Post Malone

Everyone and their Grandma has heard of Post Malone. He’s one of the hottest artist around today. Everything the kid does is a hit. He has King Midas jealous of him because everything Post touches is bound to be certified platinum (not gold). But of course, Post’s life wasn’t always “Beer Bongs & Bentleys,” he was once a starving artist like most people before they hit it big. In 2015, Post was living in LA while working on his music. A friend of his introduced him to the music producer Rex Kudo and the two of them recorded the song “White Iverson.” They dropped the song on Post’s SoundCloud on February 4th and it would go on to change his life dramatically. The song got a ton of attention online, with big musical names tweeting out how much they liked it. Soon record labels were hitting up Post to sign him and he had to decide which one to pick. His life went from 0 to 100 really quick and he would eventually decide to sign with Republic Records. “White Iverson” went on to peak at #14 on the Billboard Hot 100. The rest is history and it seems like Post isn’t slowing down.

*music video for “White Iverson” by Post Malone

Lil Yachty

Lil Yachty is a 21 year old American Rapper, who much like Post Malone, came onto the scene in 2015 from his work on SoundCloud. When Lil Yachty put out his debut EP, two songs off of it “One Night” and “Minnesota” gained him wide recognition. Especially “One Night” because it was featured in the comedy viral video on YouTube titled “When Bae Hits You With That ‘So What Are We?’” Because of the popular video, the song on Yachty’s SoundCloud account got more than 39 million plays. Lil Yachty was now a featured player in the SoundCloud rap scene. Seven months later in March 2016, he released his first mixtape Lil Boat and then two months later he signed a joint venture record deal with Quality Control Music, Capital Records and Motown Records.

* When Bae Hits You With That “So What Are We?” by SenseiLefox

*music video for “1 Night” by Lil Yachty

Bhad Bhabie

With her rap name as Bhad Bhabie, Danielle Bregoli is the “cash me outside girl.” If you don’t know what I’m talking about then you are really out of the loop on Internet meme culture. Basically, what happened is this girl, Danielle Bregoli, was on Doctor Phil because she had behavioral issues or something like that. She also had a lot of attitude and didn’t like the way the audience members were reacting to her responses to Dr Phil. She challenged the whole audience to fight her and uttered the sentence that would make her famous over night; “cash me outside, how bout dat.” The way she pronunciated her threat caught the internet by storm and the video clip went mega viral, as she would go down in meme history.

Love her or hate her, you got to hand it to her; she has taken this whole “internet personality” thing and really cashed in on it. She now isn’t just an internet celebrity, she raps too, and is actually paid to do so. She became the youngest female rapper to ever get on the Hot Billboard 100 with her debut single “These Heaux.” She signed a deal to Atlantic Records and also has her own makeup brand too, because why not? She went from being no one special to having thousands of fans (and haters) instantly.

*viral video of Danielle Bregoli on Dr. Phil. “Cash Me Outside” at 3min20sec

*music video for “These Heaux” by Bhad Bhabie

Psy

Park Jae sang is a South Korean singer, song writer and record producer who goes by the stage name Psy. He has been active in the South Korean music industry since 2001. Where he has garnered a modest following while being somewhat of a controversial figure for his “obscene” lyrics and unconventional dance moves. But in 2012 he would become a huge, mega-viral, international star, who anyone with an internet connection would know his name. In 2012, Psy dropped his music video for his song “Gangnam Style” on YouTube and it quickly became the year’s biggest internet phenomenon. It was the first video on YouTube to ever reach one billion views. That doesn’t seem that impressive today but back then it was unheard of. Psy was dubbed “King of YouTube”. Off the success of Gangnam Style, Psy was signed to Scooter Braun’s label Schoolboy Records, that has also signed other superstars like Justin Bieber and Demi LoVato. Psy went from being known of locally as “the bizarre singer” to the world-wide known K-pop singer/dancer that every one seen tearing it up on YouTube.

*music video for “Gangnam Style” by PSY

Lil Nas X

Lil Nas X’s real name is Montero Lamar Hill from Atlanta Georgia. In 2018, Lamar began experimenting with making music and started putting his original work on SoundCloud. His music wasn’t really getting played until that December he decided to rap some county lyrics to a “country trap” beat he bought online and life would never be the same for him again. His song “Old Town Road” became a viral meme on the social media app TikTok called the “Yeehaw Challenge”. It entered the Billboard Hot 100 at #83, the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs at #36 and even the Hot Country Songs at #19. The song became so popular on the internet that radio stations had to download the song audio off of YouTube. “Old Town Road” climbed its way on up to #1 where it has not budged since. So far the song’s charm has lasted because as of June 2019 it has been one the strongest #1 songs in 25 years and has broken streaming records. Lil Nas X went from nobody to somebody with the hottest song in the world, still going strong. He is now signed to Columbia Records.

*music video for “Old Town Road” by Lil Nas X

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