Your new favorite F.E.M.M.E.

From sold-out tours to hit new songs, Molly Grace’s career is skyrocketing

Photo by: Rebecca VanderKooi

This feature is part of the spring hankycode magazine, a music and entertainment-

centered issue which is opening for pre-orders this coming week. For the pre-order link, check our site, Instagram, and Substack notes. 

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It's been a whirlwind year for the Nashville-based queer pop-funk artist Molly Grace. From performing at shows like Bonnaroo Music Festival and Times Square to transitioning to pursuing music full-time and the release of her viral single F.E.M.M.E., her career has been on the rise. 

Molly Grace has been writing songs since she was ten years old, and it's taken her some time to find her style. She explained that 2023 was a big year in terms of releasing a lot of music and really being pushed to find her identity as an artist—that's when she settled on her now-established pop-funk style. 

"When I locked into the current Molly Grace vision, aesthetic, and style–first, it felt really good for me. When I was on stage, it just felt super natural, like exactly what I was supposed to be doing. I also feel like it started working with other people, fans started picking it up," she said.  

Audiences have really latched on to her signature flirty, sassy, funky style. She released the single F.E.M.M.E on January 10, 2025, and it quickly went viral on TikTok and has become her fastest-growing song to date. The hit song, which sings of being a sapphic femme, leans heavily into the imagery of the LGBTQ+ fan-favorite film But I'm A Cheerleader. The single cover features Molly Grace in a cheerleader outfit holding pom poms, and the imagery perfectly matches the song's very chanty chorus. 

Molly Grace has been touring the United States with a West Coast tour at the end of 2024 and an East Coast tour during the spring of 2025. She's had numerous sold-out shows and deafening crowds singing the words of her songs back to her. 

"A lot of my success has been on socials and on streaming, which is amazing. However, it is really hard to connect with the numbers," she explained, "You never really know how that's going to translate. Sure, people watch my videos, but you never know if they will come out and buy a ticket. It has been really mind-blowing seeing all of the people who come out and buy tickets." 

I was lucky enough to be at Molly Grace's sell-out show at the Mercury Lounge in New York in February. That show was the first performance since F.E.M.M.E.'srelease (outside of her release party show in Nashville). I was blown away by the deafening cheers for an encore. When Molly Grace returned to the stage, she began singing F.E.M.M.E., and every single audience member loudly sang the words back to her. I wasn't the only person awestruck by the concert; a fan turned to me after the show ended, saying, "Wow, that was AMAZING." 

Jacob Hoekwater, who's been Molly Grace's guitarist since 2022, has been on every tour since then. He explained,  "It's like road-tripping with your friends and playing music and seeing new spots…I cannot imagine a way to have more fun for a person like me at this stage in my life." 

With all this momentum, Molly Grace is eagerly looking ahead to the release of her debut record later this year. She's been testing out some of these new tracks on her tours with incredible audience love, her signature style resonating with the crowds. 

Molly Grace explained that over the last year, she's been doing a lot of writing in Nashville, Los Angeles, and New York.While on other projects she did most of her writing independently; she's been doing more co-writing as she develops this record. She noted that this has helped her become a better writer. 

"It's been really nice creating an album with the thought in mind that I am making an album. I feel like in the past, I have written songs and made them fit together for a project, but for this album, I was writing for the creation of one project, so I feel like they're all really meant to go together," she said. 

In addition to writing, Molly Grace noted that the other creative aspects of the album have been fun to work on as well, from choosing which songs to include to deciding on visuals and, of course, choosing the album name.  

I recently saw someone talking about how some artists just have the 'it' factor—the perfect combination of charisma, talent, stage presence, and style. Molly Grace certainly fits the bill, and as the release of her debut record approaches, it will be exciting to witness how her career continues to grow.