“I had 1000s of DMs and it went viral. I’d never been viral before and I just thought, what is going on? That’s a lot of notifications.”
Overnight success is a funny old business, particularly when the ascension from incognito into the limelight happens these days with just a few clicks. But for New Jersey-born singer Fousheé, it wasn’t quite so simple. In fact, it was only in May last year that a friend reached out to the rising star to show her that a song she’d created, “Deep End,” was going viral on TikTok, without her credit. “It was weird,” she reflects. “At first, I was still so focused on writing music. I put out this sound pack containing the song and forgot about it.” The royalty-free soundtrack, meaning it could be bought, used, and played by any musician without the need to credit; was a sort of unbidden offering from the singer, merely hoping someone would make use of it. And that they did. “I was minding my own business and then people started tagging me in things and I just remember it being so overwhelming and having to block it out.” Easier said than done in the digital age when we’re unconsciously tethered to our phones like external organs. Fousheé quickly became frustrated, watching the song snowball and people taking credit for her work. So Fousheé put her phone down and went to sleep. When she opened her eyes the next morning, her phone had blown up.
But this wasn’t destined to be the singer-songwriter’s only 15 seconds of fame. Covering our Summer issue, she reflects on reclaiming her voice, the road to getting here, and why her debut Project “Time Machine” is about defying expectations.