BY TRENT KRESLINS

In today’s day and age phones continue to play an ever expanding role in our  lives, some of the most influentia ways being through phone apps. One of the most popular is Vine, this app allows users to create a short 6 second clip of whatever they please. In fact, Vine has become so popular that it has literally boosted artist’s careers. Prior to apps like vine most artists would make songs in hopes of getting onto the radio, now we are seeing a new batch of artists who go for incredibly quotable lines in hopes of becoming vine smash hits as this has increasingly translated into radio success.

YG – My N*gga

Prior to My Krazy Life and his smash hit ‘My N*gga’, YG was generally known for his song ‘Toot It and Boot it’ off his mixtape The Real 4Fingaz. Often called a one hit wonder YG managed to prove the doubters wrong with his single ‘My N*gga’. The single blew up after the chorus by Rich Homie Quan became a comedic reaction vine.

The smash single peaked at #24 on the Billboard hot 100 and by January 26^th, the single released five months earlier went platinum. The single helped insert YG into the rap mainstream once more, where he put up another hit single that helped launch his album to a chart topping debut on the Billboard Top Rap Albums and a #2 debut on the Billboard hot 100.

Bobby Shmurda – Hot N*gga

Perhaps the most meteoric rise to stardom based purely off Vine is Bobby Shmurda. The young 20 year old rapper used the beat JackPot by Jahlil beats and added a two minute verse with dozens of quotables. But most notable are the bars towards the end that lead into what is known as the “Shmoney Dance”,

“B*tch caught a body bout a week ago, week ago, f*ck with us and then we tweaking hoe, tweaking hoe”

A number of celebrities have done the “shmoney dance” including  Peyton Manning, Chris Brown and even the entire (except D Rose) US men’s basketball . The song has also made a splash on the charts, even after being released for  over 3 months the track just last week hit a new peak and made it into #10 on the Billboard hot 100. Considering Bobby Shmurda remixed a two year old beat this is an enormous accomplishment that was almost entirely enabled by the Shmoney Dance and vine.

With album sales down across the spectrum more artists continue to go for Vine friendly singles as a means of becoming famous. We should certainly expect to see even more Bobby Shmurda’s pop up in mainstream music through less conventional means, possibly even without Vine at the forefront.

Before artists were encouraged to cater to the radio, now maybe they should cater to 6-second soundbites.