Jaden Hamilton: What You Didn't Know About The Country Singer

If you thought that TikTok only launched viral challenge-spawning dancers, rapid-fire sketch comedians, and slightly annoying pranksters to online fame and beyond, then think again. Jaden Hamilton has proven that even the typically traditional world of country musicians can build careers on the app that appears to have taken over the lives of anyone born in the new millennium.

Yes, while Nashville greats such as Hank Williams, George Strait, and Waylon Jennings all had to tour the country performing in dive bars and honky-tonks before getting their big break, Hamilton could attract major record labels' attention with just a phone and guitar from the comfort of his own home. And he did it all before he'd even reached the age of 20, too!

So what do we know about the young man who is now making waves far beyond his bedroom? From fatherhood to foxes, here's a look at the life of the social media generation's biggest country music star, Jaden Hamilton.

As is the trend for every social media user with a baby on the way, Jaden Hamilton and girlfriend Lilyan Cole announced whether they were having a boy or a girl with a gender reveal, a clip of which they uploaded to YouTube in January 2021. "Can't wait to meet our little princess," the country singer wrote alongside an Instagram snap of the couple standing alongside a smashed guitar filled with pink confetti.

But just a few weeks later, their gender reveal party was essentially rendered null and void — for the parents-to-be discovered via an ultrasound that the addition to their family unit would, in fact, be a little boy. Luckily, the pair weren't too disappointed about all that pink dust going to waste. "I reckon God's got a sense of humor too," Hamilton captioned a picture of said ultrasound on Instagram, adding, "We were told we were having a girl for months, come to find out IT'S A BOY‼️ Can't wait to meet my little buddy."

"I have been pretty blessed because doors have opened for me," Jaden Hamilton told Country Now in 2021. And he wasn't wrong. The youngster went from a guy playing guitar in his bedroom to a major label signing within the space of a year.

The country star explained that just "a few weeks" after dropping out of his studies at Louisiana State University and moving to Music City, he bagged a manager. And then shortly after, he was contacted by Sony Music Nashville via email with the invitation to showcase his talents — and the rest is history. Hamilton might be the envy of every aspiring singer-songwriter, but the TikTok star does acknowledge how fortunate he is to be in such a position.

"Well, I have a lot of respect for those people who move here," Hamilton explained. "Some people don't make it, and some people are here for ten years or more, and they're working, and I respect that. I'm grateful that I have been blessed. It seems like, for me, that this was meant to be and was something that was supposed to happen. So yeah, I met with Sony, and they made me feel at home since the first time I met them, and I'm grateful for how it has played out."

Just like Zac Efron's Troy Bolton in the all-singing, all-dancing Disney hit, "High School Musical," Jaden Hamilton initially kept his other passion a secret from the rest of his sporting teammates. Instead of smashing it on the basketball court, though, the youngster was acing it on the football field.

But Hamilton, who played as both receiver and quarterback during his high school career, eventually plucked up the courage to open up about being country singer. Luckily, his friends' reactions were more supportive than the Wildcats', as he explained to Country Now in 2021: "I sang a lot behind closed doors and I think it was the summer going into senior year that I started recording myself. I would send the recordings to my buddies and they would be like 'you got to post that.'"

After uploading a cover of Luke Combs' "She's Got the Best of Me" online, Hamilton started to become more renowned for his vocals than his offensive tactics. And as he prepared to graduate, the future star was successfully encouraged by his pals to enter the end-of-year talent show. Hamilton added, "That was really the moment I knew I wanted to be a country music singer."

As you might expect, Jaden Hamilton's parents were initially a little concerned when the singer dropped out of his studies at Louisiana State University after just three weeks. Especially considering the fact that he was the first of their seven children to gain acceptance into the prestigious college.

In his 2021 interview with Country Now, Hamilton explained, "Well, LSU has always been the dream for my family. I have six brothers and sisters, and everybody's dream was to go to LSU, and nobody did it." But his mom and dad's excitement was soon tempered when their son announced that college life wasn't for him and he was heading to Nashville to pursue his country music dreams.

Hamilton admitted, "So, in the beginning, they thought I had made a mistake. They thought I should have taken the safe route in case things didn't work out. But I knew what I needed to do, and I did it." But with their boy bagging a record deal with Sony Music Nashville in almost record time, Hamilton's parents are now much more supportive.

Jaden Hamilton may have gone from bedroom singer to a major-label-signing artist in lightning quick time, but his rapid rise up the country music ladder inevitably had to slow down in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. But instead of just bingeing on guilty pleasure reality shows like many of us, the youngster instead used his unexpected downtime more productively.

Hamilton told UPstar. Music: "I wrote a lot more songs in 2020 than I would have if everything didn't happen. I was writing for the most part. Zoom was a big part of being able to continue to write. I didn't start writing in person again until a few months ago. So, writing was definitely a big positive and just being able to get better at it each day."

But while the country musician was grateful for the chance to improve as a songwriter during lockdown, he still missed the opportunity to build on his stage presence. "The bad part, I didn't get to play shows or tour," Hamilton said, adding, "I was fortunate enough to play a few shows in October with Granger Smith, Casey Donahew and Riley Green. It was in Texas and Oklahoma and was a lot of fun."

Considering Jaden Hamilton had largely kept his musical talents a secret until his senior year, he was no doubt expecting his friends and family to be the only viewers of his first uploads to TikTok in the summer of 2019. But the complete unknown ended up racking the kind of numbers that even established social media stars would be proud of.

Yes, Hamilton attracted no fewer than 70,000 viewers in the space of just 24 hours with his cover version of Ron Pope's "A Drop in the Ocean." Understandably, the youngster found his overnight success difficult to comprehend, telling Country Now two years later, "I was just blown away by that. That moment almost seemed too good to be true. I didn't believe it. It was amazing that so many people cared about me and my music and my cover. It felt good and reassured me."

So what advice would he give any budding country singers who are thinking of taking a similar route? "You've got to keep going and keep on writing and keep on singing," Hamilton said. "What also helps me is to keep posting on social media. I mean, that's how things started for me. So you have to keep posting cover songs and everything. Eventually, maybe one day, something might pop off for you."

Jaden Hamilton was encouraged to pursue an interest outside of football by his mother while growing up in Louisiana and Oklahoma. But after taking piano lessons for several years, the youngster realized that the guitar was his true calling, and he began to teach himself how to master the six-string. It turns out that Hamilton's passion for music proved to have a beneficial impact on his home life, too.

As quoted by UPstar. Music in 2021, Hamilton revealed, "Throughout my parents' divorce, music became an escape for me. I shared a room with my little brother and we would always listen to the radio at night. There was a radio on our nightstand and we listened to a lot of Eric Church. We really loved "Springsteen." Hamilton further proved that he was a sensitive soul from a young age by explaining that he would often put pen to paper to express his emotions: "Growing up I would write these little boy love songs but would never finish them. I'd write one, it would go nowhere and I would forget about it. In the back of a notebook of mine, there was a collection of the songs I wrote along with a bunch of drawings." 

Although the country star shot to online fame performing cover versions, Jaden Hamilton has since showcased that early songwriting talent on his debut EP, 2020's "Ain't That Something."