Maxwell LeVan: From SoundCloud to Platinum

Maxwell LeVan has made a name for himself as a record producer, vocalist, and songwriter. Maxwell grew up playing piano, but never took lessons or figured out how to read music. "I would hear a song on the radio and when I got home I was able to play it", he said. Maxwell has perfect pitch, an uncommon capacity of an individual to recognize or re-make a given musical note without the advantage of a reference tone. This occurs in only around 1 percent of artists. "It's weird, I don't understand the notes on paper, but when I hear them out loud it's like knowing red from blue." LeVan started autonomously studying music theory in April 2020, in an effort to further his knowledge of the technical aspect of composing a record.

Maxwell has become a notable character in the music world over the course of recent months, with his debut single Toe Bamba peaking at position 472 on the Brazil Top 500 on iTunes. The song has subsequently achieved 5x-platinum certification in Hungary and platinum certification in Chile. The song gained a significant boost in popularity after it was used in multiple viral videos on TikTok. The song was produced entirely in Maxwell's high school library, and featured two of his best friends, Derek Torres and Aaron Williams. "You know, I have some resentment towards the fact that I could lock myself in my room for weeks and come out with nothing, but we go in the library during lunch time and come out with a multi-platinum record. It makes no sense." In addition to releasing music under his own name, Maxwell has produced songs for several upcoming artists from across the world, and his record label TL Records has signed new talent of all ages to the artist management company.

Before securing a spot on the Brazil charts, Maxwell had released numerous singles on SoundCloud. A diss track he made on a fellow classmate, despite garnering over 10,000 streams in a day, received so much criticism and hate that Maxwell deactivated his SoundCloud account and began taking his music more seriously. After the success of Toe Bamba, Maxwell released three more singles and has recently announced to his 13,000 Instagram followers that new music is on the way. While he didn't confirm a Christmas album, our fingers are crossed that LeVan will put out something over the holidays.

Maxwell LeVan has been a marketing genius of sorts, encouraging people to stream Toe Bamba by making posters, starting dances, and even getting celebrities to talk about the song. His friend and fellow creator EDP445 said in a video, "Guys, go stream Toe Bamba right the **** now. It's a banger." Maxwell has learned that audiences will market his music for him, as long as he continues to make music that people resonate with and find entertainment in.