TikTok has changed music — and the industry is hustling to catch up

A lot of musicians are skipping the traditional path into the industry, and are going straight to their fans instead. (Zayrha Rodriguez/NPR)

Tyler Colon played college basketball. He won an MTV reality show. He’s tried podcasting, modeling, and acting. But in 2019, he got serious about pursuing music.

“After singing in my car for, like, six months for an hour and a half every single day, I released ‘Stuck In The Middle,'” he said.

He put it up on TikTok under his stage name, Tai Verdes. At the time, he was working at a Verizon store.