COMING UNSTUCK (profanity alert):

The singer's debut album, TV, is full of summery sing-alongs and laid-back vibes

At the start of 2020 Tai Verdes was selling mobile phones and sleeping on a friend's couch when his career suddenly took off.

Stuck In The Middle, a catchy, scrappy song he'd written after his shifts ended, blew up on TikTok. More than 2.3 million people took his story of being stuck in romantic limbo and used it to soundtrack their own videos.

The success spilled over to Spotify, where Verdes topped the viral songs chart. When his song hit two million streams last July, the US singer celebrated by posting a video from the Verizon store where he still worked.

"Someone even recognised me today," he says in the clip. "It wasn't much, but it was enough for me to think about getting out of here."

The 24-year-old says the purpose of the video was to show that overnight success is a myth.

A hit song "doesn't just turn into a million dollars and a nice car", he explains. "It turns into waiting - which I think I've gotten pretty good at."

That's an understatement. The singer, born Tyler Colon, has been waiting for his break since dropping out of university five years ago.

Unsure how to make it in the music industry, he auditioned for shows like American Idol and The Voice, only to be rejected seven times. Songs he released under the moniker Tylersemicolon weren't going anywhere either. So he applied to go on an MTV dating programme - and ended up winning the series.

With $50,000 (£36,000) in his pocket, he moved to Los Angeles and started hustling - taking jobs in retail, fashion and film while working on his music late at night.

His persistence finally paid off with Stuck In The Middle, and he has worked to turn viral success into a sustainable career. Subsequent singles Drugs and A-OK have also racked up millions of streams, and his debut album, TV, has won support from Rolling Stone, Billboard and Apple Music.

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