Your Favorite Hit Record was a Snippet First

Like most breakout musical sensations in 2024, Tommy Richman’s ascent began with an unceremonious TikTok. Beneath the glow of pinkish red lights, the Virginia vocalist and his pals bopped along to his then-unreleased single, “Million Dollar Baby”, for a teaser that mirrored the setup of countless others before it. Had the preview sucked, his fans would have let him know it—either through rude comments or a basic lack of engagement. Instead, they showered the clip in praise, and the positive response turned into a greenlight for the song’s release date two weeks later. Since then, the track itself debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, and Richman has been stamped as the proverbial next big thing.

In 2008, the immediate rise of “Million Dollar Baby” might be a singular phenomenon. But these days, Richman’s is an explosive, yet almost typical level up. If a song is to accumulate massive streams, chances are you’ll see extensive previews for it strewn across various social media platforms. It was as true for “Million Dollar Baby” as it was for 4Batz’s “"act iii: on god? (she like)” or Tinashe’s “Nasty.” With tried and true outlets like radio and clubs factoring less, song teasers are the best way to ignite a burgeoning career or supercharge a dormant one. Just look up and down the Hot 100—it’s more likely than not that your favorite hit single was a snippet first.

Song teasers themselves aren’t anything new. Artists have previewed new music during concerts forever. Livestream snippets have been around since, well…livestreams. But today they’re applied more deliberately than ever, as spontaneous online jam sessions have largely receded into the machinations of refined corporate strategy.

“I think people are moreso working the snippets now,” NLE Choppa tells Complex. His latest single, “Slut Me Out 2,” found popularity through teasers before its release. “Instead of just posting it one time, [artists] are making a campaign around a snippet, TikToks get involved, reels. It’s expanding that way because [of the] saturation of the music; people are just trying to learn how to keep the songs in people's faces.”

That task became systematized with the evolution of short-form video—namely, platforms like Triller. Through Triller, and now TikTok, artists engage their fans directly for the musical equivalent of test screenings. Except, instead of being demonstrated for select audiences in private, these test drives unfold very publicly, with fan feedback being as visible as the snippet itself. For artists, it’s the inverse of the instant gratification listeners get through streaming; you can see how much your fans fuck with your new shit immediately.

“I post sometimes just to mess around, just to test the waters to see if people like it,” Choppa said. Through comments and view counts, Choppa and artists like himself can make educated guesses about the potential trajectory of their music. It’s a useful tool that also comes with a benefit for the fans: rare access to unguarded experimentation. Or, at least the appearance of it.

“You get to see these artists now who can get outside of their character and be vulnerable to their fans,” Keith “Keefa” Parker, Atlantic Records’ Vice President of A&R, told Complex. Elektra Music Group’s Director of A&R Dilan Ames also notes the increased dimensionality. In some cases, even things like shitty sound quality—the blown out audio that sounds like you’re in a club—can give snippets more character. “People don’t want to feel like they’re being sold something,” Ames said. “You don’t need some fancy, Atmos-mastered audio file; you need great, compelling music.” “More than that I think [unmastered audio] adds to the experience of listening to these artists.”

In Ames’ mind, that jagged audio only reinforces the more holistic experience of getting song snippets. “It's just feeling the energy in a different way besides just listening to it,” Ames continues. “And it's not just auditory; it's auditory and visual. The marriage of those two things has really helped things snowball into where it's like you have to be a content creator and an artist.” And if you don’t want to play the content creation game? “You're just making it a hundred times harder on yourself.”

While plenty of artists have complained about having to post silly accompanying dances or any other bits of marketing to social media, it’s hard to deny their impact—especially for newer acts. “We live in a day and age now where if you get 50,000 views on a TikTok, you can guarantee at least three or four labels are going to be in your fucking DMs,” Ames said. And the influencers and streamers will be tapping in, too. As Cash Cobain and Bay Swag’s “Fisherrr” blew up over the late winter and spring, folks like Kai Cenat would post their own reactions online. While labels theoretically have plenty of incentive to pay for support from totems of internet culture, it makes sense that people like Kai would support organically anyway.

“When you ARE the culture, everything will bend around you,” Ames said. “Sure, sometimes streamers and influencers are paid to use a song or dance to something, but sometimes they do it ’cause it’s the hottest shit out and they’d be dumb not to take part just cuz they’re not getting paid.”

Support from streamers only reinforces previously established layers of propulsive buzz for the artists on social media. So it’s only right that singers, rappers and the like have further refined their own methods for previewing new tunes. Having worked on the A&R side for six years, he’s seen firsthand the explosive potential of a well-executed TikTok teaser. After signing singer Natalie Jane to 10K Projects, he remembers the time and care that went into promoting her song “Ava” before it was released.

“She posted this video of her singing the snippet, and we even incorporated some LED lights in it. So there's lights in the background, and when the hook, the beat switches, the lights also switch, and it's a subconscious thing. I really think that little thing helps keep people's attention spans.” He might be right. To date, it’s collected over 36 million views on TikTok, and he says it’s likely to become her first Gold single.

For his part, Keefa recalls Roddy Ricch teaming up with Einer Banks in 2018 to perform an acoustic version of “Every Season” before it dropped. The clip, which has 11 million YouTube views to date, promptly went viral. “That was our confirmation,” Keefa said. “OK, let's put this out next and the project is following this up. It's time to go.” Although he’s got fond memories of successful viral plots, Keefa’s not oblivious to the potential downsides of crowdsourcing opinions about new music before it drops. He notes moments where artists have put their music aside after underwhelming feedback from social media audiences. “The artist is art first, and if this is art that the artists believe in, then I believe that it should never be dictated by [reception to] a snippet,” Keefa said.

It’s not hard to consider the ramifications of acquiescing to fan opinions. Imagine if Jay-Z had decided to ditch “Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem)” after fans told him to go back to triple-time flows? What if Celine Dion scrapped “My Heart Will Go On” because anonymous TikTokers didn’t like the first 15 seconds of the track? These aren’t just hypotheticals. Last year, Kid Cudi scratched the release of the song “Flex” after teasing it and receiving a mostly radioactive response from his fans. Artists need to maintain a healthy approach to music promotion, especially when adopting cardboard cutout formulas isn’t a linear path to viral success.

“There's no rules in this shit,” Ames said. “There's only trends and likelihoods. But at the end of the day, someone can do something completely opposite of someone else, and it'll work, but it doesn't mean that the person doing the opposite thing isn't going to work. It could all work.”

Poorly received snippets can mean poorly received songs. But the inverse is also true. Ice Spice’s “Gimmie A Light ”—which featured blown out audio—was popular as a TikTok snippet, but it’s received middling fan reception, and its music video has earned a pedestrian 6.5 million YouTube views about two months after its release.

As a rapper of the new age, Choppa has seen every side of the equation. “When I dropped a snippet for [“It’s Getting Hot” last year], everyone was kind of shaming it,” he says. “Now I got a platinum plaque for it.” “Slut Me Out 2” has followed a somewhat similar trajectory, with its snippet receiving mixed reception before the song’s official release. Now, the track sits at about 12 million YouTube views.

The success of such tracks, and the mixed reception of the viral clips attached to them, has led Choppa to an evolved philosophy on the music he and others make.

“Every song has an audience and I think you just got to find that audience,” he said. “I don't think people hate music. I think the term people should start using is, ‘It is just not my preference.’ Because if someone say, ‘I don't like this song, someone else would be like, ’Oh, for real? I liked it.’ So you just got to find the people that like the music.” And posting teasers to every social media platform possible is an easier way to do just that, especially for younger acts.

While the internet might have theoretically democratized the chance for music visibility, there are still the haves and the have-nots, with the haves possessing the power of major labels, influencer affiliations and any other systemic advantages. Outside of funny metrics and viral ploys that oscillate between inane and inspired lives a basic reality: cost, or lack thereof.

“It doesn't cost anything to post a snippet,” Keefa said. “If you're an artist who may not have a budget, [if] you're able to find creative ways to make your music visible now without having payola behind you, it's great because they're able to avoid wasting a lot of money.” “I kind of describe it as playing the lottery for free,” adds Ames. “If we could play the lottery for free every day, we’d do that. That’s really what posting on TikTok and [Instagram] Reels is. Yeah, you're not going to win most of the time, but there's definitely sometimes where you're going to hit the fucking lottery—and it was free.”

Whether they’re grainy bits of concert footage or carefully crafted micro-theater posted to TikTok, snippets represent a game where money, fame and opportunity are the prizes. You just need the curiosity to play. For Choppa, it began there, and, with the addition of some corporate infrastructure, it’s still there. “It’s exciting to me,” he says. “I'm always testing new sounds and doing new things.”

In an even more innocent era, Choppa recalls promoting his first song, “No Love Anthem,” with a snippet six years ago. After earning thousands of listens, he decided to release the entire track and video, which he says quickly racked up 100,000 YouTube views. He didn’t exactly stumble upon this outcome, but it had more to do with intuition than some elaborate strategy.

“I wasn't really thinking too much on it,” he says. “I was just finding magic in that moment.”