Rapper, singer and songwriter MASN has achieved so much already in his 19 years on the planet. The musician from Eagle Mountain, UT, has seen his single “Psycho” (featuring Trippie Redd) pick up 38 million Spotify streams, 5.4 million Youtube views and over 1.5 million TikTok videos. And now, he’s signed to RCA. It’s crazy to think that just a year and a half ago, he was rapping for fun in his bedroom.
“It kinda started out of boredom,” MASN told us by phone. “Next thing I knew, I was in a recording studio and found myself recording my first song. I just recorded a song every month or so and dropped it on Soundcloud. ‘Psycho’ happened to be my fifth song ever, and I just saw a gradual increase in plays with every song I put out. I thought I was progressively getting better. So I was always serious about it, but then the plays really started to pick up in June of 2019 with ‘Psycho.’ That’s when I realized it was a serious thing and I could actually do it.”
Dropping videos online is the most popular route to musical success right now, but standing out in the crowd is the challenge.
“I think it’s just making good music and then I got really lucky,” he says. “I’ve got a supportive social circle around me. I was able to push it to friends and friends of friends. Through that, I was able to get thousands of plays on Soundcloud. Just from friends and my hometown. From there it snowballed into a bunch of different areas.”
MASN (pronounced Mason) describes his sound as a blend of indie pop/rock and hip-hop/rap, with influences ranging from Juice Wrld to The 1975. That style, plus the big numbers he generated, brought him to the attention of RCA.
“Things started to go a little bit crazy and people started taking notice,” he says. “I flew out to LA to meet my management in January. This whole time is kind of a blur to me. I was flying back and forth from LA to New York, taking tons of meetings. I met with pretty much every label. I had a few people I liked, but I had a really good meeting with RCA at a coffee shop in LA. I met with them again in New York on my birthday. That’s when I decided that I really liked these guys. They brought me a birthday cake and everything. Then we went to dinner that night, had a really great night. I signed with them later that week on February 28.”
That’s the lesson here—don’t forget the cake.
Date Signed: Feb. 28, 2020
Label: RCA Records
Type of Music: Hip-Hop/Rap
Management: Omid Noori and Cooper Herrera - ATG Music
Booking: Mark Cheatham and Phil Quist - CAA
Legal: Renee Karalian
Publicity: Jamie Abzug - RCA Records
Web: instagram.com/masonrupper
A&R: Adonis Sutherlin and Jeremy Maciak - RCA Records
