Lior Phillips is a South African music and culture journalist originally from Cape Town, now based in Chicago, USA. She writes about music, film, art, and more for international publications, including Variety, The Guardian, Dazed and Confused Magazine, The Creative Independent, The Grammys, Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, The Quietus, NPR, The New York Times, and GQ South Africa. In addition, she created, produced, and hosted This Must Be the Gig, a podcast dedicated to artists' vital memories of their first gigs and passion for live music and performance. She is the author of South African Popular Music (Bloomsbury 2023).