The day before Drake released the song “Slime You Out” featuring SZA, both artists posted a small portion of the song on Instagram along with a picture of Halle Berry getting “slimed” on Nickelodeon.
Many Drizzy fans quickly started blowing up the song on social media, but TikTok seems to be where it was most heard. With TikTok and fans on the app promoting the song, its popularity grew quickly and the song debuted at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 a week after it was released.
Releasing snippets of upcoming songs on TikTok has become another way for artists to promote their new music.
Tate McRae used this same marketing technique for her most recent song, “Greedy.” After McRae released a small snippet of the song, many people on TikTok, including McRae herself, posted themselves lip syncing to it or made videos with the song in the background.
McRae also made a small dance to her song, which can get the attention of young listeners.
The sample took off, and McRae released her song after over a month of teasing it to her listeners.
These artists released their songs on purpose. But others, such as Ariana Grande, had their songs leaked on TikTok by others.
Grande has told her fans that she does not support the unauthorized leaking of unreleased songs. Still, one of her unreleased songs, which fans have called “Fantasize,” was leaked a couple of weeks ago. People on TikTok still post videos to the audio.
Whether the unreleased song snippets are released intentionally by the artists or leaked by others, they have become a favorite of TikTok fans.
