And "This is That Story."

Is that too, like, cartoony?

I'm Lubalin, I've been making music since I was a kid, basically.

I used to live in Ottawa, which is a few hours away from Montreal where I've been for the last eight or nine years.

And so, back then, I was working with an artist collective and we were always just creating stuff.

Little experiments and songwriting and just exploring the things that I think are interesting.

It's hard to find an audience, for sure.

For a long time, it was just kind of, you know, a small group of people.

I think it's still super cool to have 20 people connect with your music, even one person is sick.

But yeah, then that's like, it's a little harder to make a living that way.

I was just making TikToks to kind of promote my music.

I was like, "Oh, okay. TikTok is the place where everyone's blowing up. So let's try some TikToks."

And so, I tried applying my talents there.

I was doing, like, different little acapella, covers.

And I feel like TikTok is the perfect place to test things because if you make something and it sucks, no one sees it.

So it's fine.

I did, like, a Lil Nas X, acapella cover of "Holiday."

And that got me like 100,000 views.

Then I did a different acapella cover. It got like 20, 30K.

I was like, "Okay, okay. Maybe we have to do different things."

And I was like... I was watching different creators.

I think I saw somebody singing the ingredient list on a container or something,

or they were reading the microcopy on a soup can, but as a song.

And I was like, "Oh yeah, you could literally make anything into a song."

And then, I think it was kind of just like, "Well, let's take things the internet has already deemed funny."

And then I'll do my thing on that.

And then at least if it flops, I'll know it's my fault and not the fault of the root content.

And just kind of try and find a thing that I could do.

And I was like, okay, "What if I take a meme and make a song?"

and then found the, "Is this available?" screenshot and just took a stab at doing the top line.

And keep in mind. We're not even an inkling of where it's gonna go, right?

And so I'm, like, filming it, and then it just wasn't working.

And I've showed it to my partner and she's like, "Hey, come on. We gotta redo this, get the light right." You know?

And so, we reshot it, put it up, and I was like, "Let's see."

♪ Good evening ♪

♪ Is this available ♪

♪ Yes it is ♪

And within an hour, it had 100,000 views or something.

And then within two or three hours, it was at a quarter mil.

And then, like, another hour after that, it was at a million.

And I was like, "Okay, I think we've got one."

And yeah, now it's at like 40 million or 40 something million.

And I remember being on a walk with my partner being like,

"Okay, we just have to do it a second time.

If we do it a second time, then it's like locked in."

But I did not know what we were locking in.

It was (beep) mayhem.

It was like, my inbox was just filling with business opportunities and (beep)

so you're like, "Okay, I gotta start this out."

Like, "'The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon' would like to,"

you know, whatever it said.

And I was just like, "Oh my (beep) God."

And they just wanted it to be another internet drama.

So they didn't have any notes for me.

They were like, "Do you have notes for us?"

Like, Jimmy's amazing.

And then Alison Brie is phenomenal.

It was a legit dream.

So yeah, it was super cool.

I'm really glad that I got the record deal that I have before becoming TikTok famous.

The record label/management team that I have now found me when I had 400 followers.

It was just the right fit and it wasn't about like virality or numbers.

So I've got an EP out called the "Who's Love" EP

with a bunch of music videos that we made that are all bat (beep) insane that I'm so proud of.

I'm streaming on YouTube right now every week.

It's been hard. It's been fun. It's been scary.

It's been exciting, but I wouldn't change a thing.

And thanks, thanks for listening to me talk.