WORCESTER – In just one week, Sam James managed to multiply his social media followers more than five times over.
He’s officially gone viral. And it’s all thanks to experimenting with other artists’ hit singles and some tweaks to his platform presence.
“I didn’t know it was going to be so big. We [James and his social media team in Los Angeles] have been in this together with these covers. I would cover crazy, super hip-hop songs which would be more like a hilarious thing. It’s a dude with a beard singing the most crazy lyrics of all time. We kind of ran with it. And we said ‘Let’s stick with this,’” James told ThisWeekinWorcester.com on Saturday, January 25.
A week ago, James posted a “Thank You’ on his social media accounts for getting to 10,000 followers on Instagram. As of Sunday morning, Jan. 26, thanks to a couple hit cover songs, that number skyrocketed to more than 53,000 followers.
Prior to his cover clips taking off, things had already been trending in the right direction for James. In just the past year, he has performed his original song, “Shinedown,” on NBC’s songwriting competition series Songland, saw another song he co-wrote c
“[The viral videos] are a different kind of break. I’ve had a really great couple years. I’m super lucky. I’ve been able to write records and produce records for some really big people the past years. This is just different. There’s just so much engagement. We expected people to be into it, but we didn’t know how into it people would be. You never know what’s going to blow up and what’s not,” James said.
This recent viral push is a pointed collaboration between James and his L.A. social media team to attract more followers and share his talents with a wider audience.
“[The social media team] is awesome. They’ve been helping me with the videos — what angle to shoot at it, and other things. It’s all the stuff I suck at. I can cover songs, I can write songs and I can perform. That’s my jam. They did a really great job of rebranding my project. If you check out my Instagram, Twitter and Facebook, it’s all linear,” James said.
The first song James and his team posted was “The Box” by Roddy Rich — the #1 song in the country — and his rendition has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times across his social media accounts.
James said, “We did ‘The Box’ and we had a few others in the pipeline. We were going to release another song besides Future and Drake’s [“Life is Good”], but a guy on my team, Ernest Osea — he’s amazing and he watches the charts all the time for me — he said ‘Let’s do this one instead.’’
And Osea’s recommendation paid off big time.
American pop culture site Complex and popular sports and entertainment blog Barstool Sports got a hold of James’ cover of “Life is Good” and things really took off from there.
“Complex posted it first and overnight we jumped from 10,000 to 18,000 followers and then Barstool Sports reached out and said they were going to post it. I’m a huge Barstool fan. I always have been. I love that site. It’s hilarious,” James said.
Complex’s post of James’ cover received more than 45,000 views on Facebook, while Barstool’s post was viewed another 85,000 times.
Since then, James has covered “Suicidal” by YNW Melly, and on Saturday afternoon James dropped a cover of “BOP” by DaBaby — which already had nearly 45,000 views on Instagram as of Sunday morning.
James will join fellow Central Mass. native Ricky Duran for a show at The Hanover Theatre in Worcester on Friday, March 27. Tickets went on sale on Friday, January 24 and in a little over 48 hours there were just over 400 seats remaining.
Like Duran, James first grabbed national attention when he made it to the battle rounds on NBC’s The Voice. Duran, of course, finished runner-up on the show last month.
James said, “Ricky’s one of my best buddies. He did so well with The Voice. I was so proud of him. He asked me to do the show and I said, ‘Of course, man.’”
James is looking forward to performing with Duran and whatever else the future holds. He’s excited to see where these viral videos take him.
“It seems like what I’m doing is working. I’m going to keep doing videos and maybe go on the road a little bit. My reach is getting bigger. I love it. We’re going to keep working it. And see how big this can get,” James said.
James is in Worcester this weekend and will be at Quinn’s Irish Pub Sunday night at 7 PM.
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