- Hi, I'm Holla FyeSixWun. - My name is iLL Wayno.
- And I created a viral song on Tik Tok, this is that story.
♪ Do that thing with your eyes ♪
♪ Money look ♪
♪ Let me see them lips ♪
♪ Attitude and give me face ♪
♪ Eyes, lips, face wait ♪
So my life changed in October 2019, but I'mma go back.
We just moved from New York, my partner and I.
My partner is iLL Wayno.
- Grammy award winning producer, record producer,
I produce for a lot of people, I produce for Shaggy,
Sting, a whole lot of hip-hop.
I scored a lot of films as well.
There's a series on Netflix called "The Rapture",
I'm the composer for that whole series.
- I worked in advertising,
I was laid off from my last job,
so I was job hunting for about six months,
five to six months.
And iLL Wayno is working, he's doing his thing
and he gets a project
from an agency called movers and shakers.
- They said, hey we need a song
and we need to do it for elf cosmetics
and it's gonna be jumpin',
and I'm like, fine, let's do it.
- iLL Wayno's like asking me questions,
'cause he doesn't wear makeup and all of that.
And I'm like, oh, you know,
well they wanna use something using eyes, lips, face
and I'm like oh that makes sense,
because elf stands for eyes, lips, face.
- You know, I made a little beat,
something really super simple, something minimal
that would catch that youthful attention
of those kids on Tik Tok.
- iLL Wayno took most of the majority,
like he started framing the words.
But as he was rapping them to me,
'cause he doesn't really wear makeup
some of them didn't make sense,
so I helped him with that like girls wouldn't do this
or even when you say do that thing with your eyes
we had to think about, okay what is the thing,
like we imagined like winking or whatever.
They do a demo, they sent it to the agency and team
and they come back and they're like, love the song.
- They're like aww yeah, so we need a female vocal on this.
So I was like, all right.
- He's kinda wondering like who's gonna be on this song,
I need a female voice really quick.
Well there's me, who's doing nothing but job hunting.
- So I turned to Holla, I looked at Holla and said,
you're gonna have to record this song for me.
- So I'm like it's a demo,
it's not like its gonna go anywhere.
- I finished a few sessions earlier
and I was pretty tired but I knew I had to get this done.
It was like Thursday going into Friday
and Holla was like kind of falling asleep.
- 'Cause I've been waiting all day,
and iLL Wayno wakes me up,
and he's like, okay we gotta get this done.
The song's due on Monday.
- Record the song, coach her through it
and then the energy kind of dipped down,
you know it's late, I'm tired,
and it's just like yo! - Y'all need to hype me up.
- That was really like a moment,
it was a real moment that's why it kinda stuck out
for everybody in the song.
- We go through the song all night.
- I was being gentle and nudging.
- 'Cause it's my first time recording.
- It's a lengthy process but necessary one
and it kinda works out.
- He sends it off that Friday.
They come back on Monday and say we love the song,
who's this new artist, we love her energy,
what's her name, whatever.
And we're just like, um, she's this up and coming artist.
(Holla laughs)
I don't have a rap name, I've never rapped before.
Like this is brand new.
And Wayno's like, okay we need to have a name for you
or you could put your real name out.
I'm job hunting, I'm not putting my real name out there.
Everybody reps their hometown,
I was like Holla FyeSixWun?
- She's from Florida, Palm Beach to be exact.
So there's where that 561 comes in.
- And they're like, that sounds pretty good.
- And Holla is now a rap artist.
(upbeat music)
- Meanwhile I'm still job hunting, mind you.
So we finish the song, we send the information
to the team, they sent I to their client, elf cosmetics.
They get everything ready for their campaign
and they put it on Tik Tok.
I finally get a job.
- You know, once elf cosmetics put that song on Tik Tok,
I was just on, I was glued to it.
- You know we see the videos come in,
everyone doing their rendition of "eyes, lips, face".
Within the next two, three days,
we see the numbers skyrocket.
- I was in New York, in the studio,
looking at Tik Tok refreshing, refreshing, refreshing.
- And then the numbers kept going up.
First, hundreds of thousands, which I freaked out,
then millions.
- All right, where we at now?
Boom, one billion views.
- And then we started seeing celebrities do it.
I wake up one morning
and I see Reese Witherspoon do the challenge,
I'm hype.
Then I see--
- Terry Crews, then we seen--
- Howie Mandel.
- Jessica Alba.
- James Charles, he did one.
And then Patrick Starr did one.
- [iLL Wayno] Lizzo.
- And I love Lizzo.
I'm freaked out, this is amazing.
- Ellen, ellen.
- And I see a sound bite
that she's doing the challenge on her show,
and she actually has a video that's on her Tik Tok
as well as on the show.
- When everybody in the world open their phone on Tik Tok,
it was the front page.
- And I'm like, wait what's happening right now.
The song is going up, we've now extended the song
to a full length song.
- And then I played it for Shaggy,
I played it for a bunch of other people
and they were like oh snap,
like this is gold, like what?
This is who?
- It actually blows up on Spotify.
- Over a million views, plays per month, on Spotify.
You know what I'm saying?
Coming from you have no plays from a month from Spotify,
this artist we literally made up a name.
- Elf cosmetics, there's had so much good reception,
like this is a groundbreaking thing.
Let's celebrate by doing a music video.
And I'm like, am I about to be a celebrity?
Am I about to be a music artist right now?
- She's always been this person,
she's been this person her whole life.
She just didn't know she was this person.
- I just started my job,
and I had to kind of lie.
The funny thing is where we shot the video,
is literally maybe about five blocks away
from where I worked.
And we're doing the shoot, it's going well,
and there's a part where we actually have to go on the roof.
We're at the roof, doing the shots
and there's this news helicopter flying above our head.
And I'm freaking out 'cause I'm like,
I really hope my boss doesn't turn on the news
and see that I'm at a photo shoot
and I'm actually hiding underneath the curtain.
The music video was amazing,
you can actually catch it on elf cosmetics' website.
And then we started getting calls
from almost every record label imaginable.
And iLL Wayno's like, okay, let's get this moving.
So we get a team together, and we shopped around deals,
trying to see who's the best fit for us.
- Republic records came along, we did a deal over there
and just been rockin' ever since.
We got a ton of new music comin'.
- And everyone's like,
okay this is where life changes for everyone,
where they tour and all of that
and it really just came to a crossroads like
what I'm gonna do next.
- For a long time I always asked her
what is it that you love doing,
what is your gift, what is your talent
what is that thing that you love to do?
But she's just dope, you know what I'm saying,
you know when people are just dope?
They might not even know they're dope.
But you as a visionary can be like,
see that they're dope.
You just gotta nudge them, you know what I mean?
- You don't wanna be old sitting like,
okay what would I do with my life,
what would've happened,
so I took the plunge and I actually did not lie
to my boss this time and I told him that I was leaving
to focus on my music career.
- Now she's a full time artist.
You know, she just didn't know.
Now she is.
(upbeat music)