ROCKVILLE, Maryland (RNS) — As Caribbean musician and minister Sherwin Gardner readied for the new year, he decided to share a snippet of music about blessings he hoped others would receive in 2024.
That snippet turned into a viral sensation and led to the song “Find Me Here (Blessings Find Me),” which has reached American and international airwaves and a broad sweep of social media — to the tune of a billion views on TikTok.
“There’s this little statement I normally say in church,” he said in a Tuesday (March 12) interview during a tour of the Washington, D.C., area for media appearances and meetings. “After we finished singing and I pray, I would say, ‘Remember something good is about to happen for you.’”
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The worship leader at Bahamas Harvest Church, a nondenominational evangelical congregation in Nassau, the Bahamas, Gardner had been mulling what music he would create next through his recording company.
He thought of these words: “Something good gonna happen in this year./And I am grateful that I made it here!/ Yesterday’s gone and a new day has appeared/And I am grateful that I made it here!”
A melody came to him, and he sent it off to a Kenyan arranger and finished the production of the snippet in his home studio on Christmas Day. After what he called a divine reminder on New Year’s Eve, Gardner said he posted the tiny tune on TikTok and Instagram at 11 p.m. Nassau time — and midnight in his native Trinidad and Tobago.
The start of the song, a catchy rhythmic mixture of Afrobeats, reggae and dancehall genres, literally became an overnight sensation.
Gardner, 45, already had been keeping watch on his TikTok account, which had 999 followers, just shy of the 1,000 mark needed to post live recordings.
“The morning when I woke up, I had 20,000 followers and the views — started at 8 o’clock, it was 14,000; by 10 o’clock it was 50,000; by 12 (noon) it was over 100,000 views,” he said, recalling how he phoned a friend to say he thought the snippet was on the edge of going viral.
His friend informed him that had already happened: “He was like, ‘About to? Doctors, lawyers, gangsters and teachers posted your song on WhatsApp.’”
Caribbean musician and minister Sherwin Gardner in Washington, D.C. (RNS photo/Adelle M. Banks)
On New Year’s Day, Gardner returned to his studio to turn the snippet into a song and contacted Tyscot Records the next day. On Jan. 19, the song was released as part of a joint venture with Tyscot and his Trinidad-based Flow Masters Records. It is being distributed by ADA Worldwide, a company that is part of Warner Music Group.
As of mid-March, it’s been viewed more than 1,001,158,000 times on TikTok. As he surpasses the billion mark, he can be compared to rapper Eminem, whose song “Mockingbird” had 1.5 billion views a year ago, The Detroit News reported.
Bill Carpenter, Gardner’s publicist, said that, based on their research, Gardner could be the first Black gospel artist to achieve this landmark.
