As Dixie D’Amelio expands her TikTok stardom to musical superstardom, who’s the best person to call? Jason Derulo!
The two sat down in a 10-minute clip posted to YouTube Wednesday (July 15) that featured D’Amelio’s close circle coming together to share their thoughts on her music video for her debut single “Be Good,” which premiered on July 1 and has already garnered more than 46 million views.
“I’m so happy for you! This is so good,” the hitmaker told the 18-year-old rising star after screening the viral video together in his home. “I remember those butterflies playing songs for people for the first time, playing a video for people for the first time. It must feel crazy.”
Unlike D’Amelio, who started her rise on TikTok, Derulo has been scoring top 10 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 over the past decade before he amassed 28.7 million followers on the short-form video platform. He’s since channeled his indescribable TikTok powers to propel himself onto the charts: His Jawsh 685-assisted “Savage Love (Laxed Beat — Siren) track,” which continues making the rounds on TikTok in the form of multiple dance challenges, made it to No. 1 on the Official U.K. Singles Chart and ARIA Australian Singles Chart.
D’Amelio made her Billboard chart debut this month after opening at No. 41 on the Emerging Artists tally (dated July 11). But after chatting about the clip, she asked the 30-year-old crooner about how he felt when he was an up-and-coming artist.
“It’s funny because I think I was almost exactly your age when I dropped my first song,” he recalled. “I remember thinking to myself, ‘I’ve worked really hard for this, it’s my moment, and whatever happens happens.’ It was not necessarily about my song going No. 1, it was not necessarily about the entire world loving this piece of music. I just wanted to relish in the fact that I’ve worked hard myself and taken the moment and saying, ‘I deserve this.'”
Derulo’s debut single “Whatcha Say” became his first official No. 1 hit on the Hot 100 back in November 2009, when he had just turned 20 years old. He advised D’Amelio, who has 29.7 million TikTok followers, to chase “the better version of yourself” rather than success itself and to focus on her work ethic.
“Success is only borrowed, you can never own success, right?” he told her. “It can be gone tomorrow, so you have to keep that same work ethic.”
Watch Derulo along with D’Amelio’s friends and family react to her first official music video below.
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