the stage, like Hollywood Squares.

“Donnell has always been that visual, let’s-be-extravagant-as-I-can type of theatrical guy,” says keyboardist Byron “BJ” Jackson. “He brought [shows] to life.”

But Floyd — whose busy schedule includes working a job at Verizon — believes in routine, too. He has a time-tested regimen onstage.

“Most places we play at, we play three sets. It’s a graduation type of deal,” he says. “We start off instrumentally with a nice, laid-back set. … Our second set we play a little more aggressive as people are getting their drinks and getting adjusted, and our third set is the most aggressive, as the audience has finished their drinks and they’re ready to party.”

This method helps Team Familiar fill local clubs every night from Wednesday through Sunday, whether they’re playing originals or current R&B hits. Meanwhile, it doesn’t sound like Floyd intends to abandon covers anytime soon. That would be going against tradition, he says.

“People were saying on the Internet that go-go has changed and is only now doing…cover tunes,” says Floyd. “But it seems like to me go-go has always had lots of cover tunes.” He points to Chuck Brown’s “Go-Go Swing” and “Run Joe,” both covers that the legend turned into signatures.

Despite criticism from some go-go fans and outsiders not keen on covers, the music still finds new ears and fervent appreciation, even from out-of-towners.

“I love D.C. people more than I can ever express, but I really enjoy watching people who haven’t grown up with go-go, enjoying go-go. This isn’t the normal, but they still think it’s great,” Floyd says. “Meaning, maybe we aren’t crazy to be still playing it after 35 or 40 years.”

A Go-Go New Music Day concert takes place at Howard Theatre May 14.

Gallant was not rushed to market. Gallant is the wise, lucky beneficiary of development and time. Or we are. Zebra, the EP that Christopher Gallant released in 2014, was adrift in a stylized haze; but on Ology, the 24 year-old singer’s soulful voice is front and center, and his intent clear.

This debut album is a study of his anxieties and insecurities, and musically, it walks a careful line between the feuding impulses of contemporary R&B: Should one create squarely within the lineage, or should one honor the recently prioritized (and monetized) drop? Gallant is young enough to be moved by both, so Ology refuses to take sides in what is essentially a generational divide. This is why his songs all sound familiar, even when they also sound like several things at once.

Some examples: “Episode” edges toward disco, if Nile Rodgers were to take “I Don’t Feel Like Dancing” under his wing. “Open Up” has notes of James Blake. “Miyazaki” pulls in a phrase from Groove Theory’s “Tell Me,” with Gallant drinking from the same ’90s-flavored well as fellow Maryland natives Abhi//Dijon and other young alternative R&B acts blowing up Soundcloud. And then there’s the single, “Weight in Gold,” during which Gallant’s sensitivity to the beat and to the build tips his hand, almost throwing off the song’s balance. (There’s a version on Gallant’s site where he performs that song with Seal, who lets the rhythm come to him; there’s also a Brasstracks remix which acknowledges his tightly wound vocal and tempers it with laconic bass.) All over, before this album and throughout it, you can feel people (collaborators, producers peers, remixers) recognizing his talent — and guarding it.

But it’s “Skipping Stones” that feels like the moment when the various discrepancies melt into something greater than the ingredients. Gallant’s falsetto comes ripping out of his throat, naturally intense — they are anchored and dragged slightly by the drums, which makes the performance even more of a feat. Jhene Aiko is on-hand to perform the role of traditional femininity, but the song feels like a true back-in-the-day duet: the two are singing to each other. The voices are used here to manipulate us physiologically, the same way software can. It’s classic.

Ology is the latest example of R&B that converses with folk and rock and dub and trip-hop and Sufjan and Top 40 in the way that everybody who listens to music does, and has for their whole life, not in no PBR&B type of way, but in a way that doesn’t serve radio formats. Instead, Gallant’s music serves us. It just might be possible that we’re on our way to a fully populated spectrum of contemporary R&B; and if so, Christopher Gallant has earned his place in it.

Copyright 2016 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

“New York is a lot more inspiring, to be honest,” says the 21-year-old vocalist, who relocated to Astoria, Queens, last July. “Being here, everyone is out to get it, so you’re either inspired by it or you’re intimidated by it.”

It doesn’t seem like Abir is intimidated by much, especially when it comes to singing.

“Some artists, and I don’t mean to throw any shade, but they don’t really sing, they’re just riding the music,” Abir says, politely. “Me, I’m the complete opposite. I like to blow. I like to show my vocals off.”

That’s precisely what she does on “Wave,” her latest song, which debuted on the Fader‘s website in January. A sleek dance-pop track with accents of R&B and house music, it captures the gravitational pull of her vocals — she pushes and pulls, commanding a rolling tide of beats and bass. Fellow Virginian Masego wades in alongside her, bearing speedy verses and drags from his saxophone.

But Abir doesn’t need studio enhancements to sound this magnetic. She summons the same power over a simple backdrop of piano and strings.

That’s because the singer — who returns to the D.C. area Feb. 26 to open for The-Dream at Howard Theatre — moves with polished ease between genres.

When she began recording music at age 14, she focused on a more soulful sound. Now she’s working across styles. “I don’t like putting [my music] in a box,” she says, “but I’m kind of mixing jazz, a little bit of R&B and even a little bit of pop. So it’s like all three things that I grew up on.”

Though she was raised in the D.C. area, Abir moved to the U.S. from Fez, Morocco, at age 5. When Abir turned 6, her father introduced her to the music of Etta James.

“Her songwriting is, like, impeccable,” the vocalist says, a smile in her voice. “I would listen and literally try to mimic her. I would write out like, ‘She’s talking about this, she’s using this many syllables, she’s using this and this line’ — and I would go through and try to figure out ways on how to create a good song.”

She mingled her American influences with music from her home continent — particularly Egyptian singer Umm Kulthum, whom she describes as the “Aretha Franklin of Arabic music.”

“I could listen to Umm Kulthum all day long,” Abir says. “She doesn’t miss a note. I drew inspiration from that and I actually sampled one of her songs.”

Classic tastes notwithstanding, Abir has always turned an ear toward pop, hip-hop and R&B. In fact, she says, at an early public performance — her fourth grade talent show — she sang Jennifer Lopez’s “All I Have.” She even rapped LL Cool J’s verses.

Not that she foresees a future as a rapper. “Hell, no,” she says.

But Abir still keeps one foot in the hip-hop world — she cropped up on a song by Brooklyn rapper Fabolous in 2014 — and the stylish singer has dipped her toe into fashion, performing during New York Fashion Week in 2015. She gave her personal twist to ‘90s hits as models dressed in breezy Baja East designs walked the runway.

Breezy may also describe Abir’s current approach to releasing music. She came close to dropping an EP two years ago — she says it was finished and ready to go — but scrapped it. After playing some shows, she felt she’d progressed beyond the work on those recordings. She doesn’t have immediate plans for another EP or album; she says for now, she just wants to unveil new songs periodically.

Ultimately, it’s live performance — not long sessions in the studio — that keeps Abir infatuated with music.

“When I do a show, I’m singing to people and feeling their reactions, and that’s the best part about it,” she says. “In the studio, you’re thinking the worst — like, ‘When do we finish? How many more hours?’”

Abir performs Feb. 26 at Howard Theatre.

It sounds old fashioned, but Southern soul — in the voices and instrumentation of dance bands like Hardway — doesn’t imitate the past. “Southern Soul Rumpin” came out in 2008. The group combines synthesized sounds with soul and blues from the 1960s through the present day — not to mention risqué lyrics.

But that’s where Hardway Connection’s modernity ends. The band — which is opening for old-school D.C. singer Sir Joe Quarterman at Bethesda Blues and Jazz Jan. 31 — doesn’t make it easy to keep up with its saucy brand of R&B.

Southern Soul Rumpin, the group’s third and most recent album, is out of print. (Though the group still sells copies at shows and online.) Hardway rarely uses social media and its website doesn’t list any upcoming gigs. Yet that doesn’t seem to matter, because Hardway Connection is in high demand, according to Robert Owens, the group’s mild-mannered bandleader and guitarist.

The group has earned a loyal following on the Southern soul and beach-music circuits throughout the south, from Virginia to Texas. Their fans dance the shag, a swinging style with roots in classic R&B and rock ‘n’ roll. Hardway Connection’s 1999 album, It Must Be Love, proved to be a coastline hit.

The title song’s harmonies — delivered by gospel-rooted, powerhouse vocalists Jerome Mackall and Toni Love — attracted the attention of Carolina beach-music stations and promoters. Soon, the band was hearing from shaggers who wanted to bring them to the Southern coast.

Owens chuckles when he talks about getting nominated for a Cammy Award, the Grammy of the Carolina beach-music scene. Not knowing what beach music was, he says the band started listening to Beach Boys songs, figuring that’s what they’d get requests for.

Hardway Connection at Lamont’s in Pomonkey, Md. (Steve Kiviat/WAMU)

“When we got there, we learned it was just oldies-but-goodies set to a certain tempo,” Owens says. “It ain’t really nothing but hand-dancing. The beach-music stations play our music, but they speed it up or slow it down so you can shag to it. I was listening to one of our songs and I said, ‘Is that us or someone else?’ They had slowed Jerome’s voice down.”

But like a lot of current Southern soul artists, Hardway likes to get a little raunchy, writing songs brimming with double entendres and tales of cheating partners. On “Too Short (Peeping/Train),” Hardway transforms a Roy C song into a medley, adding lyrics about a woman who leaves Owens because of his, uh, physical inadequacy. That number helped establish Hardway’s Southern soul bona fides.

“Down south where we play, 22-year-olds come and see us. Black and white in the Carolinas. All the young ones will be right into it and calling out our songs,” Owens says.

In the D.C. area, Hardway plays many Sundays to a largely older audience at Lamont’s, south of National Harbor in Pomonkey, Maryland. They’ve also started alternating Sunday gigs at Cocoa’s Authentic Caribbean Jerk restaurant in Lexington Park, Maryland, in addition to various private events.

Currently a sextet that sometimes adds extra percussion, Hardway Connection hopes to self-release a new album by April. That project has been in the works for two years.

“It’s half-finished,” Owens says. “We’ve been so busy on the road on weekends.”

But while Hardway Connection has found success in a niche community, Owens doesn’t feel pressure to tailor their music to certain audiences.

“When I started doing it, I didn’t even know it was Southern soul,” Owens says. “I just did what I feel.”

Hardway Connection plays Jan. 31 at Bethesda Blues and Jazz, Feb. 14 and 21 at Lamont’s and Feb. 20 at Anacostia Community Museum.

KING excels at setting a mood. The group’s music conjures an all-encompassing, dreamy, Utopian vibe, rather than a mad dash to assemble a who’s-who of writers and producers. From the get-go, KING’s instant fan base embraced that approach, and that’s where the years-long demand for We Are KING took hold.

The trio — Anita Bias and twin sisters Amber and Paris Strother — is a one-stop creative shop, producing, arranging and performing all of KING’s music at their L.A. home studio. They also put it out themselves, and only when it’s ready. In 2011, KING wasn’t prepared for the overwhelming response to its debut EP, The Story. The three tracks were the first the women had ever recorded together. The group’s unveiling played like the ultimate game of telephone, with heavy hitters like Prince, Erykah Badu and Questlove passing the word along. Between touring, sporadic singles and guest slots, the public just had to wait for more.

After five years of wondering and wishing and maybe even doubting, We Are KING picks up exactly where The Story left off — at times literally. The album’s sound is an outright extension of its predecessor, and all three of the EP’s songs are reprised here in extended versions. “The Right One” kicks off the proceedings with a mid-tempo testimonial about the lasting power of love, setting the album’s tone (messages of love being the dominant force) and displaying everything KING does best. Paris Strother’s multi-layered synths and fine percussion are indicative of her Minneapolis roots; those elements jell perfectly with the candy-coated harmonies of her bandmates to create a running formula that works.

Though We Are KING maintains a steady tone, Paris Strother injects jolts of musical energy, peppering the arrangements with cosmic effects. The chord progressions of “Love Song” and “Oh Please,” the latter reminiscent of Babyface‘s “Whip Appeal,” are simply magical. Anita Bias and Amber Strother’s contrasting tones shine brightest in the album’s finale, “Native Land,” wherein Strother returns frequently a line that perfectly describes KING’s journey thus far: “Steady along the way,” she sings. “Arrival awaits.”

Copyright 2016 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

Follow @NPRandB and @NPRHipHop.

Set List

• “Tipsy”
• “Officially Yours” *
• “Can’t Believe It”
• “A Change Is Gonna Come (Sam Cooke Cover)”
• “Bartender”
• “Need To Be Smokin”

* New song.

Copyright 2015 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

Reece loved music, but his parents hoped he’d go to college, then law school. So when he graduated in June, he struck an agreement with mom and dad.

“I said, ‘Just give [my music] one year… If I don’t do anything, then I’ll go to school,'” Reece says.

The agreement would end up changing the teenager’s life. In November, Reece posted his debut song to Soundcloud. Called “Ghost,” the sparse and moody track quickly picked up steam online. Months later, music website Pigeons and Planes featured the song, earning him even more attention.

Now, only a year after his debut, Reece is scheduled to open for major-label rapper Angel Haze at the Rock & Roll Hotel in D.C. Friday night. It’s his first show.

Reece calls the anticipation “nerve-racking,” but he doesn’t seem to regret choosing music over law school. “In my life, I never really had anything that I loved doing until I started doing music,” says the 19-year-old.

Reece — whose full name is Reece Miller, though he records under a mononym — began dabbling with music in December 2012 and immediately found it more exciting than the other options arrayed before him. By the following summer, he’d cobbled together a mixtape. He took a break from music to wrap up high school, but he jumped right back into it after graduation.

“I felt like I really wanted to prove not only to my parents but also to myself that I can do this,” says Reece, who lives in Woodbridge, Virginia. “I was really working hard to get somewhere — to get anyone to notice me.”

“Ghost” introduced listeners to Reece’s chill-inducing vocals and stirring lyricism. He’s since published three more songs on Soundcloud, all of which showcase his natural ability to emote.

“I am very happy, but I’ve also spent a lot of time not being happy,” Reece says. “It’s easier for me to write something sad than to write something really happy, because I feel like when I’m writing something sad, I’m writing something that’s honest.”

Reece’s propensity toward melancholy may stem from feeling like an outcast growing up. The youngest of five, he says he’s the only one in his immediate family who makes music — somewhat of a dream killer for the Jackson 5 aspirations he once had. Plus, he says, he was an odd kid.

“As a 9-year-old, instead of playing with the neighborhood kids, I was listening to Imogen Heap and, I don’t know, watching Ancient Aliens,” Reece says. “Maybe not weird, but different for my age. I was really interested in conspiracy theories and stuff like that. I don’t know why.”

Reece’s music doesn’t steer into alien territory, but he does vividly convey his feelings of loneliness — the rasp and vibrato of his falsetto channeling a distinct anguish. His cover art deepens the feeling: He likes to appear ghostly, his face a blur. (“I love using blurred photos for my cover art because I find it to be the aesthetic equivalent to the music,” he told Pigeons and Planes — though he posts plenty of selfies online.)

His latest track, “Don’t Go,” caught the ear of singer and rapper Angel Haze who, in addition to sharing Reece’s ties to Northern Virginia — she once lived in Springfield — is similarly known for the honesty and vulnerability in her music. In September, Angel Haze tweeted to her nearly 200,000 followers, “Been listening to [“Don’t Go”] my whole flight. Chorus is killer.”

Reece was stunned. “I started freaking out, but I didn’t really think that anything would come of it,” he says. “Then I got an email from her manager.”

Just a year into his life as a musician, Reece has already found thousands of listeners. But his songs come from a feeling of isolation, and he hopes to reach people in the same space.

“It was always hard for me to say how I feel,” Reece says. “But with my music now, I try to take everything I’m feeling and help people who are also feeling that way who may not have people to talk to about certain things.”

Reece plays with Beau Young and Angel Haze Nov. 20 at the Rock & Roll Hotel.