Dominic Fike puts his own spin on Jack Johnson-esque cabana pop by combining it with elements of alternative hip-hop. The Florida native went from an unknown to a major-label signee in 2018, the year he issued his debut EP, Don't Forget About Me, Demos. His Billboard 200-charting first full-length, What Could Possibly Go Wrong, followed in 2022, and his star continued to rise after joining the cast of the hit HBO series Euphoria for its second season that same year. Fike’s sophomore album, Sunburn, appeared in 2023, charting at number 30. The EP 14 Minutes followed in 2024. Born in Naples, Florida, in late 1995, Dominic David Fike got his first guitar at the age of ten and began learning how to play songs by favorite acts including Red Hot Chili Peppers. Growing up, he and his siblings sometimes sought shelter with various relatives and family friends as his mother was in and out of jail. He and his older brother, Sean, sometimes freestyled with friends, and Dominic later became part of a rap collective that, by his late teens, was getting booked at music festivals. In the meantime, he was writing songs, making demos, and sharing videos of solo performances online. After some of his demos emerged in 2017, Fike signed a multi-million-dollar deal with Sandy Boys and Columbia Records before even releasing a song. They put out the reworked Don't Forget About Me, Demos in mid-October 2018. The set’s opening track, “3 Nights,” topped a million streams before the end of the month. After featuring on Kevin Abstract’s single “Peach” (along with BROCKHAMPTON’s Joba and Bearface), Fike issued two tracks of his own, “Açaí Bowl” and “Roller Blades,” in 2019. With “3 Nights” racking up half-a-billion streams, and the Kenny Beats collaboration “Phone Numbers” soon becoming an underground hit of its own, Fike’s popularity skyrocketed. As co-signs from Billie Eilish and BROCKHAMPTON continued to build the vocalist’s profile, the musician set to work on a debut album, What Could Possibly Go Wrong. Released in July 2020, the record continued Fike’s feature-less run thus far with a 14-track collection of wide-ranging cuts, including the hits “Chicken Tenders” and “Politics & Violence.” The album spent a week at number 41 on the Billboard 200. In early 2021, Fike was featured on the Justin Bieber track “Die for You,” marking his first appearance in the Hot 100 (number 81), and that April, he turned up on McCartney III Imagined with a remix of Paul McCartney’s “The Kiss of Venus.” Beck, Phoebe Bridgers, and Damon Albarn were among the album’s other contributors. In 2022, Fike joined the main cast of the popular HBO series Euphoria and contributed the track “Elliot’s Song” — with Zendaya — to the program’s soundtrack. He made his Coachella festival debut in April 2023. That same month, he released the single “Dancing in the Courthouse,” a song inspired by run-ins with the law during his childhood. In June of that year, Fike released new song “Mona Lisa,” a track originally included on the Metro Boomin-produced soundtrack album for Spider Man: Across the Spider-Verse but was later removed. Despite this, the track became a charting hit, reaching 89 on the Hot 100 and later appeared on Fike’s second album, Sunburn, released in July 2023. In addition to production credits that included Jim-E Stack, StarGate, and Kenny Beats, the record featured backing vocals from Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo on “Think Fast,” a song that interpolated Weezer’s ubiquitous hit “Undone - The Sweater Song.” Sunburn quickly reached the number 30 position on the Billboard 200 charts. Fike’s next release was the 2024 EP 14 Minutes, a loose, homespun collection of seven tracks totaling 14 minutes in length. ~ Marcy Donelson & David Crone