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Teddy Swims VibeZ

A tattooed guy from Georgia who used to sing metal covers on YouTube now has one of the biggest soul voices in popular music. Fifty tracks explain how that happened.

The internet's best-kept secret, until he wasn't

Jaten Dimsdale, from Conyers, Georgia, spent years as a genuinely uncategorisable YouTube presence — a singer with a huge, gravelled soul voice who would cover Michael Jackson, then Shania Twain, then a metalcore track, then Sam Cooke. The name Teddy Swims is an acronym: Someone Who Isn't Me Sometimes. He came from a background in hardcore and metal bands, which explains the physical size of the voice and its comfort at the top of his range.

The covers built the audience; the originals converted it. "Lose Control", released in 2023, became one of the longest-charting singles of the decade, spending a remarkable stretch on the Billboard Hot 100 and eventually reaching number one — a slow, grinding climb rather than a debut splash, which suits the record's stubbornness.

What to listen for

"Lose Control" is the obvious centrepiece and remains the best argument for him: an unfashionably direct song about addiction and self-sabotage, sung without a shred of irony, over an arrangement that borrows more from Otis Redding than from anything on contemporary radio.

"Bad Dreams," "The Door" and "Guilty" work the same territory — big chorus, live band, a lyric about being the problem. "Funeral" and "Some Things I'll Never Know" are the ones where he pulls back and lets the tone carry it.

The collaborations show the range of rooms he fits into: "Are You Even Real" with GIVÊON pairs two of the deepest voices in current R&B, "Somethin' 'Bout A Woman" with Thomas Rhett is the country crossing, and "All That Really Matters" with ILLENIUM is the EDM one.

"You're Still The One" — the Shania Twain cover — is a direct link back to the YouTube days and worth hearing for context.

Fifty tracks. The voice does not get tired.

Go deeper

I've Tried Everything But Therapy (2023) and its second part are the albums, and both are more varied than the singles suggest — there is country, gospel and straight rock in there alongside the soul.

His YouTube covers remain a genuinely enjoyable rabbit hole and the best evidence of range. The Michael Jackson and Sam Cooke ones are the tell.

For the tradition he is drawing from, go to the source: Otis Redding, Joe Cocker and Bill Withers for the grain in the voice, Chris Stapleton for the modern country-soul parallel. Among current artists, Leon Bridges, GIVÊON and Michael Kiwanuka are working adjacent ground with more restraint.

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