Age: 19 • Neighborhood: Hyde Park • Follow: Twitter // Soundcloud

Chicago singer/songwriter Leslie Marie is still very much on the come-up. With just 600 followers on Twitter and half as many on SoundCloud, she's only getting started. That being said, the talent and the strides she's already made have been undeniable. This is evident with her debut song "Bourbon", which dropped back in March. It came as a welcome introductory where she proudly sings, "Chicago, that's my home." With that line alone, and with an initial cosign from Via Rosa (who is responsible for putting me on) it's only right that we later include her in our strong list of Home Team acts.

After the initial release of "Bourbon", Leslie Marie followed it up with the EP Merci, which was fully produced by Chicago artist Derrick Phoenix. It is on this EP that she truly shines. She takes the spotlight, playing ukulele, singing a bit of French, and letting the world know (Chicago and beyond) that she is a voice to be reckoned with. After Merci, Leslie continued to work with Phoenix, releasing the undeniably catchy "Ready Okay", a song which stepped out of the acoustic/folk realm and entered into the tropical pop realm. Yes, it's deeply upsetting that "Ready Okay" isn't on the radio, but there's still time.

Having only been on "the scene" for half a year and change, Leslie Marie has already released two singles, an EP, and now, most recently, a demo of her first track on the guitar. The song is known as "Ruby" and we discussed it earlier this month, describing it as "a relaxing lullaby, perfect for a weekend power nap."

While TheseDays has been attempting to cover her every move (even including the song "Tranquility" in our most recent edition of Neon Nightlights), we aren't the only Chicago media publication into her sound. Worldwide music curators Sofar Sounds invited Leslie Marie for an event with their Chicago chapter earlier this year, where she performed a handful of tracks, including "He Loves Me", which you can find up above. After watching the video above, enjoying the 'Essential Listens' (which is all of her available songs) playlist we created, it's only obvious as to why Leslie Marie is our newest Home Team artist. Hopefully we get some more strong content out of her before 2016 comes to a close.