Man, it’s always so good to see Nepali talents getting recognized globally.
Look at Arthur Gunn, I mean 2020 has totally been a pretty good year for him. And now, there’s another Nepali-origin dude who is getting a helluva attention worldwide.
Fellas, meet Curtis Waters.
What? Doesn’t sound like a Nepali name? Well, I don’t know if that’s just his stage name or his real name too but what’s in the name, eh?
[Update: Turns out his name is Abhi Bastakoti]
Born in Nepal, the 20-year-old singer-songwriter has lived all across the world. Before moving to Canada at age 10, he lived in India and then in Germany. In 2017, he moved to the US where he lives with his family in Cary, North Carolina.
Let’s not make it his Wikipedia page and get straight to why I am writing about this guy.
![](<iframe src="https://giphy.com/embed/dzCIWLgqOpUBAI7Cjb" width="480" height="270" frameborder="0" class="giphy-embed" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>)
He put out his single titled ‘Stunnin’ in April and it didn’t really create much buzz in the start but dang, when it hit TikTok last month, the song started blowing up.
@curtiswaters I’ve never had any of my songs get this popular before. Thank you so much ##music ##nc ##fyp ##stunnin ##curtiswaters ##tiktoknepal
♬ Stunnin’ – Curtis Waters
@sofiawylie don’t worry ya’ll my phone’s just on airplane mode
♬ Stunnin’ – Curtis Waters
@chloe.d.campbell Cringe with me ##fyp ##foryoupage from the drafts
♬ Stunnin’ – Curtis Waters
The catchy hook from his song has already been used in over 230k user-generated videos on TikTok in a month, shooting up the streams on other popular streaming platforms as well.
IM ON THE COVER OF POP RISING ON @Spotify HAHA NICE pic.twitter.com/IQq5btGVLc
— Curtis Waters ?? (@imcurtiswaters) June 26, 2020
The track that now has garnered millions of views across all platforms made it to Today’s Top Hits, Spotify’s flagship playlist, becoming the fastest independent record to do so after Arizona Zervas’ “Roxanne”.
The music video for ‘Stunnin’, that was released on YouTube less than five weeks back, is about to hit 2 million views on the video-sharing platorm.
In a recent interview with Rolling Stone, Waters revealed that he has been getting a number of deal offers but he wants to remain independent. “I came so far independently. I’m not sure the major labels are giving artists what they really need”, he said.
In fact, the interactions he had with these labels inspired him to write the song he released earlier this week, ‘System’. “I started writing it when all these labels were reaching out to me — I felt like I was being treated like a commodity, like I was just a product,” Waters told Rolling Stones.
Waters is a multi-talented fella as he writes, sings, raps and even produces his own beats. He also creates the artwork for his singles. He already has dropped an album titled ‘Pity Party’ but for some reason, he deleted all of his songs from all platforms (except one) a month ago. “Last night I took down Pity Party and most of my music from streaming services. To be honest I woke up and felt horrible about it. I hate that I’m depriving everyone of listening to these songs BUT it will come back later this year. And i promise it will be BIGGER!!!!!”, he wrote in an Instagram post.
“2 months ago I released my debut album Pity Party. I had been working on the ideas since I was 14 years old. My whole life I always felt like no matter how depressed and hopeless I felt, I had to keep going because someday I would be able to express all the emotions and help other people feel comfortable with what they are going through. I wanted to tour and do a visuals for each of the songs and even make a video game but right after the release, corona virus stopped everything.”
Good thing, all of his songs are safe and are still streaming on SoundCloud.
Apart from his talent, something that promises Waters a good future is the person backing him up, his manager Chris Anokute, one of the most sought after A&R executives in the music industry and the founder of Young Forever Inc, who discovered him when he randomly came across one of Waters’ songs, ‘Freckles’, on SoundCloud. Long story short, the two are now killing it together.
Before ‘Stunnin’ happened and it started getting over 700,000 streams on Spotify everyday, he had been working at a smoothie place. “Technically I haven’t quit yet, but I stopped going.”
Can’t wait to listen to more of his tracks. Good luck, buddy!
