When Zayn Malik announced last week that he was leaving One Direction, the 22-year-old singer said that he wanted time away from the spotlight and the chance to be a regular, normal person, just like you and me. He mentioned nothing about wanting to start a solo career — instead, he feelings leaned toward the opposite.
But that doesn’t mean we won’t ever get some Zayn Malik solo material eventually, which is why it’s hard to fault distraught, probably teenaged One Direction fans around the world for falling for some hardcore trolling after new, completely unrelated songs had been uploaded to YouTube under Malik’s name.
One such song that surfaced over the weekend, alleging to be a new Zayn Malik solo single, was from Boston rapper Cam Meekins. His song is called “Home,” it shouts out Boston, it’s a hip-hop track, and it topped out at 235,000 plays on YouTube before getting pulled, according to New Sick Music.
“The only problem is that ‘Home’ isn’t the solo debut that your little sister was hoping for, but instead is a new release from one of NSM’s favorite rappers, Cam Meekins. Uploaded to a fake account, the song has gotten nearly 150,000 views in just 24 hours under the mislabeled title, which has to be a win for the Boston emcee.”
The video has since been pulled because the account that uploaded it has been terminated.
Our homies at Bullett Media reached out to Meekins for comment, but as of now, no one really knows whether it was the rapper, someone on his promo team, or just some rando out there looking to fuck with 1D fans who did the dirty work here.
And as Bullett points out, the dam on fake Zayn Malik songs from other artists looking for some willing ears has burst wide the eff open.
So the party’s already over.
“Since then, as you can see above, dozens, perhaps hundreds by now, of different songs purporting to be from Malik are all over YouTube,” writes Luke O’Neil. “They are also fake. But perhaps there could be a good lesson in this for One Direction fans out there: there are actually very many other musicians in the world. You might consider also listening to them.”
Good advice.
Here’s that Meekins’ track, all properly labeled. Exposure wins the day, once again.