ON THE RISE
Hip-hop and R&B musician Penny Taylor drops his latest single, the catchy and vulnerable track, “Cuff.” Exploring a softer side with deep R&B roots, Penny Taylor unveils a side of his music that listeners are sure to love.
From a young age, Penny Taylor developed an appreciation for all different types of music. “Around age 7 or 8,” he shares, “I really started to enjoy music more than hearing it and it being background noise.”
What began as dabbling on Audacity with friends—trying to rap and imitate his favorite artists of the time—became a devotion to the craft. Not long after, Penny Taylor adding singing to his resume. “I moved towards singing because of the melodies,” shares the artist. “I don’t classify myself as a singer—I’m a harmonizer.” He slowly began cultivating his passion into a skill, and the rest is history.
Penny Taylor credits several musicians for impacting his work over the years, including Drake, J. Cole, Timberland (for production/beat making) and Kanye. “…Bryson Taylor, Party Next Door.. SZA is amazing… there’s so many I can name that I pull inspiration from,” adds Taylor.
How was the name, Penny Taylor, born? At the time, Penny was intrigued with 50 Cent and the number one. The combination culminated in the name coming together. “Friends started calling me ‘Penny.’ I adopted the last name from Wiz Khalifa and the Taylor Gang group. It just stuck.”
Known for his hip-hop sound, Penny Taylor ventured into R&B for the creation of his latest record. “Cuff” isn’t just a single. It’s the best song Penny Taylor has ever made, and he intended for it to be so. “I really wanted to create the best song I ever made if I included a well-structured song with lyrics and something catchy that could be played in summertime, wintertime, any time of the year. Something that could be enjoyed by different demographics.
Listening to beats, Penny Taylor came across the instrumental that would soon become “Cuff.” The beat sets the tone for a catchy hook, which informed the rest of the song. “It’s funny, because I actually had the pieces of the song made from different songs and pieced them together to fit the beat / theme of the track,” adds Penny Taylor. “Typically, I listen to the instrumental, and it’s a feeling. The beat has to speak to you. If you can’t have a conversation with it, then it’s difficult to write to it. It might be the second or third or however many beats you go through, but then the words come out of you. For this one, I didn’t have to try too hard to find the words—there were kind of just there.”
“‘Cuff’ came about because I wanted to challenge myself to make a hit record with the R&B side of myself,” shares Penny Taylor. “I’m definitely happy and grateful the listener gets to enjoy it and get what they take from it. I’m cook with whatever they get from the song, even if it’s the feeling evoked when the listen to it.”
So far, the feedback for “Cuff” has been overwhelmingly positive. “People have loved the song. I’ve heard things like, ‘this is a hit. This is a platinum record,’’’ shares Taylor. “It’s surreal. It’s crazy that I wrote this thing completely and so many people enjoy it. That’s what’s special to me. I often think, ‘I used to do this in my bedroom on a laptop and I wasn’t good, just trying my best.’ From that to this is insane.”
Penny Taylor is enjoying the moment, weaving through the unfamiliar territory that comes with widespread success. In addition to the release of his single, Penny Taylor looks forward to bringing his show to live audiences.
Make sure to stay connected to Penny Taylor on all platforms for new music, videos, and social posts.
ON THE RISE
As Belle & Sebastian share their buoyant 2026 Scotland World Cup anthem ‘It Only Takes One Lion’, frontman Stuart Murdoch has spoken to NME about capturing the feeling back home and his hopes for the team since childhood.
Released today (Tuesday June 2), the Scottish indie heroes’ bid for their nation’s tournament anthem was written after the team’s surprise 4-2 qualifying win against Denmark.
“I felt like we were watching history in the moment, like the hand of God from the old National Lottery adverts was pointing at us,” Murdoch told NME about that game-changing victory. “It was meant to be. Scotland aren’t a terrific team and Denmark are better, but it just felt that day that Scotland were destined to win. Three out of the four goals were things of beauty.”
Produced by and co-written with Pete Ferguson and premiered at the band’s recent London Royal Albert Hall show as part of the anniversary tour for their classic first two albums ‘Tigermilk’ and ‘If You’re Feeling Sinister’, the soaring song is intrinsically Belle & Sebastian as it morphs from a hymn to a an orchestral disco jam as Murdoch sings of a nation’s hopes and his own boyhood dreams.
NME spoke to Murdoch from the band’s North American tour, where we found him in a graveyard in Texas. “I was just looking for a park because Austin is a pretty scary place downtown now, so I’ve ended up in the Texas Cemetery,” he shared via Zoom.
Was there anyone famous buried there?
“I was looking around and I found the founder of Austin City Limits, which is pretty cool as that’s where we’re playing tonight. I’m looking at one now and it just says, ‘Martin: he loved the law’. Then underneath it says, ‘Billie Louise: she loved the lawyer’.”
We joke that there’s the opening to a Belle & Sebastian song if there ever there was one. “It’s great! It’s given me inspiration.”
For now, read the rest of interview with Murdoch below as he tells us about Scotland’s chances, 30 years of hurt, if fans will be singing it at the top of their lungs in Canada, the US and Mexico this summer, and what’s next for the band.
NME: Hello Stuart. Here we are with ‘It Only Takes One Lion’ Who needs three?
Stuart Murdoch: “Who needs three? Good question. I wouldn’t know!”
What’s the mood been like in Scotland since you qualified?
“It’s funny. I’ve noticed this everywhere: with the World Cup there’s a mixture of cynicism and anticipation. When the actual tournament starts, everyone will get excited about it. Because of FIFA, the peace prize, the ticket prices, people seem quite down about it. I found that in Mexico. They were quite fed up with the general hype about it. I’m in the States just now and you shouldn’t believe all the hype: people are people. The States are just as ‘great’ as ever. We love coming here, we love the cities. The general sense of North American optimism will make for a good tournament.”
“With Scotland though, people will definitely be excited about it. You have to understand, it’s been 30 years since Scotland qualified so I think everybody and their dog has written a song for the team.”
How do you meet the challenge of penning a World Cup anthem, when there have been so many legendary bangers and absolutely shite duds?
“I never planned it. I woke up with a tune in my head and a feeling. That’s the way it should always be for songs. I couldn’t control myself and it was quite straight-forward. I wrote this initial bit about how I felt about the current World Cup team and the qualifying game. It was more introspective.
“When it starts off with, ‘The days are dark and long…’, it’s just my general feeling about football. I’ve been going to see my own team quite a lot recently. It’s my little anthem for how I feel about football and following Scotland for the last 50 years, just the ups and downs. It’s quite a heartfelt thing. When I was eight or nine, the Scottish team meant so much to me, it the thing I was most invested in. There’s a line in there about how I used to memorise the whole squad before ‘78 and 82.”
Tell us about lyric: “This is Scotland, where everyone knows you start with nothing… where you can join an army for peace”…
“My wife made the video for it and she said, ‘I’m not sure I like that line about everyone starting with nothing’. Our first game is against Haiti and they really have nothing. Their country is pretty poor and they’re going through hard times. It was almost a throwaway line and I’m not sure what I meant by it, but in a footballing sense every game starts with nothing. Even if it’s against Brazil, you’ve always got a chance!
“The army refers to The Tartan Army, which has really been quite a remarkable institution for the past 30 years. We changed from drunken buffoons that used to wreck things to this excellent supporting brigade.”
It’s not your standard football sing-along. Can you see it being sung in the terraces?
“I’m not sure, I didn’t cynically design it for that. Many people have said to me in the past, ‘None of your songs have a chorus, you need to write one’. ‘This is Scotland’ is a chorus! They things need to happen organically. I’m sure the fans will still be singing ‘Yes sir, I can boogie’ for years to come.”
What do you actually think of Scotland’s chances right now?
“With the last Euros, they maybe got stage fright or didn’t have that tournament experience. I think Andy Robertson [captain] will be telling them, ‘We really need to produce our best stuff’. If they do and we see them actually playing football, then I don’t really care about the results that much. I just want to see Scotland exceeding our expectations of them. That Denmark game was so crazy that everything after just feels like a bonus.”
If miracles do happen and Scotland make it to the final, how will you celebrate? A free gig in Glasgow?
“Of course, yes! Free everything. If we even got close, I think the whole country would shut down for a year and the GDP would drop. We’d go into a massive recession but no one would care.
“We were playing a gig in Mexico City and I told the crowd, ‘It’s you and us, Mexico and Scotland in the final’. Mexico have never really got close either. I told them it would be five goals a piece, even after everyone takes a penalty and we have to share the trophy. I would settle for that.”
You released two albums in quick succession with 2022’s ‘A Bit of Previous’, 2023’s ‘Late Developers’ and then your debut novel Nobody’s Empire in 2024. You’ve been busy! Is there any progress on new material?
“We went through a period where we recorded a lot and we said, ‘Let’s not record for a while and give ourselves a couple of cycles off’. We’re doing these 30th anniversary shows so we’re just going to lean on the back catalogue and cruise for a while. We’re doing a year on and a year off so everyone can focus on different things.
We’re not looking at new Belles stuff for a while. I’m meant to be developing Nobody’s Empire into a film, so that’s my next task. It’s a long way off from being made but I’m going to write the script for that.”
Scotland’s first World Cup tournament match is against Haiti on Sunday June 14, before they go on to play Morocco on Friday June 19 and Brazil on Wednesday June 24.
The band’s ‘Tigermilk’ and ‘If You’re Feeling Sinister’ anniversary tour continues throughout the summer, performing the iconic albums in full during across the UK, Europe, North America, Mexico, Australia, Singapore and Japan. Visit here for tickets and more information.
