Virality vs. Community
So far this month, I've gone to four shows in the Bay Area: Dijon, Joy Oladokun, Little Simz, 24kGoldn. I didn't plan it this way, but seeing them within a few weeks of each other revealed something I can't stop thinking about. The vibes were distinctly different for each show, but together they tell a story about what I think is working in music right now… & what isn’t.
Dijon
He’s had a really successful 2025 so far. His collabs with Bon Iver & Justin Bieber this year helped build momentum before his album drop this summer: Baby (which I was a huge fan of).
Dijon had two back-to-back shows in the Bay. One at the Masonic in SF & the other at the Fox Theater in Oakland where he sold out both venues (I went to the one at the Fox). One thing I noticed about the crowd was how clearly people who were there were loyal fans. Two guys near me were definitely acting too cool for school before the show & then the moment Dijon started performing they were screaming every word (you can even hear one of them in the video I have). I find it quite precious when that happens & people just let themselves be passionate about an artist.
Throughout the set, Dijon experimented with different sounds, instruments & it literally felt like a recording studio brought to the stage.
Joy Oladokun
Joy is an artist I hold near & dear to my heart. She’s queer & I found her when I was first coming out, so she’ll always have a special place for me. She hasn’t released a new album since 2024, but she did just release a new song with Sheryl Crow.
This tour was a smaller acoustic run in a few cities. The show was at August Hall in SF. I wouldn’t say it was sold out, but it was pretty full. Since it was an acoustic set, it was more of a sit-down experience & everyone in the crowd was just mesmerized. She performed her own songs along with some acoustic mashups. She covered “Blackbird” blended with her song “I’d Miss The Birds,” and she also covered Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit.”
Little Simz
She is an artist from London. I went to this show with two of my friends who are from London & had seen her before. She released a new album this summer, Lotus, that was hot. My friends were curious what her pull would be like in the states because she was selling out every show back in the UK & Rolling Stone gave the show a 5-star review.
She was at the Fox Theater in Oakland, & while I don’t think it was technically sold out, I have been to the Fox enough times to know that it was damn near sold out. She had a full band behind her & has such a unique sound. She did a range of music, old stuff & then her new album she released this year. There was also a DJ set she did in the middle. I just thought it really reflected her talent & range.
24kGoldn
24kGoldn is an artist that came up in 2019 & really popped off in 2021 with the song, “Mood”. I know that was my third most played song on Spotify that year & was quite the TikTok sensation.
He was performing at Cafe du Nord in the Castro in SF. It’s a smaller venue & holds 320 people max. The main reason I went to this show was actually to see the venue. This was the first stop on his tour, SF is his hometown, & he had just released a new album earlier this November but the venue was only ~1/2 full.
He had a moment where he covered “Pink Matter” by Frank Ocean & I feel like this moment had so much potential. These are the moments that bring people together & have people leaving a show thinking about it. He was heavily using autotune (& has expressed that he uses it as a creative art form, similar to how T-Pain or Kanye West have in the past), but a Frank Ocean cover is where raw vocals should shine. The thing was, I feel like if he didn't use the autotune crutch the whole show, he actually would have crushed it.
I realized I was watching a pretty clear contrast play out. I had seen three artists that were so notable in regards to the uniqueness of the shows & the crowds. Then the last one I went to, just felt so distinctly off from the other three. Now, I went & checked their streaming numbers from Spotify. Guess which artist has the most monthly streams? You guessed it… 24kGoldn, with 8.8M monthly streams. Joy has 2.5M, Dijon has 5.9M, & Little Simz has 4.8M.
So he has a significant amount more than each of these artists, but was not able to pull a crowd the way the other three could. I think this all really ties back to how 24kGoldn’s career & sound has been shaped by the way it all started, built on TikTok momentum. I didn’t go see a show for there to be autotune covers or to hear the song I streamed to sound like it just came exactly out of my speaker. I want to go to see an artist live, & when it’s a little imperfect or more raw… that’s the entire point.
We also saw this play out this last week with “I Run” by HAVEN that has been taken off streaming platforms for using AI vocals, or at least the vocals were put through a program with AI to create them. This song went viral on TikTok & had 13M streams while up on Spotify. They've since re-recorded it with a featured artist. As AI tools become more available in music, we're going to see more of this… viral moments that can't sustain themselves.
While someone can use AI to create vocals or optimize a song to create a viral hit, I don’t think it’s the path to creating a fanbase that will stick with you & show up in person.
