Hype List 2026: Asha Banks

New year. New noise. Hype is back on the hunt, digging through the chaos, the chatter and the late-night tip-offs to find the acts who aren’t just next up, but about to detonate.

Dork’s Hype List is our annual spotlight on the artists who’ve started to really stand out – not because they’re destined for instant superstardom, but because there’s something in what they’re doing that feels fresh, deliberate and worth keeping close tabs on.

It isn’t about calling winners or demanding overnight breakthroughs. Consider it a guide to the acts shaping the edges of what’s next: the ones we’re excited about, curious about, and confident enough to back as they take their next steps.

Asha Banks has spent the last few years playing other people for a living. Stage roles, film sets, cameras, choreography: the whole apparatus of pretending convincingly. It’s no surprise, then, that she talks about 2025 with the slight bemusement of someone suddenly expected to perform as herself. Music doesn’t offer costumes or blocking. It offers exposure.

“It’s been crazy!” she says, rattling through her year with the brisk efficiency of someone listing evidence rather than bragging. “I released my first song ‘So Green’ about a year ago. ‘My Fault London’ came out in February. Then I released my first EP, ‘Untie My Tongue’, played my first shows, and filmed two more movies. So surreal.” The phrasing is breathless, but the delivery isn’t. It’s the tone of someone still trying to decide whether the pace is exciting or mildly ludicrous.

“I’m still getting to know my writing”

Banks is not one of those musicians who coat their ascent in mystique. She talks instead about trying to stay conscious during it. “I’m trying my best to be really present and appreciate every moment,” she says. “I’m so lucky to have had the experiences I’ve been having recently.” It’s not wide-eyed gratitude so much as a practical survival method: acting teaches you to hit your marks; music demands you actually feel something.

Her new EP, ‘How Real Was It?’, leans directly into that tension. “‘How Real Was It?’ is definitely a continuation from ‘Untie My Tongue’, but more nostalgic,” she explains. “These songs feel more reflective to me.” Where acting gives you someone else’s emotional architecture to inhabit, here she’s pulling her own apart: “It’s more a look back at situations or feelings I was having and how I’m digesting and looking at them now – what feelings have lingered and what’s changed.”

Her artistic process is refreshingly unschooled. “I think I’m still getting to know my writing,” she says. “I’m very much at the beginning of releasing music, and everything is based on instinct, which I really hope to keep.” It’s a statement that would sound flimsy from someone further along. From Banks – whose day job has been precision – it feels close to a manifesto.

“I’m playing the Roundhouse, which is where I went to my first ever gig”

She has a good sense of the absurdity in her life too. Asked what she’s doing that nobody else is, she doesn’t deliver a theory of creativity – she delivers honesty. “Goodness me. I get asked about my curly hair routine a lot at the moment,” she says. “But truly, if people saw me in the mornings screaming at my diffuser while sweating and trying to listen to music at the same time, it would be a shock to all.” It’s the kind of detail that gives you a clearer image of her than any stylist could.

Next year raises the stakes. “I go on a UK and Europe tour in March,” she says. “I’m playing the Roundhouse, which is where I went to my first ever gig, so right now I’m in denial and refusing to believe that’s actually happening.” There’s something neatly cinematic about that full-circle moment, even if she’s too busy to indulge it. Collaboration is on the wishlist: “I’d love to release a collab song with an artist that we wrote together.”

Her definition of success is pleasingly unpretentious. “If I’m even half as happy as I am now, that’ll be a win,” she says, before quietly adding the kind of ambition that always reveals more than the modesty before it: “Also a slot for Glasto 2027, shhh.” ■

Taken from the December 2025 / January 2026 issue of Dork, out now.