Meet Artemas: The UK Producer Who’s Been Stuck In Your Head For The Past Month

Unless you’ve been living under a rock (or don’t have a crippling TikTok addiction), you’ve heard Artemas’ song i like the way you kiss me. 

The dark futuristic pop song has taken the world by storm since its release in mid-March this year. Debuting on Billboard’s Hot 100 at number #70, i like the way you kiss me has crept up the charts ever since. It’s at #1 on Spotify’s Global charts, #3 on the ARIA Charts, #3 on the UK Singles chart, and #1 in Austria, Germany, Lithuania, Switzerland, Latvia, Poland, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic. The Europeans be eating that UP.

But when did Artemas even pop up? To go from 0 charts to about a bajillion is a feat not for the weak.

The 24-year-old British-Cypriot singer, songwriter, and record producer has been around for a hot minute, though. His first release was High 4 U in November 2020, and in the years since, he’s released a range of tunes - in fact, he’s currently on tour in Europe for his album pretty.

You probably would’ve heard his 2023 bop if u think i’m pretty on TikTok around the end of last year. It went decently viral on the social media platform, with 222.8 thousand videos made with a 16-second snippet of the song. 

But that kind of virality doesn’t even vaguely compare to the fame of i like the way you kiss me.

Over two million videos have been posted on TikTok to the song - and that’s not including all the videos not using the artist’s official sound. A backing track as a montage of someone’s life, playing while people rank aesthetics, and the perfect sound for edits of cool cars and hot people, the beauty of Artemas’ song is the vast applicability of it. 

Though the song itself describes a stormy and undefined relationship (which many of us would relate to), the dark synth alt-pop backing makes the song unique.

Contrast that with the high-pitched ultra-futuristic vocals, and it’s a tune you can’t seem to get away from—nor do you want to. It’s the type of song you can’t get out of your head, and you’re kinda okay with that.