You're listening to Song Exploder,
where musicians take apart their songs and piece by piece tell the story of how they were made.
I'm Rishikesh Hirway.
This episode contains explicit language.
The story of how the song Deep End came into existence and became a hit is kind of wild.
One person who really didn't see it coming is the person who created it, Fouché.
She's a singer and songwriter from New Jersey.
You might have seen her competing on The Voice in 2018.
Soon after that, she got asked to make a pack of vocal samples for the music platform Splice,
where users can download samples and include them in their own songs, royalty-free.
Coming up, Fouché tells a story of what happened with one of those samples,
and how that led to her making Deep End.
Deep End has now been streamed over 385 million times.
Fouché became the first Black female artist to hit the top 10 alternative chart in over 30 years.
Here's Fouché breaking down the twists and turns that went into making Deep End.
My name is Fouché.
When I got offered to do the sample pack, it was right after I got done shooting the voice.
I was just eliminated from the voice and I was like, fuck, what now?
And I was so heartbroken.
But really, that ended up being for the better.