How Hip-Hop Made TikTok The #1 Social Media Platform

TikTok feels like it’s been around forever. Though it’s been around 2 years, it’s now THE social media platform, and for good reason too.

Because seriously, who’s not on TikTok these days? It has the best organic reach, a great algorithm that prioritizes users, and the ads feel organic enough that you *almost* forget that you’re watching them.

It’s crazy.

TikTok has stolen our hearts and our attention. So today, we’re gonna talk about how that happened. To do so, we need to revisit 2020 (Yea, I know, I know).

2020 Was The Beginning of the TikTok Era

In March of 2020, the world was officially shut down. If you weren’t an essential worker, you were more than likely at home waiting for the next Covid update or the occasional #Verzuz battles occurring over the weekend.

We were more or less looking for ways to fill time when TikTok (which at the time was thought of as an obscure dancing app for kids) started to explode with different forms of content.

But, what was the thing that took TikTok from a dance app to a cultural phenomenon?

IT WAS THE RENEGADE.

Since its foundation, dancing has been a core element of hip-hop culture and every once in a while, new songs lead to new dances. The dances become so popular that they takes over pop culture. It happened in the mid-2000s with Lean With It, Rock With It, in NY with the Harlem Shake, etc.

The point is that Dance culture & Hip-Hop go hand in hand.

The song that inspired the dance, in this case, was Lottery by K. Camp. The very distinctive producer tag at the beginning of the record saying “Renegade” had everyone believing that it was name of the song as well (it’s actually called “lottery).

While the song itself was generating a buzz, a young girl from Atlanta named Jalaiah uploaded a video to TikTok one day with a dance she created called the “Renegade”. What ensued was a series of videos that sparked the challenge. In essence, her dance allowed people to come up with their own versions to participate.

The Renegade dance became so popular that Jalaiah appeared on the Ellen Show, an NBA halftime show, Good Morning America, and much more.

And as for how the Renegade changed people’s opinions on TikTok?

The dance gave people something to rally around while stuck at home, and after being on the platform for a while, people began to realize that it wasn’t just about dancing, it was so much more.

But that was just the beginning… What really took TikTok over the top is the next example.

Megan Thee Stallion x Savage

The Renegade brought a ton of new users to TikTok, and the success of K. Camp’s record because of “the Renegade” dance had the music industry taking notice; rightfully so.

But that wasn’t the only thing that changed TikTok. Nope. The next challenge that followed opened the floodgates.

Right before the pandemic started, Megan Thee Stallion dropped a project entitled “Suga” although it took two more months for it to truly catch on, Meg took over TikTok by letting everyone know she that was a

SAVAGE.

While the song itself was buzzing, the dance challenge for Savage was a cultural phenomenon. Between TikTok’s algorithm giving creators insane reach, and its endless video supply, you literally couldn’t scroll more than 5 videos without seeing someone do the “Savage” dance challenge (original dance created by Keara Wilson).

Take a look at this compilation for a glimpse of how it went:

The genius of the TikTok team helped propel this record to another level. When they noticed that users were saving snippets of “Savage” to their favorites at a high rate, TikTok encouraged Meg’s record label to move all of their thinking and resources to that record.

The result?

Savage became so popular that Beyonce’ even hopped on the remix. The internet was in shambles, and more importantly, TikTok proved its ability to be the premier platform for creatives of all industries to grow their audience.

The Aftermath

The effects of 2020 have created a lasting effect on how we use TikTok. Though I haven’t seen a new dance challenge in a while (possibly because I’m old), I have noticed that TikTok is now the premier platform for breaking music artists.

They’ve rolled out their own music distribution arm called “Sound On,” and there are even rumblings that they’ll become a full-fledged record label soon. The crazy thing? This didn’t happen because of a country artist, a gospel artist, or any other genre. It was Hip-hop leading the way again, and you gotta love that.

Peace.