Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve come across Mae Stephens’ infectious track “If We Ever Broke Up” on TikTok multiple times. I was lucky enough to have found it earlier on and I loved it straight away. The extremely catchy “funkalicious synth” as Mae herself calls it as well as the punchy lyrics captivated me immediately and I am so glad that the track is finally out!

I can’t say that I can name many young people making funk-pop mainstream music in today’s world, so when Mae Stephens sang “if we ever broke up, I’d never be sad/thinking ‘bout everything that we had, if we ever broke up” in that first clip I heard, I was mesmerized. A funk-pop song about a hypothetical breakup? I’m in! 

I think a lot of up-and-coming artists can look at Mae’s growth on TikTok and be inspired by it. Her videos were not over-the-top in any way: she danced along to her song and let the track be the star of the content. In a world where there is so much content, young artists are finding it really difficult to come up with unique ideas to break through the noise… but Mae really didn’t need anything fancy to showcase her track. Her vocals are unquestionably special, the song is addicting, and that was all that mattered; it caught the attention of millions of viewers and EMI Records as well. She is one to watch this year for sure and I’ll certainly be front row at her first show in the United States!