Denver-born star Billie Eilish has been serving up rich, textured songs from her bedroom since she was 15. Sampling a wide range of popular culture, referencing her acne scars, and singing acoustic ballads about killing her friends, Eilish is the YouTube-sprung Gen Z icon challenging the mainstream.

With songs about birthday parties and body dysmorphia, Babymetal isn’t your average metal group. Fronted by former J-pop singers in gothic schoolgirl outfits, the band’s blend of intense riffs and saccharine lyrics flies in the face of genre stereotypes and challenges cultural expectations.

Shame are the post-punk band leveraging collective action to reflect a new punk attitude among Gen Z Britons. Anything but apathetic, their angst-ridden music playfully, straightforwardly, and unapologetically articulates a generational frustration with the establishment.

From Run-DMC’s ‘My Adidas’ to Migos’ ‘Versace’, hip hop has a long-standing relationship with fashion. But where rappers once vied to get recognition from haute couture houses, today it’s the labels that are doing the courting. How are luxury brands tapping the cultural cachet of rap royalty?