Matoma

We exist in an era of music in which success is easily quantified—an artist becomes a sensation on an ever-higher number of views, followers, plays and likes. By this standard, Norwegian artist Matoma – the 25-year-old artist born Tom Lagergren – has certainly done big things in a short amount of time. He’s an artist who is equally adept at creating life-affirming originals as he is with cross-genres collabs with the likes of Jason Derulo, Jennifer Lopez, and The Vamps – not to mention a dazzling array of remixes for artists as varied as Coldplay, One Direction, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, and Axwell. The result is that Matoma commands a following of over 8 million monthly listeners on Spotify. Individual tracks are even bigger still: 161 million streams of his breakthrough track ‘Old Thing Back’; 118 million plays of his anthem ‘Running Out’; and another 113 million for ‘All Night’, his recent collaboration with The Vamps. True achievement, however, is about more than numbers; it’s about depth, feeling and that magical symbiotic relationship between the performer and the crowd. In this sense, Matoma has accomplished something special.