Bazzi Builds His Fan Base

Once again we are here at the close of 2018, and preparing for a new year. Like many artists, we all eagerly expect 2019, and hope for a better year of events. As I prepared for this week I thought about the significance of going into the year 2019. I realized the fact that there will be a large number of artists to come on the scene who were born after the year 2000. I have already featured a few. This week the thought was clear in my mind as I prepared to feature twenty-one year old singer/songwriter Bazzi. The young up and coming star born toward the end of the 1990’s in 1997.

There are several reasons why I chose to feature Bazzi. He is a well-known young artist on the rise. However, he provides a good example of things that help an artist build his or her fan base. Before we get into that discussion, we first take some time to introduce Bazzi.

Andrew Bazzi was born on August 28, 1997, in Canton, Michigan to an American mother and Lebanese father. Canton is a town that sits between Detroit and Ann Arbor. Canton is ranked as 96th highest-income place in the United States with a population of 50,000 or more. Canton Township is also consistently ranked as one of the safest cities in the United States, as well as in the state of Michigan. In 2015, the township was ranked as the 29th safest city in the U.S.

He learned to play the Arabic oud and guitar as a child. The oud is a short-neck lute-type, pear-shaped stringed instrument with 11 or 13 strings grouped in 5 or 6 courses, commonly used in Egyptian, Syrian, Sudanese, Palestinian, Lebanese, Iraqi, Arabian, Jewish, Persian, Greek, Armenian, Turkish, Azerbaijani, North African, Somali, and various other forms of Middle Eastern and North African music. In November 2014, he moved to the Los Angeles area to pursue a music career, and finished high school at Santa Monica High School in 2015. That was an interesting move that seems to have paid dividends for Bazzi’s career.

It seems like every week I feature a young artist who started by posting videos on YouTube. Similarly, Bazzi began posting covers of songs on his YouTube channel. Bazzi created a Vine account in July 2013. By 2015, he had accrued 1.5 million followers on the site. In September of that year, he became the first artist to release a Vine “Featured Track” which was titled, “Bring Me Home”. In 2016, he was featured on the Fancy Cars’ track “Fun”. Over the course of the next two years, Bazzi released several singles including “Alone”, “Beautiful”, “Got Friends”, and “Sober”. Vine was a short-form video hosting service that lasted until January 2017.

It seemed that when Bazzi released a single or new video, he gained in popularity. In October 2017, he released the single “Mine”. The song increased in popularity after becoming an Internet meme, through videos featuring a slide show of different pictures of the subject of the video with the Snapchat “hearts” filter and overlaying lyrics. In January 2018, the song appeared on the Billboard Hot 100, debuting at number 56. As of April 2018, the song’s peak on the list was number 11. On April 17, 2018, Bazzi’s album Cosmic debuted at number 35 and later peaked at number 14 on the US Billboard 200 albums chart.

As I mentioned a few times before, Bazzi is a young artist – twenty-one years old. However, like some other very young artists of our time, Bazzi’s music has wide appeal. I have told many friends and other music fans that given a chance, some young singers might make music that older fans could like, and buy. Apparently, that’s the case with Bazzi. One huge clue came earlier this year, Thanksgiving Day. Bazzi performed “Beautiful” on a float in the 2018 Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade. Many might view that as something for the kids, but the parade and presentation suggests that Bazzi has fans much older than him.

Not long ago I read an article online in MTV News about Bazzi. It was titled, “THIS BAZZI SUPER FAN JUST GOT THREE GIANT FRAMED PHOTOS FROM HER MOM”. That title would have gotten my attention even if it was not about Bazzi. Sure, there are plenty of artists who have fans from a wide age range. I remember a while back I wrote about rapper/actor LL Cool J attracting three generations or more of fans with his music alone. His television and film roles have made him a household name worldwide. However, the subject of this MTV article is a new artist. Somewhat unusual because parents of today normally shun new music of today, always reaching for the music of yesterday they consider “better”. Not this time though.

Easy to understand why seventeen year old Savannah might be drawn to Bazzi. “I started to stan fully this April when he released Cosmic, his album,” Savannah tells MTV News. “I immediately felt a connection to the album and the fact that he literally put his heart and soul into it. The lyrics and meaning behind each song are so powerful and I think that’s what made me fall in love with them.” What made her mom Tammy a fan?

“[My mom] was super excited because of how highly I talk about him and his stage presence,” Savannah explains. “We saw him and, of course, she fell more in love, so the next day she spends time looking him up and watching all his interviews on YouTube. And while she’s doing this, she’s texting me the whole time while I was in school and telling me all the new stuff she found out about him.”

Of course, the scenario will not play out with every mother and daughter, but there might be something different about Bazzi and his music. Bazzi has cited artists Justin Timberlake, Bryson Tiller, Duran Duran and Guns N’ Roses among his influences. His music reflects his somewhat eclectic taste and generational leaps of influence. Once again Bazzi might be one of those artists who will find fans of his music. After listening to Cosmic, it would not surprise me. No longer just popular on social media, time will tell us much about how far the young singer/songwriter will rise in fame.