Beach Bunny produces viral hit on Tiktok

By: Edward Zeng

Beach Bunny’s song “Cloud 9” off their debut album “Honeymoon” exploded in popularity on TikTok. According to The New York Times, there are now over 360,000 videos on TikTok including the song. “Cloud 9” has also gained more than 240 million streams. All of this popularity stemmed from Lili Trifolio’s fifth grade guitar lessons.

The band “Beach Bunny” was started by Lili Trifolio, who gained an interest in music in fifth grade. This interest did not last very long though. “We were just like obnoxious kids, and so after a couple of years I quit because I had other things to do as a 13-year-old,” Trifolio recalls.

Later in her teen years, her interest in music popped up again. She taught herself cover songs, and she tried to write her own song, “6 Weeks”. The song was inspired by “Insomniatic”, an album by the pop group Aly & AJ. According to The New York Times, she wasn’t very proud of it, but her friend encouraged her to release it.

For the next few years, Trifolio created more songs for her growing fan base while she was studying journalism in DePaul University. She started playing with a few other people, forming her own band. During the pandemic, she rose to fame with her song “Prom Queen”, and continued gaining popularity. Now, she is performing in New York with her band. “I’m honestly so nervous,” she admits.