Teddy Swims likes to make an entrance. On the Brits final month, the Georgia singer rocked as much as the pink carpet sporting a cape created from stuffed toys: if the fluorescent inexperienced teddy bears didn’t blind you, the diamond grills flashing in his mouth may have finished. But it’s his voice – a full-throated baritone – that’s at present in every single place. Should you’re on TikTok you received’t have been capable of keep away from his 2023 single “Lose Management” – certainly one of that 12 months’s largest hits. The spookified R&B swell of synth beats and squalling electrical guitar is in the identical vein as Ariana Grande’s “Harmful Lady” or Annie Lennox’s tackle “I Put a Spell on You”, and you will have had a tough time getting it out of your head.
The person born Jaten Dimsdale is way cuddlier than his tattooed visage and diamond-studded enamel may counsel. “I’m only a blossoming flower,” the 32-year-old tells me as we chat over video name. He’s holed up in a lodge in Kensington forward of the second of two sold-out exhibits at Wembley Enviornment, a world away from the house he shares along with his girlfriend in Los Angeles. Blossoming he could also be, however he’s additionally certainly one of a veritable horde of stars breaking into the mainstream after what has felt like years with no large new act. He was on the Grammys in February, the place he was nominated for Greatest New Artist alongside Chappell Roan, Sabrina Carpenter and RAYE, and his rousing efficiency was a reminder that, whilst girls dominated the ceremony, music followers nonetheless can’t get sufficient of blokes with large voices – particularly in the event that they’re singing over rootsy Americana or blue-eyed soul.
He had a good time on the Brit Awards, which gives “much more booze” than the Grammys, apparently. “I feel it’s simply higher [at the Brits]. On the Grammys, with LA typically, individuals are all the time getting their emotions damage as a substitute of celebrating music,” he says. “Like, ‘I ought to have gotten this. What about me?’ It’s like a contest, on the subject of artwork, and it doesn’t should be that approach – [awards] don’t outline how good you might be.”
Rising up within the Atlanta suburbs, Dimsdale learnt to not pay any thoughts to the music trade’s extra superficial issues. The phrase “persistence” is tattooed over his proper forehead as a reminder that blossoming flowers require nurturing. These tattoos have grown in quantity as his profession has gone from hair metallic cowl bands to prog-rock teams, to sharing cowl songs to YouTube – most notably his breakthrough model of Shania Twain’s ballad “You’re Nonetheless the One”, which has had greater than 210 million views since he uploaded it in 2019.
On account of that music, document labels swooped, and his debut album, 2023’s I’ve Tried The whole lot However Remedy (Half 1), charted within the prime 20. The follow-up, 2025’s Half 2, added some recent elements to his melting pot of R&B, blues and soul and despatched him hurtling into the highest 5.
He’s grateful that it has taken him a number of years to make it. “I assure that if I’d had this [success] even two years in the past, I’d have put it straight to my liver and proper up my nostril,” he declares. “I’d have been a baby, I’d have squandered it. I’m so grateful for the person I’ve develop into. I really feel like I simply received to that time the place I really feel like I’m deserving of it.” He hasn’t all the time felt so deserving. “I used to hope that if tens of millions of individuals informed me that I used to be adequate, then perhaps I’d really feel that approach about me too.” It was a impolite awakening to search out, regardless of these billions of streams and tens of millions of followers, the imposter syndrome was nonetheless there: “I informed myself this is able to repair every little thing,” he says, grinning extensively, referring to those milestones, “and boy, did it not!”
Whereas he’s inevitably been lumped in with the opposite booming male breakthroughs of 2025, Dimsdale has managed to inject some much-needed color into the scene along with his bonkers style and love of spectacle – a peacock among the many pigeons. His sound, too, strays away from guitar-strumming singer-songwriter tropes and opts as a substitute for a giant band impact, filled with drama and panache. It creates a lovely distinction along with his lyrics, that are emotionally introspective and sometimes deeply private.
Music, as his albums’ titles counsel, is the place he likes to unpack his non-public turmoil. His debut was largely impressed by what he’s described as a “poisonous” relationship muddled by substance abuse. “I used to be in a nasty place, spiritually, emotionally, bodily… it was tough,” he says. Songs resembling “The Door” describe the second he selected to take management: “I mentioned I’d die for you, child/ However I can not take this ache no extra/ I believed I used to be keen/ However tonight I saved my life once I confirmed you the door.” He strikes from a whisky-soaked bellow to the softest of whispers on “You Nonetheless Get to Me”, a lonely ballad about watching his ex transfer on with another person. He believes there are solely two causes individuals damage others: “A few of them do it as a result of they’re simply terrible, and a few do it to assist themselves – it’s not about you. I take my ache and use it as a lesson and hold transferring.” And make an amazing document, I counsel. “Worst-case situation, she makes me a millionaire,” he agrees.
He grew up with a love of music, however selected to go to cosmetology college (the fascination with hair extends past glam metallic bands, apparently), swayed by well-meaning people who informed him he wanted a back-up plan, ought to his dream fail. It was his dad who informed him he was losing his time doing something aside from music. Just a few months after he signed his document cope with Warner, he purchased his dad a brand new truck. “I can by no means specific sufficient how a lot it implies that you supported me, caught by me and trusted me,” he wrote in an emotional Instagram submit.
Get pleasure from limitless entry to 100 million ad-free songs and podcasts with Amazon Music
Enroll now for a 30-day free trial
Get pleasure from limitless entry to 100 million ad-free songs and podcasts with Amazon Music
Enroll now for a 30-day free trial
Dimsdale is conscious that for older generations, and maybe to a point now, there’s a little bit of a stigma hooked up to males who’re open about their emotions. “It was like a weak point to go to remedy or be sincere or to say I really like you, or for boys to name one another fairly,” he says. “We must always inform one another how fairly we’re!” He sounds not sure if that stigma is altering anytime quickly, however he doesn’t care. His willingness to be open about himself is why he thinks so many followers relate to his songs: “Each night time I get to be in entrance of 1000’s of people that’ve created this secure area to chuckle, to cry… and I feel in the identical approach, I’ve created an area for them too. It additionally implies that all of the unhealthy individuals who aren’t there for you, they wean themselves out of your life quick, and also you’re left with the tribe who actually care.”
All of the unhealthy individuals who aren’t there for you, they wean themselves out of your life quick
One such individual is his girlfriend Raiche Wright, additionally a musician, who’s pregnant with their first little one. “We’re having somewhat boy in June,” he says, beaming. They’re struggling to choose a reputation – Wright locations quite a lot of significance within the meanings behind them, so has been vetoing a number of choices. “We would simply name him Wembley,” Dimsdale cracks. He’s excited to be a dad (his personal father launched him to his soul heroes, Al Inexperienced, Otis Redding and Marvin Gaye), and for his and Wright’s impending transfer to Nashville. He’s additionally pragmatic that his life will nonetheless include each highs and lows: “Some days I’m unhappy, and my woman’s at house with our child in her stomach and I need to speak to her, however I’ve received to get on stage in entrance of 15,000 individuals once I’m nonetheless torn up,” he says. “And the boys will inform me, ‘Look man, these individuals [in the audience]… it’s somebody’s birthday, it’s somebody’s anniversary – they’ve come right here to see us carry out, so let’s go on the market and present them a superb time, and after that we will sit down and determine it out.”
It was his relationship with Wright that partly spurred him into making Half 2 of I’ve Tried The whole lot However Remedy. “The primary document was all heartbreak and turmoil and I didn’t need to finish the album on that form of observe,“ he explains. ”[By the time I made] the second album, I’d really tried remedy, I’d fallen in love, received a child on the way in which, success underneath my belt.” Half 2 has a better temper of optimism, expressed in tracks such because the meltingly clean “Are You Even Actual” with R&B crooner Giveon, the sun-drenched doo-wop of “Your Type of Loopy”, and the swaggering “She Bought It”, an on-his-knees worship of a full-figured lady that includes singer Coco Jones and breakout rapper GloRilla.
“Girls are freaking crushing it proper now,” he says once I level to their rise alongside Carpenter, Chappell Roan, Doechii and Charli XCX, to not point out pop veterans resembling Taylor Swift and Beyoncé. “Music has by no means been in higher palms. I’ve received such a phenomenal mom, I’ve received my woman changing into this wonderful mom… God is a girl,” the grandson of a Pentecostal preacher says. “I’m a agency believer in like, let’s get a woman within the workplace, you already know what I’m saying?” His earnestness and gratitude is infectious, as is his angle in direction of life. “You’ve gotta select happiness,” he tells me. “Some days I’ll get up and be like, ‘What are you upset about?’ You’re dwelling your dream.’ And a few days you simply have to bitch, and I’ll give myself that area too. ‘Woman, I wanna be upset. Let me be upset.’ And that’s OK. That’s steadiness, child.”
I’ve Tried The whole lot However Remedy (Half 2) is out now. Teddy Swims excursions the US from 4 Might till 10 September
