About

Sea Shanty TikTok refers to a subgenre of TikTok Duets in which a user sings part of a traditional folk song and other users add various harmonies in their duets, ultimately resulting in a choir-like sound after multiple duets.

History

Sea shanties began growing popular on TikTok after multiple popular vocalists on the platform began inviting others to participate in duets with traditional music. One of the early notable examples appeared on July 25th, 2020, when user @The-Good-egg-kay posted a video of himself singing a dwarf song from The Hobbit (shown below, left). This led multiple users to add their own harmonies to his video (example duet by @leebmg shown below, right).

On September 1st, 2020, TikTok user @natidredd posted a video of herself singing a traditional folk song, one of the first "sea shanties" on the platform (shown below, left). Other @natidredd videos would inspire multiple duets on the platform, particularly her rendition of "My Mother Told Me" (example duet by @norseforged shown below, right).

User @nathanevanss also helped popularize the genre on the platform after singing multiple shanties. On December 23rd, 2020, he posted his first, singing a rendition of the folk song "The Scotsman" (shown below, left). On December 27th, he sang "The Wellerman," which inspired multiple users to create duets (example duet by @jonnystewartbass shown below, right).

Along with @natidredd and @NathanEvanss, user @_luke.the.voice_ has been a notable presence in the subgenre, often adding the bass parts to various shanties (examples shown below).

Online Presence

The growth of Sea Shanty TikTok has been covered by BoingBoing.^[1] It has also spread on Twitter. On January 7th, 2021, user @Peter_Fries posted @jonnystewartbass' duet with @nathanevanss, gaining over 58,000 retweets and 229,000 likes (shown below, top). User @miaasaanomusic posted a video of herself adding violin parts to the duet, gaining over 1,800 retweets and 7,600 likes (shown below, bottom).

Search Interest

External References