Dermot Kennedy

In 2018 and 2019, he toured the United States, Australia and Europe to sold-out audiences. His first festivals were Bonnaroo Music Festival in 2017; Lollapalooza, South by Southwest Festival and Austin City Limits Music Festival in 2018. He played Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival both weekends in 2019. In 2018, he was voted by listeners as NPR Slingshot's Best New Artist of The Year, appeared on NPR's Music Tiny Desk Concert in a 14-minute live acoustic session, on WGBH's Fraser performance studio in a 20-minute live session. He made the BBC's Sound of 2019 Longlist. In January 2020, Kennedy was nominated for international male solo artist of the year at the BRIT Awards.

Kennedy plays the guitar left-handed. GQ magazine described Kennedy as a "singer with a rich, reverbant voice, [with] epically emotive songwriting skills (think Ed Sheeran, but darker, more melancholy)." The New York Times, of his 2018 South by Southwest Festival performance, said he has "a grainy, melancholy voice that can crest with a howling rasp..."

His online viral streaming success was enabled by Spotify Discover Weekly after it was launched in early 2016. For several years, he self-published his material on the platform, and that of his then-band, Shadows and Dust. They have been streamed over 300 million times as of October 2018.

Dermot Joseph Kennedy (born 13 December 1991) is an Irish singer-songwriter and musician. He is best known for his 2019 single "Outnumbered". He is signed to Interscope Records in the US, and Island Records for the rest of the world. His debut major-label, studio album, Without Fear, was released on 4 October 2019.