Dominic Fike puts his own spin on
Jack Johnson-esque cabana pop by combining it with elements of alternative hip-hop. The Florida native went from an unknown to a major-label signee in 2018, the year he issued his debut EP, Don't Forget About Me, Demos. His Billboard 200-charting first full-length, What Could Possibly Go Wrong, followed in 2022, and his star continued to rise after joining the cast of hit HBO series Euphoria for its second season that same year. His sophomore album Sunburn followed in 2023, and also made its way into the charts.
Born in Naples, Florida in late 1995, Dominic David Fike got his first guitar at the age of ten and began learning how to play songs by favorite acts including
Red Hot Chili Peppers. Growing up, he and his siblings sometimes sought shelter with various relatives and family friends as his mother was in and out of jail. He and his older brother, Sean, sometimes freestyled with friends, and Dominic later became part of a rap collective that, by his late teens, was getting booked at music festivals. In the meantime, he was writing songs, making demos, and sharing videos of solo performances online. After some of his demos emerged in 2017, Fike signed a multi-million-dollar deal with
Sandy Boys and
Columbia Records before even releasing a song. They put out the reworked Don't Forget About Me, Demos in mid-October 2018. The set's opening track, "3 Nights," topped a million streams before the end of the month.
After featuring on
Kevin Abstract's single "Peach" (along with
BROCKHAMPTON's
Joba and Bearface), Fike issued two tracks of his own, "Açaí Bowl" and "Roller Blades," in 2019. With "3 Nights" racking up half-a-billion streams, and the
Kenny Beats collaboration "Phone Numbers" soon becoming an underground hit of its own, Fike's popularity skyrocketed. As co-signs from
Billie Eilish and
BROCKHAMPTON continued to build the vocalist's profile, the musician set to work on a debut album, What Could Possibly Go Wrong. Released in July 2020, the album continued Fike's feature-less run thus far with a 14-track collection of wide-ranging cuts, including the hits "Chicken Tenders" and "Politics & Violence." The album spent a week at number 41 on the Billboard 200.
In early 2021, Fike was featured on the
Justin Bieber track "Die for You," marking his first appearance in the Hot 100 (number 81), and that April, he turned up on McCartney III Imagined with a remix of
Paul McCartney's "The Kiss of Venus."
Beck,
Phoebe Bridgers, and
Damon Albarn were among the album's other contributors. In 2022, Fike joined the main cast of the popular HBO series Euphoria and contributed the track "Elliot's Song" -- with
Zendaya -- to the program's soundtrack. He made his Coachella festival debut in April 2023. That same month, he released the single "Dancing in the Courthouse," a song inspired by run-ins with the law during his childhood. In June of 2023, Fike released new song "Mona Lisa," a track originally included on the
Metro Boomin-produced soundtrack album for Spider Man: Across the Spider-Verse but was later removed. The song appeared on Fike's second album, Sunburn, released in July 2023. In addition to production credits that included
Jim-E Stack,
StarGate, and
Kenny Beats, the album featured backing vocals from
Weezer frontman
Rivers Cuomo on "Think Fast," a song that interpolated
Weezer's ubiquitous hit "Undone - The Sweater Song." Sunburn quickly reached the number 30 position on the Billboard 200 charts. ~ Marcy Donelson & David Crone, Rovi