Cole Knight: Beatport Next Artist Stories 2026

Cole Knight’s route to the booth has taken a few turns. Raised in southern Illinois, she studied computer science before leaving school to model across London, Milan and Paris. A move to Los Angeles in 2017 pulled her deeper into electronic music, first as a DJ and then as a producer.

Her catalog started taking shape in 2022, but 2023’s Keep It Cute / The Girls Go Walking two-tracker on Higher Ground proved a real breakthrough. Since then, the Miami-based artist has sharpened her sound across Life and Death, Factory 93, HE.SHE.THEY., Black Book and Nervous Records. Acid lines, plush house grooves and silky vocal hooks run through productions like “Going Higher,” “Like That,” “Queen Of The Crazy” and 2026’s “Body Control.”

The bookings have grown with it. Knight has played Coachella, Exit Festival and Day Zero Tulum, alongside stops at DC10, Club Space, Sisyphos and Ibiza’s UNVRS, where she has joined lineups for both FISHER and John Summit’s Experts Only.

At the end of 2025, she put her own stamp on Miami with Knight Club, debuting the darker, rave-minded party at Factory Town during Art Basel before bringing it back for Miami Music Week.

For Knight, the dance floor is ultimately about getting “out of your mind and into your body” and experiencing music on a visceral level. That philosophy extends to the booth: rather than bending her sound to fit a room, she has learned to trust her own taste, whether she’s opening the night or playing at full tilt.

Our Beatport Next mini-doc fills in the parts a résumé cannot: a 17-hour Solomun session at Space, learning to trust her own taste, her meditation project Duality is Reality, and why playing your own sound matters – even when you’ve got the opening slot.