From football field to musical theater to a Hot 100 number one

Born Jaten Collin Dimsdale on September 25, 1992, in Conyers, Georgia, Teddy Swims comes from a family with a Pentecostal minister for a grandfather. His father introduced him to soul through Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder and Al Green. Football was the family passion, and he played for ten years. In his second year at Salem High School a teacher suggested he and a few teammates sign up for a musical theater class and join the chorus.

That is how it started. He discovered a passion for performing in school productions of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Rent and Shakespeare plays, picked up piano and ukulele, and studied singers on YouTube to develop his technique. His career began in 2019, when his friend Addy Maxwell invited him to rap over beats, earning the pair an opening slot on a U.S. tour with Tyler Carter. The stage name “Swims” came from internet forum-speak, an acronym for “Someone Who Isn't Me Sometimes”.

In June 2019 he posted his first cover, Michael Jackson's “Rock with You”, and kept going with covers of Lewis Capaldi, Chris Stapleton, Amy Winehouse and H.E.R. His version of Shania Twain's “You're Still the One” became his most viewed video, with 167 million views by January 2024. He signed with Warner Records in December 2019 and released his debut major-label single, “Picky”, the following January. In 2022 his third EP, Tough Love, became his first entry on the Billboard 200.

The breakthrough was “Lose Control” in 2023, which reached the top ten in several countries and topped the Billboard Hot 100 the next year. It came ahead of the debut album I've Tried Everything but Therapy (Part 1), which entered the top ten of the album charts in Australia and the Netherlands. MTV named him its “Push Artist of February” in 2024. Songs such as “The Door”, “What More Can I Say” and “Bad Dreams” keep that blend of R&B, soul, hip-hop and pop on the radio.