“I would even go on to say that it’s made me even more than in the past.” (For reference, Derulo grosses $215,000 a show, according to Pollstar.) Has it been enough to make up for the losses of a year without touring? “Oh, yeah,” Derulo says with little hesitation. But Derulo refutes this, claiming that it’s “not even in the ballpark” - because the real number is actually much higher.

Last year, a rumor went around that Derulo makes $75,000 per paid post. He says networks are also approaching him with offers for an in-development TV show. Now, Derulo is quite literally writing the book on virality: He’s publishing a title about social media strategy and creating a superhero comic book based on one of his TikTok characters. “A lot of people feel like they understand TikTok, but it’s just ever-changing.”

Even to this day, when I post, everything is a learning experience,” Derulo says. “After that meeting, I just went full force, learning through the things that I posted to see what worked for myself and what wasn’t working.

You have literally a fraction of a second to make people stop in their tracks… I feel like the things that are important are capturing people from the very beginning.”ĭerulo - who was already a chart-topping artist well before he joined TikTok - decided to become a social-media star in earnest after just one meeting with TikTok’s music partnerships head Isabel Quinteros Annous (who appeared on Rolling Stone‘s Future 25 list in 2020) a few months ago. “We’re all very selfish scrollers, we’re looking for something that’s going to interest us. “I study myself and how I scroll,” Derulo explains. Now the vertical-video app has, in turn, birthed a whole new empire for the life that it puts on display, creating a formidable feedback loop of content.

TikTok, says Jason Derulo, has become “an extension of my life.” When doing anything he finds interesting, he instinctively gets out his phone and begins to record. This story appears in Rolling Stone ‘s 2021 Future of Music issue, a special project delving into the next era of the multibillion-dollar hitmaking business.

Jason derulo songs