Ontario singler Ali Gatie is this month's 'One To Watch' artist!

22-year old, singer and songwriter Ali Gatie is this month’s ‘One To Watch’ artist!

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Ali was born to Iraqi parents in Yemen. He spent some of his childhood in Dubai and then he and his family moved to the city of Mississauga. His Facebook bio notes, “Certainly a lot of it comes from the way he was brought up–he credits a lot of his music-making philosophy to the traditional Arab values of hospitality and generosity that his parents raised him with.”

Although music has always been a huge part of Ali’s life, his professional music career didn’t officially begin until 2018.

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Following a handful of projects that were all self-released, Ali managed to build a global fan base and eventually, racked up millions of online streams. His first single, an acoustic-tinged ballad called ‘Moonlight,’ received over 13 million streams on Spotify and it’s lyrical video on YouTube was viewed over 15 million times.

Following the release of ‘Moonlight,’ Ali dropped two other singles which also broke YouTube records – a combined 5 million streams and keep in mind, Ali did this all on his own, with no industry connections or even professional support.

According to Ali’s Facebook bio, it states, “You can credit some of that success to Ali’s social media hustle–he once responded to over 2000 fan messages on Snapchat in a single day. But numbers only tell part of the story. It’s nothing special to rack up millions of viewer impressions with social media stunts, but Ali’s looking beyond that kind of shallow, fleeting fame. He’s building something deeper with his fans, based on timeless ideas.”

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During an interview with Billboard, Ali says, “It’s crazy. I’ve had these goals for myself and one was to make the Hot 100. I worked so hard for it, but when you see your name among the other names, I’m kind of a part of history in a way.”

Check out other records from Ali Gatie below.