It is no exaggeration to say that the tents at the sea changed Nathan Evans’ life. Airdrie’s 26-year-old postman, North Lanarkshire, has become an online phenomenon thanks to the rhythmic and intense chapel music.
The favela do mar genre has unexpectedly become popular, having become something of a global online obsession in recent weeks, mainly driven by the duet on the video-sharing social media app TikTok.
The result is hundreds of versions of popular sea slums with satisfying layers of harmonized voices, sung by people who never knew them – and a boost to a genre that was once relegated to being a niche, even a novelty, a branch of music folk.
Google searches for the term “favelas do mar” are on the rise in the United States, and the Reddit slum community is currently the ninth fastest growing on the site, having doubled in size last week.
For Evans, who has been playing music for years, posting songs after finishing his morning deliveries, it all started with a cover of an Irish folk song Leave Her, Johnny, which he shared with a handful of followers on his TikTok account last summer .
“I hadn’t heard many favelas from the sea and then, when that video took off, I realized that people really liked this kind of music and found out that I liked making it,” he said. Six months and millions of likes later, he has more than 400,000 TikTok followers.
He is also appearing on radio, television and in articles around the world and has even been praised by American singer and songwriter John Legend.
“Everything was so fast and it was a little overwhelming,” he said.
Evans, who writes his own music, never imagined that his first EP would be sea shanties, but he is grateful nonetheless.
“They changed my life,” he said. “They opened so many doors and opportunities that I would never have had it not for them.”
Arguably, the biggest instigator and beneficiary of this trend is the Bristol band The Longest Johns, who are veterans of the slum game of the sea, formed in 2013.
Jonathan “JD” Darley, Andy Yates, Robbie Sattin and Dave Robinson have spent most of the past decade performing slums at festivals across the UK and have attracted a moderate fan base.
But in late 2020, after the Longest Johns allowed Twitch streamers to use their music for free in the background of their streams, one song in particular exploded.
The Wellerman, a maritime slum originating in New Zealand, is currently number 5 in the world and number 2 in the USA on the Spotify viral chart, a list that takes into account auditions and shares. Even more impressive, on Wednesday the Longest Johns version of The Wellerman entered the top 200 of Spotify’s most streamed songs across the United States.
That success came in waves, they said, with an increase in popularity in the summer, then in October and again in December. “And then it happened and each one got bigger and bigger than the last, as more people started to recognize and connect with the music,” said Darley.
“It is exactly like this crazy growth spiral that is seen.”
Promise Uzowulu, a 23-year-old nursing student from Houston, Texas, who goes by the name of TikTok @strong_promises, is partly responsible for this recent wave.
His 43-second video, singing along with the Longest Johns version of The Wellerman in the car with his 21-year-old brother, Frank, traces the sincere emotional trajectory familiar to new favela fans and has had tens of millions of views.
Uzowulu said: “He did and I was skeptical at first because he plays a strange song. But, to my surprise, I really liked the music. I asked him to play it repeatedly until he learned the chorus.
“The video shows the honest progression from skepticism to total pleasure.”
The Longest Johns credits the genre’s simplicity and accessibility for this. Sattin said: “I would compare it to football songs. It doesn’t matter if you’re tuned in or not. “
Wellerman himself may have a unique appeal during the pandemic as well, as the song is about waiting for a ship to bring supplies during a seemingly endless whaling. (Wellerman’s coming soon / To bring us sugar, tea and rum / One day when tonguin ‘is ready / Let’s say goodbye and leave.)
“They are people trapped in a bad situation hoping for the best. Something about it seems to resonate with people, ”said Robinson.
Yates added, “Or maybe they just need a delivery of food.”