By Mike Romero
Jamesthemormon is at it again. In his latest bid for a mainstream breakthrough, he has teamed up with former American Idol finalist and pop sensation David Archuleta. The single, “Workin,” is part of a rerelease of Jamesthemormon’s faith-based album PMG. While I’m Not a Rapper (his most recent EP to rank on both the iTunes and Billboard charts) was strictly secular, PMG makes subtle reference to the religious lessons taught by Latter-day Saint missionaries, as found in the LDS training manual Preach My Gospel.
“Even though the album had nothing to do with anything religious, because of my name, it literally created thousands of missionary opportunities,” wrote Jamesthemormon in a blog post on his official website. “I have gotten hundreds of emails of people who have either returned to church or started investigating & reading The Book of Mormon. We’ve even received two specific emails where people chose not to take their own life because of some of the songs from I’m Not a Rapper.”
To break into the Billboard Hot 100, Jamesthemormon has launched a huge marketing campaign, centered around social media, for the week of August 8th. Focusing on the Mormon niche market, he hopes the single will be streamed and downloaded enough to chart. This high profile collaboration with Archuleta is likely to put the single in front of millions of new listeners. Archuleta’s Facebook page has over 3 million likes.
Archuleta, who served an LDS mission himself in Chile from 2012 to 2014, has been actively involved in Mormon culture and entertainment. His cover of Stephanie Mabey’s “Glorious” was part of the 2014 documentary Meet the Mormons, and he has performed with the viral BYUtv sketch comedy group Studio C. Since his return from Chile, Archuleta has been filming music videos and working on new material. Just this past April, Archuleta performed on the series finale of American Idol.
Since its release this morning, the music video for “Workin” has generated over 360,000 impressions on Facebook and 8,000 shares. While the impact the video has had on YouTube is significantly less than its Facebook counterpart, the video has still been viewed nearly 5,000 times. Numbers for the amount of streams the song receives on Spotify will not be available until later this week. If momentum continues to build, there is a high likelihood that the song will chart.
“Workin” was produced by Chance Clift with beats by RJ Rouse. The video was shot by Cameron Gade and stars Fox 13’s Big Budah and members of Bored Shorts TV – the creators of Kid History.
Make sure to like Jamesthemormon and David Archuleta on Facebook. You can watch the music video for “Workin” below. The single is available on iTunes and Spotify. You can read our exclusive interview with Jamesthemormon here.
Provo Music Magazine 