By Ashlee Sargeant on Thursday, 10 March, 2022 at 01:20 PM

Local spoken word artist, Akeem Chandler-Prescod otherwise known as Stonedwithcupid, has recently gone viral on the social media app Tik Tok for his rendition of the popular R&B song titled "Dot Com".

The poem, based on international singer Usher's single “Dot Com”, earned over 60,000 likes and received 293,000 views and has subsequently gone viral, with others using Instagram to share their interpretations of the poetic content. 

While the poet is grateful for the expansion of his viewership and social media following, he admitted that his viral moment came completely by surprise.

“The days leading up to Valentines' Day were so hectic and by the time I had realised it was two days before the holiday and I had absolutely no content to post. I heard the song on the radio and combined it with various pieces of my work that I had never released and through that chaos came my rendition of the song,” said Prescod.

After the initial release, the spoken word artist has used it to market himself to the international audience and in turn make more of a profit from his craft.

“Even though views do not mirror the amount of capital an artist makes; you can definitely use these viral moments to redirect your viewers to your content that they have to pay for. If you were to join a subscription service like “Only Fans “and charge US$5 a month and you recently got 300,000 views on a video and only one per cent of those people subscribe to view your content you can make 30,000 Bajan dollars,” Prescod added.

He noted that artists should learn the policies of the social media platforms they use to take full advantage of the opportunities of the virtual platform COVID-19 has created.