In 2023, Artemas scrapped everything he had released, rebuilt his project around dark R&B demos he had been making on the side, and committed to a brutal cadence: one song a month, daily TikToks. At the start he had, in his own words, “literally about 100 fans.” Six months later, “i like the way you kiss me” was the most streamed song in the world. This is the pivot, and the playbook behind it.
What was he before?
Not a mystery act, just an invisible one. Artemas put out his debut single “High 4 U” in November 2020 and a self-released mixtape, I’m Sorry I’m Like This, in May 2022, working a softer bedroom-pop lane critics compared to Rex Orange County. He did the things artists are told to do: a distribution deal, conventional EPs, music videos. None of it moved.
I spent three to four years releasing music with little to no listeners, which is a phase every artist endures.Artemas, Billboard
The breaking point was philosophical, not just commercial. “Forget it; no one in this industry knows what they’re talking about... I began releasing a song every month and posting daily on TikTok, focusing on creating what I genuinely loved,” he told Billboard.
The scrap
The decision he made next is the part most artists never do: he deleted the old identity instead of renovating it. “I had been making these dark R&B demos on the side of the old iteration of my project... I scrapped everything I had put out to that point, and what followed was six months that ended with having the most streamed song in the world for something like two weeks. At the start, I literally had about 100 fans,” he told Schön! Magazine in 2026.
The first proof arrived fast. “If U Think I’m Pretty,” released October 24, 2023, went viral and charted at #39 in the UK, #30 in Australia and #74 in Canada, eventually passing 600 million streams and earning BPI Gold and RIAA Platinum plaques. The Pretty mixtape followed on February 9, 2024, and “i like the way you kiss me” arrived on March 19, 2024: #1 on global Spotify, #12 on the Hot 100, RIAA 3x Platinum.
Why does the cadence sound familiar?
Because it is the recurring pattern of the TikTok era: volume plus consistency plus instinct, sustained past the point where it feels reasonable. The Ring has documented the same discipline in Christian Gates’ song-a-day routine, the years of writing, recording, filming and posting on a daily loop that built his audience, and in Arden Jones’ monthly release machine. Artemas ran his own version: monthly songs as the supply line, daily posts as the distribution, and nobody’s opinion in the loop but his own.
The industry gave him a rollout. TikTok gave him a routine. Only one of them worked.
What separates the Artemas version is the total reset that preceded it. He did not iterate toward the dark sound; he burned the boats, with an audience small enough to fit in a coffee shop watching him do it. The nothing-to-lose math is exactly why it worked: 100 fans is the one moment in a career when scrapping everything costs nothing.
What the pivot bought him
Everything that came after runs on the same instinct-first operating system. Five mixtapes and counting, no debut album, more than 3.6 billion career streams by April 2026, a signing with Elliot Grainge’s 10K Projects in late 2023, and a 38-date 2026 world tour. He kept the method, too: he still describes his career as an Ouija board, letting the world send him messages rather than planning too hard.
The lesson is not “post more.” It is that the pivot worked because the new material was what he genuinely loved, made without permission, on a schedule that compounds. Every artist endures the years with no listeners. The ones who get out tend to stop asking the industry for the map.