The artists who make this city worth living in - and where to find them this year.
By The Juicy Times · July 18, 2026
Ray AngryMusic
DJ SmurfoDJ
Dig FerreiraDoc-Drawing
PJ AdzimaTheater
King KlaveRhythm
KidSuperFashion
Luke StrathmannComedy
Travis FountainTattoo
We believe the magic happens where the artists go. Not where the algorithm points, not where the line is longest: where someone is making something real, in a room you can walk into. We want you to have the most memorable moments this city can give. To feel things deeply. To collect great memories together. And the best way we know is to follow the artists of our time.
So we made them a paper. Eight artists, chosen the way we choose everything: Joyful, Unique, Intimate, Communal, You-Focused. No scores, no rankings. We describe what happens in the room and let the room speak for itself.
Pianist. Composer. Producer. Member of The Roots, performing weekly on The Tonight Show. Grammy nominated. Steinway Artist. Ray has composed a symphony, Black Athena~POWER, worked with everyone from Christina Aguilera to D'Angelo to Jeff Beck, and released PLUMB, a completely improvised trio album with Questlove and David Murray.
Then on Monday nights he hosts Producer Mondays at Nublu, eight years running. No setlist, no covers. Dave Chappelle or Questlove might just show up. Everything you hear is being made in front of you.
Why we thinkRay is juicy
Because on Monday nights the best musicians in the world crowd into a small East Village room, and legends and upcoming stars share the same stage. Because watching them co-create on the spot, no setlist and no covers, feels like magic. And because the most-saved spot on the whole NYC Juicy 100 list is not Times Square - it is a music jam.
▶ See Ray in action
It's like watching fifteen concerts in one night, for twenty bucks.
In 2026
Producer Mondays runs every Monday night at Nublu, East Village. Go once and you will understand why it tops the list.
DJ, fifteen years deep in disco, funk, house, and hip-hop. Graffiti artist. Brooklyn's walls carry his messages. In his own words: a Ghetto contemporary, an evolving urban revolutionary. Driven by music and art. That's Smurfo: Christopher Weeden, born in the city he writes on.
The funk came with a legendary family. His grandmother, the Detroit jazz great Terry Pollard, was a vibraphonist and pianist who shared stages with Coltrane, Ella Fitzgerald, and Dizzy Gillespie. His father, Dennis 'Menace' Weeden, played guitar on France Joli and Taana Gardner records. Smurfo carries that lineage through residencies that read like a Brooklyn night out: Ciao Ciao Disco, Dead Letter No. 9, Paella Rave, with five Greek summers between them.
Why we thinkSmurfo is juicy
Because his Wednesdays at Ciao Ciao Disco start as an art club and end as a dance floor: people draw, play games, and then the room begins to move. It's social dancing the way it used to be: funk, soul, disco, house, everyone's welcome. And because three generations of funk sit in the booth with him.
▶ See Smurfo in action
Draw first. Then dance.
In 2026
Wednesdays at Ciao Ciao Disco, Williamsburg. Bring a pen and your dancing shoes.
Dig Ferreira
Doc-Drawing
Visual Artist • Doc-Drawing • Brooklyn · @digferreira
There is a Brazilian artist in Brooklyn who paints with his mouth. In 2016, grinding through São Paulo's architecture scene and grieving his mother, Dig found his hand wouldn't cooperate. So he tried his left hand. Then his feet. Then, intuitively, his mouth.
The desperate experiment became Doc-Drawing, his signature: a Japanese sumi brush held between the teeth, painting life as it happens - concerts, protests, whole nights - with no sketching and no correcting. It is one of four pillars holding up his world, beside Forging Armors, which turns second-hand clothing into wearable armor, the shakuhachi, a Japanese bamboo flute he studies under Sensei Akio Yamaoka, and dance, in his life since age ten in Brasília.
He painted the Juicy Times logo and the Juicy Mic. By mouth.
Why we thinkDig is juicy
Because most artists are told to pick a lane - Dig built a highway system: drawing, fashion, flute, dance. Dig is the kind of artist whose presence lights up any room: the kind we read about in the Studio 54 albums, wishing we'd been there. Want to know what's juicy? Follow the artist.
▶ See Dig in action
Dig's presence is as precious as his art.
In 2026
Dig draws live at shows and events across the city, capturing the night from inside it.
Off-Broadway • Stage Time Studios • Harlem · @pjadz
Broadway actor. Nightlife producer. PJ spent years as Elder McKinley in The Book of Mormon, with screen turns on The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and Girls5Eva, all while growing Stage Time on the side out of his own Broadway paycheck: three-show Saturdays, then a midnight show of his own. In his words: 'All the most talented, interesting, amazing artists all live here. But they're incredibly siloed.'
His answer is modern vaudeville: Broadway, drag, burlesque, stand-up, and circus on one midnight stage, with monthly flagships and invite-only salons. Now it has a home: Stage Time Studios in Harlem, PJ's own factory for new theatre. House rule: 'The biggest crime you can commit is to be boring.'
Why we thinkPJ is juicy
Because when a Broadway actor gets tired of the system, he builds his own. Because at his midnight shows the walls between the silos come down, and the city's most talented artists stop being strangers. And because a night at Stage Time Studios puts you in the room where it actually happens. And we are not throwing away our shot!
▶ See PJ in action
Be first in the room where it happens.
In 2026
Stage Time Studios is open in Harlem, and the midnight shows keep running. Watch for the salons.
Drummer • Klave Station • Hell's Kitchen · @kingklave
Amaury Acosta, aka King Klave: drummer, composer, and producer who grew up in the legendary Manhattan Plaza in Hell's Kitchen. Cuban-American, born in New York to Cuban parents, with a multicultural identity that found its reflection in his music. He founded (U)nity, a collective of five international musicians fusing Afro-Cuban grooves with modern sounds, and he has played every music room in this city.
His debut album brought together over twenty musicians, including Pino Palladino and Pedrito Martinez, and was pressed on white hand-crafted vinyl in Italy. NPR's Felix Contreras named it a 2022 Staff Pick. His musical movie 'Have You Ever Wondered?' is out now on YouTube.
Why we thinkKing Klave is juicy
Because he calls it childlike wonder and lives it: every music room in this city, still lighting up like it's the first time. His musical movie 'Have You Ever Wondered?' is out; the second album is on its way. He blends jazz, Cuban, hip-hop, techno - anything that pushes the boundaries of genres and instruments.
▶ See Amaury in action
It's not a drum kit. It's Klave Station - a whole groovy orchestra.
In 2026
The second album is on its way. Catch him behind the kit before it lands.
Designer. World-builder. Colm Dillane is the first guest designer in Louis Vuitton menswear history - and the man who talked BAPE into forty-eight sneakers for forty-eight World Cup nations, then watched Ed Sheeran, Kit Harington, and Pogba wear them. Ask how it started and he keeps it simple: 'There was a lot of trying new things and taking risks.'
Back home in Williamsburg he built a ten-thousand-square-foot factory for other creatives: recording studios, the screen-print room where it all started, a gallery, a food truck, a fashion store, and a soccer field on the roof. It is one of New York's modern Warhol Factories - only this time, KidSuper runs the show.
Why we thinkKidSuper is juicy
Because on our tape he made a promise: 'I want to do a Juicy Couture collab. You heard it here first.' Because he told us The Juicy Times can be the first to tell the world - and we plan to be. And because it's incredibly inspiring to see a creative person's dream realized, lighting up everyone around him.
▶ See KidSuper in action
One of New York's modern Warhol Factories - only this time, KidSuper runs the show.
In 2026
The factory is open, the promise is on the record, and we're holding the front page.
Luke Strathmann
Comedy
Comedy & Economics • EconLOL at Caveat · @lstrathm
Writer. Comedian. Economist - Luke Strathmann is usually all three at once. The only man whose day job and night job peer-review each other: by day he runs communications for Yale's economics department and edits its magazine, after stints at MIT, the UN, and the AI Now Institute.
By night he hosts EconLOL at Caveat, what he bills as the world's first, best, and only economics-themed comedy variety show. The bills draw comics who've written for Last Week Tonight and Stephen Colbert, and his own comedy and essays run in The New Yorker, McSweeney's, and Weekly Humorist.
Why we thinkLuke is juicy
Because only in New York does a Yale economist host a comedy night where working economists and stand-up comics share the same stage. Because the room is tiny, the ticket is $24, and Paul Krugman once dialed in. And because he makes the dismal science funny, which no one told us was possible.
▶ See Luke in action
The dismal science, laughing at itself.
In 2026
EconLOL runs at Caveat on the Lower East Side. Go before the economists become the headliners.
Tattoo Artist • Surrealist • Brooklyn · @fountain.nyc
Tattooer. Surrealist. Former engineer. His work could hang in museums. Instead he chooses the most sacred canvas there is: human skin. Working exclusively in monochrome, sixteen countries deep, Travis turns people's deepest stories - grief, joy, turning points - into cinematic imagery that lives on their bodies forever. His shading draws on chiaroscuro painting and photographic lighting.
His art book, While Some of Me Sleeps, raised 173% of its Kickstarter goal and hands the reader fifty stencil pages to draw into - an open invitation to create. At the Brooklyn launch, guests drew on pages enlarged across the walls.
Why we thinkTravis is juicy
Because people bring him a feeling they can't shake and he turns it into an art piece we never thought could be a tattoo. Because there are no flash sheets and no repeats: one piece, one person. And because we can't tell where negative space ends and another dimension begins.
▶ See Travis in action
One of one, every time.
In 2026
The book is out in the world, and Travis takes on new stories in Brooklyn, one person at a time.
Tag your favorite artists in the comments - tell us why they're juicy
Why we thinkJuicy is juicy
Because the magic happens where the artists go. Because in the Juicy Times app you follow your favorite artists and know exactly what's coming next. And because we work with the artists to always know where to find them - so we can all experience their genius.
If you love these artists, tell us why. If you know artists who are juicy, tell us about them - we're mapping out New York City, and Part 2 is already casting.
