Madison McFerrin

Madison McFerrin functions as an independent artist whose work crosses stylistic boundaries, merging a cappella traditions with electronic pop, jazz, and soul in a restrained yet candid manner. Before the arrival of her 2019 release You + I, shaped in tandem with her brother Taylor McFerrin, she had already issued two EPs built around a cappella frameworks, then followed with her 2023 debut album, the largely self-produced I Hope You Can Forgive Me.

She entered the world in San Francisco in 1992 and spent her childhood in an environment rich with the music of her father Bobby McFerrin as well as recordings by Stevie Wonder, James Brown, and Nina Simone. By age five she had already decided on a singing career, an ambition she cultivated through her school years in both Minneapolis and Philadelphia. After secondary education she attended Boston’s Berklee College of Music, where songwriting became her focus under the influence of the Beatles, Erykah Badu, and Bob Dylan. In that period she assembled the funk group Cosmodrome and performed in neighborhood bars and clubs. Once she graduated she settled in Brooklyn, joined the electronic duo Binary Soul, and traveled on tour with her father.

Beginning solo activity in 2016, she released the EPs Finding Foundations, Vol. 1 and Vol. 2, each centered on her voice-only a cappella aesthetic. She reappeared in 2019 with the EP You + I, a collaboration with producer Taylor McFerrin that broadened her palette through added instrumentation. One track, “Try,” was accompanied by a video that confronted backlash against her widely circulated 2016 performance of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” A series of singles and partnerships occupied the early 2020s, including “Guilty,” composed in response to the verdict in the criminal case against Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd. In 2023 she delivered her first full-length, I Hope You Can Forgive Me, whose advance single “(Please Don’t) Leave Me Now” addressed her survival of a serious car accident. While Andrew Lappin produced that song, McFerrin herself oversaw production on the remainder of the album.