Taken from this week’s Future Pop mailer. Click here to subscribe.
The fact that you can become a famous singer from posting six-second clips online is quite mind-boggling for anyone over the age of 20 (myself included), but I do appreciate how the task forces the artist to create the most memorable, catchy and shareable hook possible. Canadian Ruth Berhe, known as Ruth B, rose to the challenge in a very inventive way. Inspired by the TV series Once Upon A Time, which features characters from Disney films and fairytales displaced into the real world, she sang a lyric about Peter Pan and Neverland. The Vine got almost 100k likes in a week, so she set about turning it into a full song, called Lost Boy. Ruth is now signed to Columbia, and the kooky tune is a radio hit, currently rising up the Billboard chart, and a top 20 hit in Sweden and Denmark. Her sweet singer-songwriter sound is very radio-friendly, and the fun lyrics, tapping into childhood nostalgia, give her an edge over similar artists. Her challenge now will be to avoid becoming a novelty one hit wonder and define her own identity as an artist.