Kina Grannis Promotes New Album With Help From YouTube Community

On May 6th, Kina Grannis will release Elements, her newest album. The singer-songwriter, who has 872,000 subscribers on YouTube, has enlisted a bunch of YouTubers to help hype the new release. She has released a lyric video for her song “Dear River” in which the creators behind 21 popular YouTube channels join in and mouth the lyrics.

The “Dear River” video features the leadoff track on Elements, with the participating YouTubers jamming along to its churning acoustic guitar rhythm. Most of Grannis’ guests are her fellow YouTube musicians, including The Gregory Brothers, Lindsey Stirling, and Kurt Hugo Schneider, but a few non-musical creators–such as Ryan Higa, KevJumba, and Wong Fu Productions–show up as well. A full guest list can be found in the video’s description.

Grannis rose to prominence on YouTube after her song ‘Message From Your Heart

‘ won her Doritos’ Crash The Super Bowl contest and landed her a record deal with Interscope Records. Since then, she has continued to release both original music and covers to her channel. Before “Dear River”, she also created a lyric video for “The Fire“, another song that will be released on Elements.

Grannis is the latest YouTube musician using YouTube promote her album. Previously, Pentatonix used an impressive Daft Punk cover to hype up the release of their album PTX, Vol. 2, while Karmin promoted the album Pulses with an entire YouTube live stream.

For Grannis, the YouTube-supported lyric video has received more than 235,000 views in just three days. If it makes you want to snap up her album before it hits stores, you can pre-order a copy here.