TATE MCRAE

PHOTOS BY GINA SCARPINO AND WORDS BY ADDIE WHELAN

In 2020, it’s uncommon to hear of an artist who didn’t make themselves known on social media first. From artists like Shawn Mendes to Billie Eilish, some of our favorite artists grew up creating content online, attracting millions of fans before even landing a record deal.

For Tate McRae, that’s exactly the case. The 16-yearold first started creating videos on YouTube, amassing more than 2 million subscribers in just two years. Originally from Calgary, Ontario, McRae grew up in Oman, traveled to Egypt, Vietnam, London, France and Germany, all before she could walk. At six years old, she moved back to Canada along with her parents.

Emerged in music, McRae’s mother, a dance educator, taught her to dance and immersed the singer into music, teaching her how to feel music through movement to create emotional connections.

We sat down with McRae earlier this year to ask how she got her start in music, what it’s like meeting her fans and what’s next for her in the rest of the year.

“I started my YouTube channel and it was originally a dance YouTube channel. So I posted dance videos. One day, I didn’t have anything to post so I said I might as well write a song. Then, this song kind of blew up overnight. Two weeks later we flew out to New York and met with 11 labels and just started getting into the music industry and learning as much as we could about it. I’ve been posting original songs on my YouTube channel ever since,” she said.

Now signed to RCA Records, the singer and online content creator has fully pushed herself into music, releasing an EP in January that’s built her a monthly listenership of more than 8 million. Titled “all the things I never said,” the EP is the first body of work that McRae has shared, but it’s been a long time coming.

Inspired by Post Malone, Khalid, Jeremy Zucker and Jessie Reyez, the EP’s alternative-pop tracks clearly resonate with her fans, who follow her across every social platform. With more than a million followers on Instagram, the singer shows her raw talent on the platform, where she shares videos of herself dancing, performing and being her true, authentic self.

Along with her videos on Instagram, McRae has also shared details for her music and how she got her start. Although McRae is newer to the music scene, she still has a large catalog of songs that she chose from for the EP.

On selecting the tracks for the EP, McRae shared that she has “about 35 songs, about 40 songs that I haven’t released. It’s crazy because most people have really only heard like six. So it’s super weird that I’ve had so many sessions and no one even knows about three-quarters of them.”

Earlier this year, McRae nailed down those tracks into the six that sit on the EP, which has tracks that have landed on Spotify’s “Today’s Top Hits,” “Pop Rising” and other massively-followed editorial playlists.

“This EP has songs on it that I wrote two years ago. It took a long time to release it, but it was a really big relief once it actually came out. I’ve been sitting on these songs for forever, so when you listen to them over and over and over again, you have so many critiques and things that you want to change and things you love about them. At a certain point, you just have to let it be and let the songs say what they want to say. It was definitely hard but once it all came together, it was the best feeling.”’

As McRae has continued to explode onto the scene, she’s earned attention from Billie Eilish and brother Finneas O’Connell, who are listed as the writers for one of McRae’s first releases.

“It came through RCA [Records], my label. [Billie and Finneas] basically sent the song over and I got it. [Billie and Finneas] said to put your own twist on it, so I went to the recording studio with Eric Palmquist, the producer on the song and recorded it. I did a video for it a few weeks later for it to really make it my own. It was really cool because I’m a big fan of theirs,” McRae said.

Although McRae has centered herself around singing and performing, there’s a large part of McRae that’s not as widely shared. As the second runner up on Season 13 of So You Think You Can Dance, which aired on FOX, McRae has also achieved the “The Best Dancer” honor three different times at the Dance Awards. Her dancing has landed her on the Teen Choice Awards, Ellen and more, all before the singer has turned 18.

“I’m a really intense dancer, I still train 25 hours a week and I feel like people don’t know that because I post so much singing content. I train so much every week and it’s such a big part of who I am and I never want to lose that half of myself.”

McRae still shares videos of herself dancing, making it a point to incorporate dance into her performances online. While McRae is currently on tour, she hasn’t incorporated dancing yet, due to the size of the venues and stages. Although her live performances are a bit subdued, she still loves the energy that her fans give while she’s performing.

“It’s so cool to see my fans and actual faces. Normally it’s just numbers on a screen and it’s weird to put the pieces together and see them react to me speaking and singing, especially with the emotions in my songs. It’s super weird because you see how much it really affects them. You’ll see girls crying in the front row and it’s like the craziest feeling because I never thought that my songs had that much of an impact. The energy is amazing. I love [my fans], they have the coolest energy and they’re so nice and so sweet. They just have been so nice,” she said about her performances.

Throughout the rest of the year, McRae has plans. Looking into the future, she has tour plans in April through the United States along with Gavin Haley, performing at venues like 7 th Street Entry in Minneapolis, MN World Café Live in Philadelphia, PA and Stubbs BBQ in Austin, TX.

Along with the tour, McRae’s plans include releasing a second EP, which will share more of the songs that she’s written from connecting with her emotions through music. Although the EP has no release date yet, expectations have been set high from notable music critiques and playlist curators.

At just 16, there’s clearly time for McRae to continue to make a name for herself. There’s a promising future for McRae and we can’t wait to see what’s next.