It takes a village to make a pop star — but the most irreverent new acts aren’t above roasting their own winning strategists.
Performers like Renée Rapp, Doechii and Role Model have seen global popularity thanks, in part, to their behind-the-scenes teams. In that way, they’re like every artist before them. But in another — namely, the way they publicly make fun of their own advisers and handlers, often in song lyrics — they are very different.
“Wristwatch, drip drop, labels want the TikToks,” Doechii, 26, raps in her 2024 song “Denial Is a River.” “Now I’m makin’ TikTok music, what the f***?”
In a way, she always was. Back in 2021, after her song “Yucky Blucky Fruitcake” went viral on the platform, she captioned a video, “I can’t believe my song is trending on TikTok.”
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In subsequent years, her songs “What It Is” and “Nissan Altima” were similar social-first success stories, and she became even more active on TikTok. Then at this year’s Grammys, she won Best Rap Album for Alligator Bites Never Heal.
The timeline is trippy: The thing Doechii criticized her team about in “Denial,” one of the lead singles off that album, may have helped her take home the top prize.
Rapp, 25, has also turned annoyance with her handlers into super-meta creative fodder.
“My manager called me, said, ‘Where’s the single?’” she sings in “Leave Me Alone,” the lead off her forthcoming sophomore album, Bite Me. “Leave me alone, bitch, I wanna have fun.”
So the new single is about being irritated with her team … for bugging her for a new single!
Former Sony music exec Seth Schachner told Us that Doechii and Rapp aren’t the only ones experiencing this sort of tension with their teams.
“The new music landscape is so different from the old one, some artists and managers can have a tough time understanding how to play it when they’re trying to break new artists or promote new releases — especially as social media can be a more critical door opener than great music,” he said. “You might be representing the next Beatles, and a partner may simply want to know how big their TikTok audience is without even listening to the music. [It’s] understandable that some friction comes out of this.”
The most mind-bending success story of this new genre may be Role Model, 28, who generated buzz for his album Kansas Anymore by creating a satirical TikTok alter ego and adversary, Saint Laurent Cowboy.
In 2022, the singer told GQ, “I’ve posted my music on TikTok before, but I usually delete it. My label tells me to post [there]. I get it. If I was a label, I’d tell artists that too. That’s their job. TikTok isn’t about longevity, though. TikTok is depressing.”
Depressing or not, Role Model’s begrudging acquiescence to his label’s request served multiple purposes: he appeased his managers, drove streams for his music and gave a virtual f***-you to those who forced him to do it.
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“That was 100 percent my choice,” the singer said (while making a face that suggested otherwise) when asked about his digital evil twin last year on The Zach Sang Show. “It was my
idea and I just wanted to have a second account to build community and get closer to the fans.”
Cohost Dan Zolot then asked what we were all thinking: “Who is forcing you to say this?”
While he didn’t call out his team directly, Role Model admitted that the social strategy was part of his album rollout. And once again, it worked.
The album was his most successful yet, with the track “Sally, When the Wine Runs Out” peaking at No. 12 on Billboard.
So musicians, take note: You may get away with publicly critiquing your teams, but maybe also take their advice, because they seem to know what they’re doing.
Case in point: The top song globally on Spotify right now is “Ordinary” by Alex Warren, who rose to fame via TikTok collective Hype House. The hit currently soundtracks more than 650,000 videos on the platform — and you have definitely heard it in your friends’ pregnancy announcements and cat videos.
