Appleby

Justin LaRoy Burns records and performs chiefly as Appleby, delivering understated, emotionally direct ballads from his Chicago home that resist tidy stylistic categories. Early on, Burns poured his energy into tennis until exhaustion at seventeen nudged him toward music instead. In 2011 he began tracking material and, within a few months, issued the five-track mixtape City of Change under the name Van Go. Several years later he pivoted, took his mother’s birth name, and started attracting attention through SoundCloud posts that opened with the hushed, atmospheric “Spit on Me,” eventually drawing the interest of Amir Abbassy and Russell Simmons. The vindictive breakup ballad “Bitter Boy” placed him on Billboard’s Emerging Artists chart in 2015. The next year Appleby released the breezy singles “Castles” and “How Many” and joined Ravyn Lenae on the house-flavored highlight “Free Room” from her Moon Shoes EP. In 2018 he followed with “Pages” and “Lady Sunshine,” singles oriented toward the adult album alternative radio format.