Addison Rae: the pop princess that got away

If you are on TikTok, you have probably heard the name Addison Rae. She is the fourth most followed person on the social media platform, and has amassed over 88 million followers (as of December 2022). She hails from Lafayette, Louisiana and just three years ago was attending Louisiana State University. There, she tried out for a dance team and did not make the final cut. Despite this, later that year created a tik tok account and posted videos of herself dancing. Within the next year, she swiftly gained followers on the app and became a household name amongst Gen Z. 

Viral videos accompanied her newfound fame such as her 2020 Genius interview where she substituted the lyrics to The Kid Laroi’s song “Addison Rae.” In the clip, she replaces a cuss word with the phrase ‘bad bleep’, which people began to associate her with online. Beyond viral videos, over the next year Rae would secretly work with various songwriters to start the path of pursuing a music career. 

Still from Addison Rae’s Music Video “Obsessed” via INgrooves (on behalf of Sandlot Records)

In March of 2021, she surprise-released her debut single “Obsessed”, which garnered negative reception from the public and critics alike. Nick Romano of Entertainment Weekly wrote in a review of the song that “the execution may have gotten lost in translation.” Numerous people online also let their feelings show, with some tik tok users leaving comments such as ‘this is fire on mute’ and ‘suddenly all tiktokers are singers’ under Rae’s Tiktok promoting the song. People everywhere wrote her off as being just another social media personality making songs to capitalize on their online fame and fortune. 

Jimmy Fallon and Addison Rae on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon

Rae went on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon a few days after “Obsessed” was released, where she was accused by the public of lip-syncing her performance. During a now-deleted segment of the late night talk show, she taught Jimmy Fallon popular TikTok dances, for which Rae received backlash online. She was accused of not giving credit to the original creators of the dances she performed, and being one of many white creators stealing original content from Black creators. It is worth noting that most of the people who created the dances are Black. She responded to this backlash on TMZ saying, “I think they were all credited in the original YouTube posting, but it’s kind of hard to credit during the show. But they all know that I love them so much and, I mean, I support all of them so much. And hopefully one day we can all meet up and dance together.”

A few months after “Obsessed” was released, Rae began teasing snippets of a song called “I Got It Bad”, which served as a pivotal turning point for her career. People seemed to switch their position on the social media personality’s music, most likely due to the internet’s rapidness of finding someone new to hate on. Some were even excited for the full song to be released because the song differed heavily in quality compared to her debut single. While “Obsessed” felt emotionless and sounded like bait for Tik-Tok virality, “I Got It Bad” reminded listeners of the carefree pop music of the late 2000s. However, many months after Rae teased the song, the track was never released.

In April of 2022, “I Got It Bad” was fully leaked on a YouTube account with the username ‘Obsidian Pearl’. The first time that I heard the full song I was taken somewhere else, and I remember feeling that it was one of the best pop songs of the year so far, which I stand by. During the song’s hook, she sings “He’s what I want, give me more time / And I just realized” and then transitions into an infectious chorus that will settle in your brain the moment you first hear it. The YouTube video of the track has gained over 450,000 views (as of December 2022), and would only be one of numerous songs to leak. It is unclear if this YouTube account has any sort of connection to Rae.

Album cover for “Born This Way” (2011) by Lady Gaga via Kon Live, Interscope, and Streamline

As 2022 progressed, more of Addison Rae’s unreleased tracks were posted on the same YouTube account that leaked “I Got It Bad”. Songs such as “Lucky” and “2 Die 4” replicate the greatness of “I Got It Bad”, and started to build the demand for these songs to be released officially. A demo of Rae’s version of “Nothing On (But the Radio)”, which was written by Lady Gaga during the writing sessions for her album Born This Way (2011), also leaked. This track is known to be ‘cursed’, as multiple artists such as Paris Monroe, have recorded a demo for the song, yet was never officially released. The same phenomenon appears to have occurred with Rae. 

Over 20 of her unreleased songs have leaked, and a majority of them, in my opinion, are fantastic pop songs. My personal favorites are “I Got It Bad” and “Lucky”, which seriously would have been in my top 5 most listened-to songs of the year if released on streaming platforms. Rae’s discography draws influences from Charli XCX (who has worked with Rae on some unreleased songs), Britney Spears, Madonna, Sky Ferreira, and generally the dance-pop genre of the late 90s and early 2000s. Charli XCX has also recently stated in an interview with Tik-Tok user @adamtheflop that, “She (Addison Rae) has so many good songs, she’s legend-status and I hope we hear more music from her, but working with her was really cool. I text her all the time ‘release I Got It Bad’.” The demand is real, even amongst iconic pop stars.

Via @adrianleoceja on Instagram

The question looms though: why has Addison Rae only officially released one song? One would think that when an artist’s songs leak, they would release them to counter the leak. Dua Lipa unfortunately had to do so with her album Future Nostalgia (2020), when it was leaked weeks in advance, forcing her to move up the album’s release date by a week. Addison Rae, however, has not followed these steps, and for unknown reasons. There is no official confirmation, but there is speculation regarding these choices.

A popular sentiment online is that her management is allegedly not allowing her to release the songs due to the negative reception of her debut single “Obsessed.” Personally, I suspect her management or label discourages her from releasing these tracks out of fear that Rae’s image would be tainted once again. While I do believe that she deserved to be called out for performing content made by black creators and passing it off as her own, the negative effects of her initial release of “Obsessed” were exaggerated, and will likely not repeat for her other leaked songs. Whoever or whatever is preventing her from releasing these songs should recognize that she has garnered a fan base with these leaks alone. People will listen to her songs…trust me.

Addison Rae dressed up as Lady Gaga’s 2009 performance of “Paparazzi” by @lilmami_lani on Instagram

A theory has been circulating online that Rae herself is the one behind the YouTube account ‘Obsidian Pearl’, and is leaking her own songs, because she has not been shy about speaking of her unreleased discography. A tweet by user @MOVINGTARGET stated, “addison’s album coming to be aoty”, to which Addison Rae (@whoisaddison) responded with “the lost album”. The same user tweeted, “petition for addison rae to find her debut album,” in which Rae quote tweeted and stated, “I’m looking.” I personally view these tweets as yet more evidence that her music label is not allowing her songs to be released, despite her desire to. Lady Gaga famously leaked her own song “Aura” in 2013 because her label did not want to release the track as a single, from which people believe Rae has taken inspiration. Addison Rae is known to be a fan of Lady Gaga, even dressing up as her 2009 VMA performance of “Paparazzi” for Halloween this year. It’s possible, then, that she got inspiration from Gaga and decided to leak her own unreleased songs, however remains unconfirmed.

It is unknown when, or even if, Addison Rae’s tracks will ever be officially released on streaming platforms. Rae has not given many hints apart from the two tweets mentioned, so we can only wait and see. “I Got It Bad” deserves to be released so it can rightfully take place on my Apple Music Recap of most listened-to music of the year. Rae started off as a teenager who got rejected from a university dance team, who quickly flourished into one of the most popular social media personalities. Her songs and charisma prove she is more than capable of becoming a pop star. It would be a shame for her to be the voice in pop music that was silenced due to online bullying and belittlement.

Article by Adrian Ceja

Featured image via @addisonraee on Instagram