CAT BURNS [@catburns] : FROM TIKTOK TO BECOMING A 2023 BRIT AWARD PERFORMER & NOMINEE

Cat Burns is a name that you would have either heard on Tiktok or the radio or seen on your TV screens by now. She’s a talented South London singer and songwriter who’s “helping you get through shit one song at a time”. The talented 22-year-old star has gone from building her tight-knitted fanbase on TikTok to a sold-out show at the iconic KOKO London venue to now being a three-time 2023 BRIT nominee and performer. It almost makes you forget that her journey started back on TikTok during the pandemic, a platform that helped people discover Cat’s sound and voice in a real natural and authentic way pushing her music career to new heights and new audiences. TikTok helped solidify Cat Burns’s space within the music industry because it made the music industry acknowledge the space she was creating and the inflow of opportunities that were accessible to her. You couldn’t not recognise her talent so let’s delve back into the start of Cat Burns and Tiktok.      

It’s the year 2020 and the pandemic has hit. Everyone is at home bored out of their minds with a whole lot of time to spend on social media, especially TikTok. That’s when a TikTok video of Cat Burns goes viral on Twitter with everyone wanting to know who this girl is and wanting more from her. Everyone was obsessed with her fresh and beautiful vocals: with this being the first of many viral moments for her. With her consistently posting her covers and mash-ups on TikTok it wasn’t long before her following grew and she started teasing some unreleased songs that we supporters were dying for. 

Fast forward to July 31st, 2020, and Cat released her single ‘Go’, a breakup song that ended up doing crazy numbers two years later thanks to the power of Tiktok, but we’ll get back to that one. A year later in 2021, Cat released two more singles titled ‘Into You’ and ‘Free’. ‘Free’ is a special song for Cat with her singing about coming out to her mum and being true to herself, which TikTok was going crazy over..again. In December 2021, Cat Burns performed her song ‘Go’ for the first time at The Courtyard Theatre, with everyone reciting every single lyric straight back to her. ‘Go’ a song that she initially first teased on Tiktok was now being sung by hundreds of people: A surreal moment for her to finally see in person. Fast forward to 2022 and ‘Go’ was starting to be rediscovered on TikTok again with it peaking at number two in the UK Singles Chart and racking up over 100 million streams on Spotify alone. Everyone was loving the song including artists Sam Smith, Sam Fischer, Russ Millions and Loski who all featured on the ‘Go’ remixes.    

She then released her long-awaited six-song EP, Emotionally Unavailable, on May 20th, 2022. Emotionally Unavailable is raw, honest and vulnerable and talks about emotions we all feel but just don’t say. It’s an EP that can connect to everyone, so it comes as no surprise to find out that she later sold out her first Koko show in October 2022. Cat Burns’s journey was flourishing, with the world watching and supporting her straight back, bringing us to the 2023 BRIT awards. 

Cat Burns was nominated for 3 BRIT awards: Song of the year, Rising Star and Best Pop & RnB Act. She also performed her chart-topping single ‘Go’ live at the BRITS which took place on the 11th of February 2023 at the O2 arena. To watch her go from breaking through on TikTok to becoming BRIT nominated & more has been more than incredible to watch for her. TikTok’s platform really helped Cat Burns naturally find her army of supporters who would constantly rave about her and make her name become a part of discussions that would later lead her to tons of amazing opportunities. This is only the start for her, and I can’t wait to see where the rest of her journey takes her.

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