Gabrielle Hope is not your average 20-year-old singer-songwriter. Raised in Tennessee as one of 10 kids and now based in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, Hope eschewed college due to its high cost and turned towards the world of shape note singing in search of community. Practiced for centuries, shape note singing allows for easier sight reading because the practitioners start with syllables (fa, sol, la, mi, etc.) and add in lyrics later. Particularly in Appalachia and the South, oftentimes in churches, large groups still come together to learn four-part harmonies and honor this sacred tradition. Hope, who grew up singing in church choirs, fell in love with the scene despite the fact that most of her collaborators are senior citizens. “I adore old people,” she says, recalling banjo sessions with her friend Miss Rose at a retirement home. “She can’t play anymore, but I’ll go and play for her because she still wants to hear it.” Hope is clearly an old soul. She’s also an artist who has helped introduce her generation to traditional Appalachian folk music via TikTok. Early last year, Hope began performing originals and folk standards on her account (@gabriellehopemusic): just her high, piercing lilt, her banjo or acoustic guitar, and a backdrop of fields, forests, and swamps. Her first 25 videos racked up a staggering 40 million views, with her voice soothing and confounding listeners. Hope’s new fans compared her to everyone from Joanna Newsom to Betty Boop to Mia Goth’s Pearl. In reality, her influences are more like Kentucky’s “mother of folk” Jean Ritchie, cult 20th-century singer-songwriters Tia Blake and Connie Converse, the legendary Joan Baez, and current-day troubadour Adrianne Lenker. Hope’s forays into old-time music are what set her apart and grabbed the attention of her peers online. “It resonates so well with people who are my age, people who were kids during COVID,” she says. “There's this sort of communal culture that has faded a bit, but I think people yearn for that.” Like Lenker, Hope’s music is highly influenced by nature. Her home, nestled on 50 acres of mostly undeveloped land, is where she primarily writes and records. Sweet creatures show up throughout her songs, like “The Hummingbird’s Nest,” which paints a quirky and peaceful portrait of rural life that includes fish and cats and a duck in a diaper. “I want a house that is full of wind chimes,” coos Hope over delicate finger-picking. “So we can hum along while we bake/And I want to rest in a place with no yelling/Where the hummingbird lays her nest.” The song’s starting place was neither the hummingbird nor the house but rather the wind chimes—specifically, a Grand Canyon wind chime found by Hope at a thrift store just before penning the tune. On the still-unreleased “Tiny Bugs,” Hope sings from the perspective of a bird taking in the detailed surroundings as a means of processing grief about her late sister. The song poured out of her in six minutes last year as she sat on her front porch, reeling from her own unexpected success. As Hope continued to write and tease new songs on TikTok throughout 2024 and early 2025, she met with labels in search of the right partner—one that understood her need for time and space. The folks at Darkroom Records, home to Billie Eilish, seemed like the best fit for Hope, and since signing a deal with them (in conjunction with Music Soup, another Interscope imprint) she’s been working towards the release of her debut EP. Expected later this year, the collection will feature a mix of songs tracked in Nashville with producer and multi-instrumentalist Patrick M'Gonigle as well as bedroom recordings. Her earnest-yet-playful love songs “Me and You” and “Gold or Silver (demo),” both recently released as singles, capture the handmade charm of Hope’s self-recorded material. For “Me and You,” she played all of the instruments—including a mason jar used in place of a slide on her guitar. And on “Gold or Silver,” which garnered 1 million views pre-release, Hope yearns for a world where she wouldn’t have to worry about money while also posing a wise-beyond-her-years question to a partner: would you still love me if I had nothing? With an EP of introspective goodness taking shape and her TikTok audience continuing to grow, Hope will embark on her first tours supporting Willie Watson of Old Crow Medicine Show and Waylon Wyatt this fall.