Checking in with quinn and FearDorian, architects of a new Atlanta sound

Dorian Williams and Quinn Dupree were raised on the internet. They met online as teenagers, both rising producers who spent their days on SoundCloud and music message boards. Today, as quinn and FearDorian, they’re at the forefront of a new Atlanta scene that feels close to bubbling over. Leading with sounds that veer left of the city’s ubiquitous trap and plugg styles, they’ve grown an organic following at home, where they throw shows in houses, skate parks, abandoned train stations, and other third spaces they created out of necessity, unable to access the city’s 21+ club scene. Bringing together ravers, punks, and rap fans, they’re building something fresh to a city with a proven track record of musical revolution.

In their music, both artists rely on sample-heavy sounds and a wealth of musical knowledge well beyond their years. quinn first made their mark as a producer with auteurish electronic oddities: after laying down the foundations of hyperpop, they distanced themselves from the scene to develop their sound into jazzy collage (2022’s quinn) and melodic avant-garde trap (2025’s stars fall on trench EP). Dorian began as a prized underground type-beatmaker but switched it up with the murky introspection of their 2024 self-titled debut album, the candy-coated lowend of A Dog’s Chance with POLO PERKS (released later that year), and, in January, Leaving Home, which saw them reshaping familiar hits and deep cuts alike into moody speaker knockers.

Dorian (who turns 19 on Friday, June 13) grew up in Atlanta, becoming sentient at the peak of Atlanta’s hip-hop dominance, with Young Thug, Future, and Migos in the prime of their careers and Playboi Carti emerging as an heir to the throne. quinn (20) and their family moved around a lot — from Baltimore to Pittsburgh to Northern Virginia — before settling in Columbus, Georgia for the latter half of high school.

Living two hours away from Atlanta proper, quinn was beyond bored. “There was nothing to do there, and I was beefing with mad people because I went to a racist school, so I started coming up here, and Dorian was the only person I knew enough to hang out with,” they said. “It’s still a recent friendship, but with all the shit we’ve been through together, we’ve learned how similar we are, and it’s brought us closer.”

“I feel like me and quinn be connected by a brain cell, lowkey,” Dorian agreed. “I’m so glad I someone I can work with all the fucking time. Working together on the internet is awesome too — that’s how we all came up — but it’s a whole other level of genuine shit in person. You can read between the lines of what people’s actual intentions are.”

Over the past year, both Dorian and quinn have moved out of their parents’ homes and into their own apartments. Unencumbered by the strictures of parental rule and the tedious responsibilities of high school, quinn and Dorian have been grinding non-stop, making music at a righteous clip and touring hard while continuing to foster the community they’ve created at home.

“To see what these two are doing is fucking insane, from the music to creating a new scene in ATL,” POLO PERKS
These interviews, conducted separately, have been condensed for flow.

How would you describe your scene?

FearDorian: We’re trying to pick up the pieces and build our own world out there. Atlanta has always had a crazy scene, but this is different. Of course, you had Awful Records. You had Danger Incorporated. I’ve always watched the scene — on the internet, through my sister — but now, actually being in it, people look at us as the people building the new Atlanta.

quinn: It’s the grittiness of Awful records — the way you look at their shit and know they’re not putting on an act; these are some real-life n***as going through some real-life shit — but more artistic. Imagine any very depressing film about teenagers from the ’90s, on some Ken Park shit. Everyone is going through shit, but people are being themselves and doing what they wanna do. People here are really not inside.

It’s like New York in the woods. We got no public transportation, so if you come here thinking that, you a damn fool. Shows are the backbone of everything here. It’s not really many other ways to express yourself or get yourself known. While it’s a very artistic scene, it’s still Atlanta. We still have the titans of the rap industry here — Young Thug, Gunna, Carti — and that’s still what everybody listens to.

Take all of that and add a very harsh survival aspect. It’s not a lot of people here who haven’t been through some crazy shit. There are some insane circumstances out here that you could end up in if you’re not careful. It’s still a city of danger, and a lot of those dangers intersect with the arts scene because a lot of artistic people are unfortunately crazy as fuck. It’s survival out here. People can’t just go on autopilot. You actually gotta find a way to get up and get it.

What other Atlanta artists do you consider your peers?

FearDorian: Shoutout quinn’s partner, Cherriwoodz; she’s about to go fucking crazy. Tezzus is fire. Diorvsyou, Southsidesilhouette, Tana. All them have their own scene. Me and quinn are kind of off on our own shit, but we’ll see them at shows and shit.

quinn: That clique is Øway. They’re making their rounds. They ain’t on no bullshit, running around getting locked up or nothing like that. They’re making good music.

What about your inner circle?

quinn: Our immediate group is 16 people. I wouldn’t say there are any other notable underground artists yet, but we’re all very talented. We all do our own thing and bring our own stuff to the table. Key and Iso are producer-DJs. Ryan is a skater-DJ. Kennedy has a fashion TikTok. Cherriwood$ makes music too, of course. My roommate Oliver is an editor and cameraman. Skai and Laila are models primarily, and then there’s some people I can’t name who supply the substances. We don’t have a brand behind it yet, but everything we do comes together to make the events we put on. It’s all different shit, a multimedia collective.

Tell me about those events.

quinn: There’s a lot of third spaces here. Even if you’re under 21, it’s pretty damn fun. Atlanta has 11 skate parks, and you’ll meet different people at all of them. The most popular one is Fourth Ward Park, or FoWo, and that’s where all the rappers go. You could go to FoWo and see Young Thug on a random day. You don’t have to go there and skate. A lot of people just chill and talk. It’s a hub to meet up — like a cafe, almost. Sometimes you’ll go there and it’s a girl making candy bracelets, a couple dudes selling snacks, fruit, drinks, shit like that.

The rave scene out here has been getting pretty dull — well-put-together events, but the music itself is not the focus. It’s more curated toward creating a vibe, making it obvious that you’re at a rave. We saw that as our entry point. We got together and started throwing house parties at Dorian’s crib. A decent amount of people in the city already knew us, but I wouldn’t say the average underground listener in Atlanta did. There were enough people in the community, though — the organizers, the promoters, the drug dealers, anyone involved in the arts or the business who we had enough of a connection with — to branch out and let the rest of the city know what we were doing. We’d bring in vendors, piercers, tattoo artists, all that shit, and that would bring in people who’d never even heard of us, on some “You know what? This seems like something nice to do on a Friday night.”

It’s a lot of parties out here, whether it be at somebody’s crib or a bar somebody rented. I’ve been to highrises. I’ve been to lofts. I’ve been to a renegade at an abandoned train yard. There was a party at an abandoned school where they had boxes of tiles that you could throw at the wall.

What about touring? Has that given you a different perspective?

FearDorian: That shit is wild because you never really know who’s listening to your music. To see that shit in a different country is insane. These are places I never thought I’d even be close to. We in fucking Warsaw, bro. In Manchester, someone said they took a six-hour train from Glasgow to see me. Even in Paris, that shit was going dumb.

It’s hard to fathom, and I’m dealing with a lot of imposter syndrome. I don’t feel like my music is that crazy for y’all to be coming out to the show, but I’m trying to unlearn that shit. It’s hella shit I’m trying to unlearn and relearn, realizing I deserve the shit I achieve because I worked for it. But it’s a struggle still.