It's JVKE. 'Golden Hour' singer and Cranston native up for VMA. Will you vote for him?

At this point, his golden hour has stretched into a golden year.

When his single "Golden Hour" came out in summer 2022, it trended on TikTok. Then, as these things often do, it became inescapable on Instagram Reels. It reached the top 10 of the U.S. Billboards in January. It was used in a promo for "The Golden Bachelor" and in the season finale of "And Just Like That."

Now, the Cranston singer JVKE, birth name Jacob Dodge Lawson, is up for his first VMA award fresh after completing his first nationwide tour on Sept. 2.

How it started

Well, like so many other people, during the COVID-19 lockdown JVKE and his mother Pamela Lawson, an elementary school music teacher, starting making videos for TikTok, right at the beginning of the social media app’s rise to prominence.

And they were good at it.

It started with JVKE, who was already a songwriter and producer, challenging his mom on camera to make mashups of popular songs and drop a beat. (Off camera, JVKE has composed the music his mom was creating during the skit, and she was being, as he put it in interviews, a really good sport to help make the videos.)  Those videos were going viral, with millions of views on each of them. This raised the question, JVKE said in an interview on the YouTube Channel Zach Sang Show Clips, what else could they do?

And then, JVKE started singing and playing on the tracks too, and they composed an original piece “Upside Down” that took off. Not only did his clip take off, but millions of other people started using the sound in their videos.

From there, his popularity snowballed online. There were collaborations with other artists, like Charlie Puth, and JVKE, who has taken music lessons since he was 3, started putting out more of his own music. He’s described his style as a blend of modern music such as rappers like Kayne West and Drake, the worship sounds he grew up with as a pastor’s son, and old music such as an 1800s composition that inspired "Golden Hour."

By the time "Golden Hour" came out, JVKE had released a few other songs, but this hit took it to the next level. A video of him playing the song on the piano at the Warwick Mall got 17.6 million views and then a video of him playing it for his childhood piano teacher got 74.6 million views.

 JVKE’s VMA nomination 

Having a song that millions of people pay attention to is enough to turn the heads of music industry giants.

In October 2022, JVKE was picked by MTV as one of their Push Artists, a series that highlights artists on the cusp of making it big. Push Artist alums include names like Lizzo, Billie Eilish and Olivia Rodrigo.

Releasing "Golden Hour" “opened up a whole new door for me because sometimes I get scared to step out a little too far because I feel that people aren’t ready for it,” JVKE said in his interview with MTV. “Just to know that people received 'Golden Hour' that well, it was just an amazing experience for me.”

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The song also brought him to the stage of "Good Morning America," where he performed in January, the opportunity to sing live with Alicia Keys and performing at South by Southwest in Austin this spring.

Being a Push artist puts JVKE in the running for the best Push Award Performance of the Year category at the VMAs on Sept. 12. The K-Pop group Seventeen won the award in 2022, and Olivia Rodrigo won in 2021.

VMA winners are chosen by fan voting. Voting is open now.

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Golden Hour singer JVKE, RI native, up for VMA. How you can vote?