Taken from this week’s Future Pop mailer. Click here to subscribe.
Fetty Wap is already quite famous, but I didn’t feature him as a Future Star when Trap Queen hit the charts because it seemed like an obvious one hit wonder. Now he’s proving me wrong, with three singles in the Billboard Hot 100 top 20. Fetty Wap is 25-year-old Willie Maxwell from New Jersey. He was signed by ex-Warner chairman Lyor Cohen’s new label 300 Entertainment in November, after Trap Queen had become an online hit. The label re-released it to worldwide success, including US Platinum and UK Gold sales. I thought the song was harsh and messy at first, but found it surprisingly catchy. Two more US hits followed, 679 and My Way, but we’re yet to see if they’ll work in the UK. Both are on iTunes, along with a fourth track Again, but none have been playlisted by Radio 1, Kiss or Capital, though 1Xtra is playing the Drake remix of My Way. Successful US hip-hop artists can take years to get established in the UK, and some never do, so it will be interesting to see how Fetty fares.
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pzz4Z-O7710]