Our latest pit stop on the Great Canadian Road Trip takes us to Calgary, Alberta. Calgary is famous for many things, but if you were to ask any member of the TikTok generation for their answer as to what makes Calgary so special, they would all immediately answer: Tate McRae!!!
Tate McRae is one of the most impressive and accomplished young stars out there in the entertainment world today. How she got to be in the spotlight is almost as interesting as the many accolades she has earned ever since she was a child dancing in elite competitions all over North America. So sit back, try not to pull a muscle, and get ready for a masterclass in how to parlay talent and get yourself noticed. This is the story of Calgary’s own Tate McRae.
Tate McRae is twenty-one years old as I type these words. When I was twenty-one years old, I was just learning how to cook and clean for myself, manage a budget and do my laundry in a way that didn’t ruin my clothes. By contrast, as Tate McRae turns twenty-one years of age, she has already had a couple of songs reach the Top Ten (“You Broke Me First” and “She’s All I Wanna Be”) along with her first #1 hit song with today’s featured track, “Greedy”. But her musical success is just the latest evolution in a career that began over a decade and a half ago in the world of dance.
Tate McRae’s family moved from Calgary to Oman in the Arabian Peninsula when she was five years old. While there, McRae began to study dance in a formal manner. When her family returned to Calgary a few years later, she enrolled in a professional dance school that was known as a preparatory pipeline for the Alberta Ballet Company. While a member of the School of Alberta Ballet, McRae entered a series of prestigious dance competitions in New York City known simply as The Dance Awards. At the age of ten she won the award for Best Female Dancer in the “Mini” category. Because of this win, she was signed to represent dance apparel company Capezio as spokesmodel. McRae also received a scholarship to study dance with the Berlin State Ballet. In the years that followed, McRae won the award for Best Female Dancer in the Junior and Senior categories of The Dance Awards, becoming the very first person to win every year in all three age categories. Tate McRae’s success in these dance competitions caused her to come to the attention of the entertainment world. While still a teenager, McRae was hired to dance in a professional music video for Canadian band Walk Off The Earth called “Rule the World”. She also danced on stage with fellow Canadian superstar Justin Bieber. It was next that television beckoned. As a fourteen year old, Tate McRae was featured on The Ellen Degeneres Show. But her real climb into the national spotlight occurred when she took part in a dance-oriented reality show called So You Think You Can Dance. While just fourteen years of age, McRae went all the way to the finals where she finished in third place. (You can watch one of her dance performances here). I have to be honest, when I watched her dance…as a fourteen year old…I was blown away by her skill. She is truly gifted when it comes to the strength she possesses, her ability to control her body and make it move the way it needs to in order to tell a story and her artistic sensibilities. Watching Tate McRae dance, it is easy to see that she has had years of professional ballet training. As a dancer, she is very impressive.
After basking in the warm glow of her star turn on So You Think You Can Dance, McRae took some time off to contemplate her future. Like many teenagers today, McRae is well connected with the online culture of social media. In particular, she is a big fan of the streaming service known as TikTok. For anyone who does not know what TikTok is, it is a service that looks something like YouTube, except that the videos posted there tend to be relatively short (fifteen to twenty seconds long). The short length of the content of each video has allowed two things to happen simultaneously. First, it has allowed enterprising entertainers to use TikTok as a means of self-promotion. (I wrote previously about singer Lil Nas X and how he used TikTok to circumvent the usual record company process of getting his music into the hands of his fans. (You can read that post here). Basically, what musicians do on TikTok is they speak directly to their fans and release short snippets of new material in a teaser-like fashion. This process allows word-of-mouth excitement to build among fans as their favourite stars release new material bit by bit over the course of several TikTok videos. By the time the artist is ready to actually release their song in the real world, the demand for it is huge and a successful launch is assured. How music stars use TikTok to market their music is one side of how TikTok works. The second aspect of it all is how fans work together to promote the work of their favourite artists. Because TikTok videos are so short, almost anybody can record themselves singing or dancing to the music that they love. TikTok has become famous for issuing “TikTok challenges” in which fans are challenged to post videos of themselves singing or dancing to the music of their favourite stars. TikTok challenges have become a staple of the music business as well. Lil Nas X did it. Lizzo did it with “About Damn Time” (you can watch that TikTok challenge here). Sia did it with “Snowman” (which I wrote about here) and now, Tate McRae is doing it with her #1 hit song “Greedy”. Like many of today’s young artists, building relationships with fans that seem direct and intimate is becoming the fastest growing technique used to promote an artist and boost their reach in the global marketplace. Just like how Justin Bieber used YouTube to take his place in the spotlight and Shawn Mendes used Vine videos to do the same, we have Calgary’s own Tate McRae climbing to the top of the music mountain by turning TikTok into a brand-shaping marketing tool. Believe me when I tell you that her efforts are having a huge impact.
Many of McRae’s songs are what you would expect from a teenager. They involve issues surrounding relationships and dating and heartbreak and longing and insecurity about body image. I can tell from the behaviour of my youngest daughter that the issues Tate McRae discusses via her songs and videos are ones that other teenage girls can relate to very well. In her video for the song “Greedy”, McRae waves the flag a bit by making a hockey rink the setting for her song. After watching this video, my own daughter’s sudden fascination with “hockey boys” starts to make some sense. It is also evident from the “Greedy” video that Tate McRae is beginning to grow comfortable with her body and how to use it to drive relationships and author control over her life. If you knew nothing at all about Tate McRae before watching the video (and reading this post), you might think that she was just another young girl shaking her money maker and sexualizing herself and her music. But when you know about her dance training and how strong she has been emotionally and physically to have gotten to this point in her life, then it is easier to give this video a little more leeway than one would otherwise.
For now, Tate McRae is combining the skills of a professionally-trained dancer with the ability to craft perfect Pop songs that resonate with her teenage fan base while using TikTok like a pro to market herself to the world. Her future seems bright. She is definitely poised to be the next big thing, taking her place alongside the likes of Olivia Rodrigo and other young female superstars out there. I wish her the best of luck. It can’t be easy to make such success look easy. But for now, Tate McRae from Calgary, Alberta, Canada is doing just that.
The link to the video for the song “Greedy” by Tate McRae can be found here. ***The lyrics video can be found here.
The link to videos from Tate McRae’s TikTok “Greedy” challenge can be found here, here and here. A celebrity version can be found here.
The link to the official website for Tate McRae can be found here.
The link to the official website for the TV show So You Think You Can Dance can be found here.
The link to the official website for the city of Calgary, Alberta can be found here.
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