How a Soundcloud Algorithm Propelled a Teenager from Rapping in a Basement to Working with Timbaland
A brief anecdote that shows the “butterfly effect” of algorithms in our everyday life.
When Rory Fresco went to sleep on January 7th, his song “Lowkey,” which he had recorded in his dad’s basement, was sitting at around 5,000 plays (depending on who you ask). While checking his Soundcloud the next day, he noticed an abrupt spike: thousands of additional plays within 20 minutes. Over the course of the day, it accrued well over 100,000 plays.
The reason? Colloquially known as the “Kanye bump,” Soundcloud’s autoplay algorithm played Fresco’s song right after anyone listened to Kanye’s first single for the upcoming album, “The Life of Pablo.” At the time, the algorithm was not personalized, and autoplayed the same song for everyone who visited the site and listened to Kanye’s single.
Fresco now enjoys a relatively successful career in music. He ended up signing with Epic Records, and has worked with L.A. Reid, Fonzworth Bentley and Timbaland in the months that followed.
Luck has always been a factor in the success of artists, so this story is another example of how algorithms can act as a synecdoche: a catchy hook that helps us think about broader topics in society. In this case, the broader topic is a sort of “butterfly effect:” a small, seemingly negligible cause can have huge, unpredictable consequences.
I learned about this from a paper called “Discoverability: Toward a Definition of Content Discovery Through Platforms,” and read more about it at allmusic.com and also KansasCity.com.
