It’s been a while since a duo has truly shaken up the pop, R&B and hip-hop scene in one fell swoop — and Saint Lucia’s Lu City is aiming to do so with an unmistakably French Caribbean twist.
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Comprised of two homegrown musicians — singer Ryie, born Tyler Ryie Auguste, 30, and rapper LUJA, born Jean-Atem Farah, 29 — Lu City consciously operates in the footsteps of the culture-steering musical duos and groups before it. The duo’s catalog, anchored by two studio albums, trades on the suave swagger and sing-rap balance of OutKast, the genre fusion of early Black Eyed Peas and the moody 2010s brand of R&B that buoyed Majid Jordan. The template is familiar, but Lu City innovates by injecting every aspect of their sonic and artistic profile with the rhythms, lingo and feeling of Saint Lucia — and several other West Indian cultures.
At the encouragement of the King of Soca, Machel Montano, the duo named themselves after their affectionate nickname for their home country. “The same way we Drake calls Toronto ‘The 6,’ we call Saint Lucia ‘Lu City’ in our songs,” LUJA tells Billboard, just a week after the duo’s mainstage performance at the 2026 Saint Lucia Jazz & Arts Festival. The OVO crew is a major influence on Lu City; LUJA grew up studying 50 Cent, Lil Wayne and Eminem but has been rocking with Drake “since 2009,” while Ryie remembers going from OutKast, Chris Brown and Miguel to Partynextdoor, who he calls his “favorite R&B artist.”
Growing up obsessed with music, both members of Lu City knew that field was their calling — it was just a matter of getting there. Their first stop? Saint Lucia’s Rodney Bay back in 2012. “Our manager, Eliot Bailey, owned a lot, and I used to walk around singing,” recalls Ryie. “He heard me one day, said I had a really good voice, and gave me a beat to see what I could do with it. The very next day, I wrote a song to the beat, brought it to him and he signed me.”
Soon after, a mutual friend introduced Ryie to LUJA, who sold him on a three-minute voice note of him rapping over Kendrick Lamar’s “Look Out for Detox” instrumental. “Eliot hung out with my older cousins and uncles, so when Ryie sent him the voice note, he was like, ‘That’s the Jean that I see in Rodney Bay drinking rum at 16 years old? He raps? And at this level?’” LUJA remembers with a laugh. “I was graduating that same week [with] no plans to go to university because I never liked school, so I signed to Eliot.”
By 2017, Ryie and LUJA participated in Digicel’s inaugural Music Academy (essentially a massive three-day writing camp set in Jamaica), where Montano served as celebrity mentor and pushed them to officially join forces as a duo. Their debut single, a collaboration with Montano titled “Let It Go,” arrived the following year, with their debut studio album, Lucidity, landing in 2022 via the King of Soca’s Monk Music label. Between Lucidity, 2024’s I Miss You, and the smattering of standalone singles in between, Lu City have crafted a genre-traversing catalog that spans R&B, soca, hip-hop, Afrobeats, bouyon and even zouk — but it’s all grounded by their impressive ear for melody, penchant for kwéyòl lyrics and the winning combination of Ryie’s honeyed falsetto with LUJA’s nimble flow.
Below, the rising Caribbean pop duo looks back on its early breakthrough moments, previews its upcoming EP and talks linking up with iShowSpeed on-stream.
Do you guys remember your first foray into songwriting?
LUJA: There was an English assignment that we had to write a story [for] based on a personal matter, and what I did was so well-written, I remember my whole family being in tears. I have a Syrian background, so I wrote something about what was going on there at the time. It touched my family so much that from there, I knew writing was something I had to do forever. When it comes to my music, I don’t write anything. I punch in, take a second to think, and then spit another line.
Ryie: I’m more of a story-driven writer; 99.8% of everything I write is reality. Either I want it to happen, or it has happened. I believe the stuff you write and say will actually come to fruition. You have to be very careful about what you put on a record. I also remember my dad giving me Michael Jackson’s Dangerous CD when I was around seven years old, and from then on, I just wanted to sing. I started mimicking different artists until I grew into my own.
How has the Lu City sound evolved over the years?
Ryie: We started off in R&B and rap, and then the sound grew into Caribbean pop. After that, we moved into Afrobeats because I used to listen to a lot of Wizkid and admired how he would mix his native tongue with English. But my parents always played zouk music, so we started incorporating that and bouyon as well.
Would you guys ever dedicate entire albums to different genres? Kind of like how Drake did with Iceman, Maid of Honour and Habibti?
Ryie: We would love that. We have a new EP coming that’s like that. We also have a single coming on June 4 with a pretty sick up-and-coming artist…
What do you consider your first local hit? Would you say it was “Sa Ka Fête?”
Ryie: Yeah, it was “Sa Ka Fête.” We started working on the song in Jamaica and finished it in Saint Lucia with the help of Shontelle and our producer, Shaquille “Delete” Wilkinson.
LUJA: I remember Ryie saying, “Yo, we need to do something that represents Saint Lucia and our sound,” so we made “Sa Ka Fête.” That was the first song we did, blending our cultural sound with the other styles we’re fans of. And we continued that with “Movay.” On this EP we have coming, we’ve decided to surprise people; there are certain genres that [day-one fans] want us to explore again, and we’re doing it on this project. It’s our most diverse one to date.
Your debut album, Lucidity, dropped in 2022. What were your biggest takeaways from that experience?
LUJA: When I look back on that project, every single song was its own life form. Because it was our first project, we put in more energy than we had for anything else.
Ryie: We really took our time. And that’s always our goal: to make something that lasts instead of rushing. It’s easy to vibe out and make a song in the studio because we can write any genre of music, but it’s more special when we take our time to really craft the song.
LUJA: We had people on that album who we were literally fans of. Kalash was, and still is, a god to us, and he was on “Asé”! Our debut album was one of the biggest moments of our career to date. Everyone on that project was someone we listened to on a daily basis: Jahyanai, Bamby, Jozii, etc.
What’s your creative process like?
Ryie: Sometimes we work separately, and sometimes we work together. I mainly like to be alone to catch the Holy Spirit when I’m writing. It sounds crazy, but that’s how I get the best results, because I’m not distracted.
LUJA: At first, all our studio sessions were together. We learned each other to the point where we don’t need to be in the studio at the same time anymore because we know each other’s process so well. I know Ryie is very hands-on with the beatmaking, and I’m more on the engineering side. We work much faster now because of that.
What are the biggest challenges you guys have faced during your journey in the music industry?
LUJA: The music industry is the hardest thing. A lot of people might disagree, but our challenges were very rough. All you need is one song, right? We were independent for 99% of our career, so we did literally everything ourselves to become one of the biggest names in the French Caribbean. It was just me, Ryie, Eliot and Delete doing everything, so it was very challenging — especially when you’re not making money. You don’t make money until you start doing shows. And everything costs money, so that was very rough.
Ryie: There was no blueprint for us in the music industry. Nobody’s ever really done what we’re doing from the Caribbean and taking it worldwide. Even Rihanna — they took her from the Caribbean, brought her to the States and made her a pop icon. It’s never been done before, and we’re still working on it.
What are your long-term goals? How do you define success?
Ryie: Take over the world.
LUJA: We might not be the best at everything, but we are the best at what we’re very good at. And that’s making good music, being passionate, never getting sloppy and elevating our sound. That is an appreciating asset in music if you want to go down in music history. We just want to be respected musically.
What was it like linking up with Speed on stream?
Ryie: He’s very fast, too fast for me! I’m a calm, chill guy.
LUJA: Speed has the most energy I’ve ever seen. We didn’t just run up on him; we got a call, but I’m not allowed to give details. We’ve had brief moments with him, but this one ended up being so beautiful and organic. We’re not the most sociable when you first meet us, but if you know us, we funny as hell, bro. All we do is laugh and joke, so when we linked up with him, it just clicked.
What else can we expect from Lu City in 2026?
Ryie: A lot of videos and a lot of content. More performances, too. And more interviews! We’ve been working on this EP and getting ready.
LUJA: Just know that this EP is just the beginning of a new chapter. It’s not gonna be our peak moment. This is our [Batman Begins].
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