Certified Gold, Though Fetty Wap Has More To Offer Than “Trap Queen”
It was about a year ago when a young rapper from Paterson, N.J. uploaded a track to SoundCloud that would start a chain-reaction online.
Fetty Wap wasn’t always Fetty Wap. As he explains it, he used to be Willie Maxwell back when he wore a prosthetic eye (having lost one to congenital glaucoma at a young age). Once he stopped wearing it, he says, “I found myself, I became a whole new person.” His friends call him ZooVier, his fans call him Fetty Wap. Why Fetty? “Cause I love money.” Now Fetty Wap is signed to 300 Entertainment, an imprint launched by among others Todd Moscowitz and Lyor Cohen in 2014, that has a reputation for their data-driven and innovative approach to the music industry.
“Trap Queen” has now reached close to 40 million streams on both SoundCloud and YouTube, and was just certified gold by the RIAA for more than half a million in sales. It was only the third track the young artist ever recorded (Fetty turns 24 in June), and the first time he sang on a track. “When I heard the beat, it was just like, I felt like I had to do something different with my voice. I wasn’t even for sure that I could do it or not, I just tried it. It just came out, it just worked.” He knew right away that this track was special — 500 plays the first day, twice that on the second. “It was just crazy.”
For the uninitiated (and that includes me before I wrote this article), trap music is a hip-hop subgenre that originated in the South in the early 90s. Heavy on bass and drums, overlaid with synths, strings and explicit lyrics, Fetty says simply, “I just learned how to convert a lot of different sounds into one sound.” The genre saw a resurgence in 2012, and Fetty lists southern trap legend Gucci Mane as one of his strongest musical influences.
“I think the most persuasive thing I saw initially was the reaction on Shazam,” says Todd Moscowitz, who signed and manages Fetty at 300.
With only a modicum of terrestrial radio play, Fetty Wap soared past mainstream artists like Hozier and Taylor Swift on Shazam charts. The reaction was instantaneous, and they watched his online popularity roll like a steam engine through New Jersey, then into New York, and from state to state as word spread. His music video was attracting a rapidly growing audience on YouTube. This was spurring activity on streaming services like Spotify, and online radio platforms like Pandora.
Fetty is on fire right now, and his online audience is hyper engaged. Just this week he saw more than 20,000 mentions on Twitter, an increase of 34% from the week prior, and a 170% increase in retweets. Of his close to 40 million plays on SoundCloud, more than 23 million happened in the past month. In that same time, he saw an average of more than 5 million YouTube video views each week.
As for his social reach, that is rapidly increasing as well. Of his roughly 54,000 Facebook page likes, more than 30,000 were added in the past 30 days. He added about half his total Twitter following (he’s been getting about 5000 new followers each week), and has seen a fivefold increase in Wikipedia pageviews since last month. Instagram is his strongest platform, he counts close to 500,000 followers in total, comparable to artists like Trinidad James and A$AP Ferg, and racked up more than 2 million likes in just the past month.
But as much as the numbers can steer you in the right direction, says Moscowitz, “The music comes firs. It is still all about finding great songs and great artists. Great analytics follow.”
Fetty signed with 300 Entertainment late last year, and has only good things to say. “300 — they like a machine. And when we reached a point where we didn’t know what to do, the music was doing so good, everything was going so good, we didn’t know what was the next button to press. And that’s where they came in.” Fetty was already working with his own close team of sound engineers, producers, and management, and since joining 300 that has stayed the same. “We’ve been really independent. They let me be who I am.”
“I respect them, and they respect me. It’s a real partnership,” says Fetty.
In February, Fetty Wap opened for Kanye West at his Roc City Classic show, promoting the release of his Adidas shoe. The private event, held in Madison Square Park, was open to fans patient enough to stand in line at Adidas stores for invites. The opportunity came together practically overnight. Rihanna comes across “Trap Queen,” and mentioned it during an interview with i-D magazine. Kanye got wind of it, picked up the phone, and boom — a week later the up-and comer is performing alongside some of the biggest names in hip-hop.
Fetty didn’t really know what was happening. He knew it was a fashion show, but apparently he had been giving his team a little bit of trouble about wearing a different outfit than normal. “I’m arguing with them, I’m like no.” He opens the door to the fitting room and Kanye walked in. “I was like, oh shit.”
“Just the fact that Kanye knew the words, watching Beyonce and Jay Z boppin’ in the crowd, Rihanna singing along with me — it’s a great feeling, and I just feel blessed to be where I am at,” says Fetty of the experience.
But while fortuitous is an understatement, Moscowitz says this wasn’t part of their overall strategy. “Of course you hope to get a big bump — getting a co-sign from somebody like Kanye.” The appearance led to blog coverage, which he hadn’t been getting much of to date. That in turn led to the massive lift in social activity. And while brands and established artists make for excellent partners, the strategy is more about taking Fetty Wap from being the guy that did “Trap Queen,” to becoming Fetty Wap the artist.
“There are plenty of artists that have hit records — not all of them make it,” says Moscowitz.
Moscowitz looked to SXSW as the place to really break him. “SXSW was a really important part of our strategy,” he says. Booking big showcases like Pandora and Rolling Stone (Fetty did eight showcases in total in Austin, and somehow still found time to get a tattoo), and landing a string of interviews. The festival, which has come under some criticism in recent years for rampant commercialization, gave them a platform to really evolve the perception of who Fetty Wap really is, and that he already carries a wide, not to mention strong, discography. “It’s an amazing place to showcase artists, get them in front of the consumer, and brands who could be great partners,” says Moscowitz.
Fetty’s debut album is on the horizon, and according to the Next Big Sound success algorithm the likelihood that he’ll hit the Billboard 200 chart is currently at 84%. While this would be another epic milestone in the amazing ride he has been on this past year, Fetty still sees this as work. Work he loves, but work nonetheless.
“I don’t really care about being famous. I just wanna be able to support my family,” says Fetty, who is both humble and strikingly confident all at once. When I ask him if he seeks to be in the spotlight for decades to come, the young artist, who got his start selling mixtapes and merch out of the trunk of his car, shows that he takes nothing for granted. “You just gotta enjoy it while it lasts.”
Originally published at www.forbes.com on April 10, 2015.
Liv Buli is the resident data journalist for music analytics company Next Big Sound. She takes a data-driven perspective to covering the ins and outs of the music industry. Buli is a graduate of New York University’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute and her work has appeared in Newsweek Daily Beast, Forbes, Billboard, Hypebot and more.
