Chance Peña emerged from Tyler, Texas, as a singer-songwriter whose yearning indie folk style pairs with atmospheric production choices. His mid-teens appearance on Season Nine of NBC’s The Voice in 2015 opened doors; two years later he secured a publishing agreement with Secret Road. Early singles such as the 2019 track “Up, Up and Away” and 2021’s “War” highlighted his dusky, poignant tone, while 2023 brought a move to the ONErpm roster and a streaming breakthrough with the moody release “I am Not Who I Was.”
Growing up in Tyler, Peña started composing as a child, drawing from the Lumineers and rapper Kid Cudi. The 2015 Voice audition, undertaken when he was fifteen, generated enough visibility to land the Secret Road deal. Throughout the latter half of the 2010s he issued a consistent flow of singles and EPs whose textured arrangements underscored a dark, emotive delivery. “Up, Up and Away” appeared in the film Five Feet Apart, and that same year he unveiled the EP Anxiety & Mixed Emotions. Additional songwriting work included co-writing credits on John Legend’s Grammy-nominated 2020 single “Conversations in the Dark.”
Into the following decade his independent releases—“War,” “Sleep Deprivation,” and “In My Room”—accumulated substantial streams, prompting the ONErpm signing. Mid-2023 saw the arrival of the EP Lovers to Strangers and the further streaming success of “I Am Not Who I Was.” A series of 2024 singles followed, among them “The Mountain Is You,” the Kygo/Julia Michaels collaboration “Louder,” and “Is What It Is,” each surpassing millions of plays.
