arts&life
music / cover story
New Sensation
SUZANNE CHESSLER CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Social-media star
Daniel Skye talks
music, his fans
and tefi llin.
Skye gets a selfie with Adam
Sandler at the Radio Disney
Music Awards
30
June 22 • 2017
D
aniel Skye is the real
deal.
The 17-year-old social-
media star plays guitar and
piano, writes music and lyrics,
and, of course, sings in a voice
that sounds like liquid gold to
his legions of fans.
Skye was focusing on his bar
mitzvah Torah chanting when
guests began raving that he had
talents good enough for perfor-
mances in front of larger and
more diverse audiences.
Skye took those remarks seri-
ously and began experimenting,
soon adding a guitar to accom-
pany his singing.
“I went home and started
messing around with it and
really started liking it,” says
Skye, who will appear July 1 at
the Shelter in Detroit. “I opened
an Instagram account when
Instagram was just coming out.
jn
I would do 15-second covers,
playing the top songs on the
internet.”
Unofficial videos of a 13-year-
old Skye strumming his acoustic
guitar show him singing songs
like the Rihanna/Eminem
duet “Monsters,” Justin Bieber’s
“Baby” and OneRepublic’s
“Counting Stars.”
“People just started comment-
ing on it and sharing it with their
friends. It just went from there.”
From there meant writing
songs, performing them online
— then signing a contract with
RCA Records at the end of 2016,
all within three years.
In a music landscape taken
over by auto-tune, often in place
of skill, Skye can belt them out
— plus he’s got the charisma and
high-energy moves in concert
that set the crowd screaming. He
has logged 28 million streams
on Spotify and more than 19
million streams on YouTube.
He has more than 5 million
followers combined on his
social platforms; that includes
2.5 million on Instagram, 1.89
million on musical.ly, 675, 000
through Twitter, 339,000 through
YouTube/Vevo subscribers and
298,000 with Facebook friends.
Skye released his first original
song, “Maybe,” in 2014, and it
gained the early interest of RCA
by appearing on the iTunes
chart. His second original song,
“LoveSick Day,” charted at 86 on
the iTunes Pop charts. In 2015,
he released “All I Want” featuring
Cameron Dallas, and the song
debuted on iHeart, climbing the
iTunes Pop charts to 12 in the
United States and in the top five
in international territories.
His next song, “We Got Us,”
was dedicated to his fans and
inspired thousands of collabora-
tive fan-made videos.
Skye’s release “Smile,” in 2016,
was licensed to a nationwide
commercial. “Good As It Gets”
came out as he signed with RCA
records — and it earned a shout-
out from Justin Bieber, who
Tweeted, “This is a [sic] awe-
some song.” In 2017, he released
“On.”
“I love my fans so much,” Skye
says. “The only reason I can do
this is because of all the sup-
port.”
Skye has been touring since
he was 13, sometimes going to
as many as 20 cities in a row.
When he appears in Detroit,
fresh off a tour with Bebe Rexha,
he will be introducing his latest
song, “Feeling You.” A DJ will play
tracks while Skye brings in his
guitar to add to the vocals.
“I’m super excited to be per-