The FADER's longstanding series GEN F profiles emerging artists to know now.
It’s been quite the year for Abby-Lynn Keen.
When I catch the 22-year-old musician over a video call in early June, she’s three weeks from embarking on a four-month global tour with her big sisters, RAYE and Amma. After that, she’ll open for pop star-slash-actor Reneé Rapp in Europe. But those two things don’t top the real main event of 2026 so far: three weeks ago, fellow artist and her now-fiancé Noah Urrea proposed to her at a surprise party with all of her friends and family present.
“I want to be so involved, with my wedding dress and Noah’s suit,” she gushes from her Los Angeles apartment, sharing that she’s already started planning the wedding. “I can’t wait.”
The British alt-pop musician is in the midst of a rigorous R&R itinerary. She’s been basking in the L.A. sun, catching up on quality time with Urrea, and no, she has not been tuning into the reality TV slop of any of the Love Island franchises. “I used to love watching Love Island, but it became unhealthy,” she remarks, her fiery red locs adorned with jet black stripes framing her face. “I had to cut it cold turkey.”
Rest won’t be on the calendar for much longer, but the South West Londoner is no stranger to the hustle and grind. She launched her music career under the moniker Absolutely in 2023 with the release of “Higher,” a genre-bending pop track that introduced her as an intergalactic astronaut. By 2025, her experimental soundscape had catapulted to virality: her single “I Just Don’t Know You Yet,” a shadowy pop ballad that croons about faith and the uncertainty of romance, exploded with millions of views on TikTok before it officially dropped.
Keen’s latest album, Paracosm, dropped in February 2026 and boasts 13 tracks that continue a similar narrative of faith and love through the lens of childlike wonder. She steps into a character that feels plucked from Alice in Wonderland or Coraline as she writes about relationships through its eyes. “It’s important in all aspects of my life to have that childlike perspective that doesn’t get distorted by logic or what’s possible in this physical world,” she says. “It’s the only way I can flow without having thoughts getting in the way of creating something beautiful, weird, and unique.”
Keen was born and raised in the London suburb of Tooting and music was ingrained in the family. Her father, Paul Keen, works as a producer, and her elder sisters, four-time Grammy nominee RAYE and London-based singer Amma, are musicians in their own right. Despite her outwardly music-loving kin, Keen says she was the reserved one of the family, who kept her affinity for singing on the low. Eventually, inspired by her siblings who’d record covers with their father, she finally built the courage to do the same and recorded her first-ever song at 11: a cover of “True Colors” by Cindy Lauper.
Afterwards, her father trained her how to write songs. She’d work alone, recording on Logic and making beats on Splice. “I was in the studio every day,” she says. “I’d skip studying and going to parties. I’d come home after school, go to the studio until 2 a.m., and then do it again. It was all about music.”
As a teen, she churned out a copious amount of songs, but she doubted if she’d ever make it as an artist. As a backup, she began exploring other avenues. Tyra Banks’s Top Model series fueled an interest in fashion and spurred her to join a fashion club at school and learn how to design. But she never took it too seriously. “I was using [fashion design] as an excuse not to seem like I was copying my sisters because they’re singers,” she says. Deep down, she knew music was what she wanted to do. "I couldn’t avoid it. It was a gravitational pull towards it.”
It’s important in all aspects of my life to have that childlike perspective.
At 17, she decided to professionally pursue songwriting. During Covid lockdowns in 2020, she hopped on Zoom writing sessions with A-Listers like Anitta, Normani, Tinashe, Kelly Rowland, and One Republic’s Ryan Tedder. She moved to L.A. and eventually met pop producer Dave Hamelin (Beyoncé) who inspired her to create her 2023 debut album, Cerebrum. “We created with no intention of writing for a specific artist,” she says of working with Hamelin. “It felt different than all of the other creative experiences I’d had in L.A.. I didn’t want to give these songs away.” In a span of two months, Cerebrum was finished and a contract with Epic Records was signed.
Thus, her rebranding from Abby Keen the songwriter to Absolutely the singer was imminent. Her stage name came from RAYE, who suggested it on a whim. Keen found it weird at first, but later warmed up to it. “I didn’t know exactly what my [artistic vision] looked like. I just knew I wanted it to be otherworldly and futuristic,” she says. The word “Absolutely” evoked a bigness and definitiveness that intrigued her. “There’s no room for questioning or doubting what it means.” Its larger-than-life feeling fit the character and world-building she wanted to pursue.
The word “paracosm” means fantastical — “characters and places that you create as a child that carry you to your adulthood,” she says. That sense of nostalgia colors the visual identity of the record while sonically, one gets the sense she's trying to break free from people’s expectations. Songs like “Paracosm,” “Goodbye Glitter,” and “No Audience” feel like they defy conventional song logic as they turning haunting carnival motifs and warbling voice effects into sophisticated pop songs. On all three tracks, she sings about her unwavering faith and not wanting to conform.
Keen says her music-making ethos is guided by a desire to concoct something new, to stir up some childlike wonder, in an entertainment industry overrun by dull reboots and recycled trends. “I don’t know if it’s possible or if it’d be a regurgitation of different elements,” she confesses. “But it’s fun to look back into the past, see the world as a child, and how everything was more colorful, you know?” She adds of making Paracosm: “I had to go back to my child-self who wanted to just play with sounds with no rules or restrictions. Paracosm was created for the love of music, not to chase chart placements.”
Amidst a rapid ascent to pop stardom, Keen navigates her growing spotlight armed with the guidance and wisdom of her elder sister, RAYE. “There are so many things [I learned from RAYE] and situations I’ve avoided because she’s gone through so many difficult situations in her career. One of the main things was contractually making sure that I am able to put out an album. [...]I’m so grateful that we had that knowledge to make sure that we don't have a repeat of my sister’s situation.”
It was a gravitational pull towards [music].
Otherwise, she’s brimming with anticipation for what’s to come. First things first: her wedding, which she plans to have stateside with lots of nature. Then, it will be on to her next project, which she says is shaping up to have her voice be more forward and less covered with effects and reverb. “But it’ll still be in this fantastical world,” she reassures me. “Just from a more organic angle than electronic.”
She’s been bouncing ideas with Noah which has been rewarding because, “we know each other so well we don’t even have to talk sometimes.” For Absolutely, it was never about the destination. It was always about the journey.
