Curtis Waters is this month’s one to watch artist, whose debut single, ‘Stunnin’ has blown up across the TikTok platform.

 

https://www.instagram.com/p/CAD7H1CFe5B/

 

‘Stunnin’ was released back in April, picked up stream in May and eventually, gained millions of views and was included in more than 25,000 videos on TikTok.  Because of the song’s success on the TikTok app, this led to half a million Spotify streams and was featured in Apple Music’s ‘Future Hits’ playlist.

 

https://www.instagram.com/p/CDO-In8sF6c/

 

‘Stunnin’ became the fastest unsigned record to go on Spotify’s flagship playlist, ‘Today’s Top Hits,’ since Arizona Zervas’ ‘Roxanne,’ which earned more than a billion streams.

 

‘Stunnin’ continues to earn more than 700,000 streams a day on Spotify and according to Curtis, ‘his album is finished and ready to go when he wants to release it.’

 

https://www.instagram.com/p/CCokEFZMAPj/

 

Check out some Curtis’ interview with Complex about the success of ‘Stunnin’ below.

 

C: Did you expect “Stunnin'” to connect, even if not to this extent?

CW: “Well, I knew it was an anomaly in my discography because most of my music is about being sad. But every now and then I’ll make a song saying, “I’m the best, I’m so pretty.” I teased “Stunnin’” on my Instagram a while back and I had random kids from middle school hitting me telling me it was a hit or their mom likes the song.  Before the song came out, I was using TikTok casually, just posting random pictures of me kissing my friends on the neck and doing stupid stuff. But this time, I decided to go on it with a real strategy. I saw a pattern of people promoting their music with an introduction and a silly dance, so I thought it might work. I really stuck to the marketing of it. I went hard promoting the song for about two months before it came out. That’s a really long time to be talking about one song [Laughs]. But the thing was, I never made “Stunnin’” to become a TikTok hit, TikTok was just a good way to market it.”

 

C: Were there any moments of self doubt during the rise of “Stunnin’,” wondering how it was getting so big?

CW: “Maybe a little bit.  When ‘Stunnin’ first went crazy, I was trying to figure out how I was going to follow it up.  But then I just sort of didn’t care.  in the beginning, I was making other songs similar to ‘Stunnin,’ and I had to snap out of it.  When am I doing here? I need to be making music for myself.  I don’t want people to expect anything from me because in reality, whatever the next single is, it won’t be like [what came before].  There are so many different sounds that I’m into, it would just feel limiting if I kept trying to make new versions of ‘Stunnin.'”

 

https://www.instagram.com/p/CA0fNdqpUqe/

Filed under: curtis-waters, one-to-watch