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17-year-old Canadian Artist 347aiden Spreads a Positive Message

Words by Josh Jones
Photography by Phil Knott

Rainbow hair and likes to care. That’s 347aidan. Perennially wearing a hoodie—“I feel like you can wear them in any weather”— the 17-year-old from Canada has been post- ing the music he makes across his social media since he was thirteen. October 2020 saw a turning point in 347aidan’s career when his immensely catchy song “Dancing In My Room” tore across TikTok. Now signed to Sony, the laid-back singer has taken comparisons with Beck in his stride as his drawled vocals, upbeat music, and good old Canadian positivity has seen him move from a viral giant into a bona fide sing- ing sensation. “I think my positivity comes from my belief that impact is everything, I really want to impact people for the better in my life and sometimes the best way to do that is just by being a good person — it’s really cool to make somebody smile and, yeah, I guess it doesn’t hurt that I’m Canadian.”

Going from 3,000 monthly listeners on Spotify to over five million in the space of a year doesn’t seem to have fazed the Ontarian one bit. In fact, nothing really seems to. “It feels pretty awesome,” he says of his newfound fame, “definitely something I will never wrap my head around though, mainly because I don’t want to. I’m super grateful for every single listener but it’s almost too surreal to try and take in, I hope to impact every single listener for the better though. That’s the goal.”

He says his influences range from Mac Miller, Adele, Nirvana, Vance Joy, Tyler, the Creator, and Earl Sweatshirt, and what he really wants is his music to influence a new artist in the same way. His DIY approach to songwriting, music videos and dis- tribution have won him fans worldwide, and he’s very aware that in today’s world it’s all too easy to have a big viral hit and be forgotten about within months. This means he’s purposefully taken a path where he’s sought to build a fanbase organically to give him longevity.

It’s something Black Sabbath famously did with incessant touring, rather than releasing albums, and is something he identifies with: “I think building organically is the smartest thing you can do as an artist/creative,” he explains. “I plan to be in this career path for a very long time, if I was constantly going viral right now I think I would almost start to hate it. building a strong fanbase is everything to me, I really love those kids and want to impact them in the best ways possible. There is a lot more to this then just streams and followers and making a couple songs blow up, you gotta really show people why they should continue to care about you as a person and an artist, it’s like they are investing in you and I hope to keep all my fans invested.” @347aidan