In the span of just a year, Toni Watson has leapfrogged from working retail to busking full-time to topping the charts in almost a dozen countries—including her native Australia. That’s all thanks to “Dance Monkey,” the viral smash that was the second-ever single for the artist best known as Tones and I.
One listen to the song is enough to grasp its globe-trotting success; animated by an indelible keyboard hook, the stark earworm combines the brightest features of emotive pop and body-moving EDM while subtly addressing Watson’s stint busking to tourists in popular Byron Bay.
“If we’re not entertained in the first minute, we just scroll on,” says Watson. “I could see that reflected in me busking in the street. I wrote the song about the pressure of live performance and how it compares to the instant gratification of social media.”
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