Meet the 22-year-old sensation behind the popular Afrobeats remix of the iconic SpongeBob cartoon song

Tatiana Marie Clark went viral after her Afrobeats rendition of Spongebob SquarePants became almost everyone’s favorite. Many others have remixed the viral sound in the past, with people dressing up as SpongeBob characters, parents playing the song to make their infants giggle, other TikTok musicians contributing their vocals, and more.

The song has reportedly received two billion plays on TikTok alone so far. Thirteen million people have watched Clark’s video and it has also received 1.5 million likes.

People spoke with the Gulfport native, 22, who said she had no idea the “SpongeBob SquarePants” remix would become a smash hit. For Clark, though, it was just another theme music she had selected for the day.

“With ‘SpongeBob,’ I literally just picked a random beat,” she revealed. “It was the first beat I picked and I was like, ‘Yes, this is the one.’ It came very naturally, which is why I feel like it did so well.”

She added, “‘SpongeBob’ has surpassed all of my viral videos at this point. I just think ‘SpongeBob’ is one of those things that adults love it, children love it. So it is bound to be popular. I just got lucky.”

Clark is a trained musician whose passion for music began early in life. By day, she works as a youth development expert for the Boys & Girls Club of America. Her parents, who she said are not as musically inclined as she is, recognized the depth of her talent and enrolled her in Rock U 2 [The Ocean Springs Academy of Popular Music], a music school, which she attended from the age of 11 until she graduated from high school.

After that, she spent a year and a half attending college, majoring in music education and minoring in jazz studies. However, she abandoned her studies when the COVID-19 pandemic compelled schools to switch to virtual classrooms. She chose to use social media to manage her musical career.

She then went to YouTube, found free Afrobeats music, and started making the now-popular remixes. Since then, she has performed covers of numerous songs, including Golden Girls, Family Matters, That’s So Raven, KC Undercover, and the Living Single theme song.

Her fan base has grown to include celebrities like Meghan Trainor, Samuel L. Jackson, Amber Riley, Queen Latifah, and many more well-known figures. Other celebrities who have reposted her video include Taraji P. Henson, Andra Day, and Viola Davis.

The social media sensation stated that despite her sudden fame, which has caused some followers to recognize her publicly, her day-to-day routine remains the same. She has learned to set solid boundaries at work.

According to the outlet, Clark had already racked up some outstanding credits before her sudden rise to stardom. She had appeared as a featured vocalist on Brandy’s 2023 Christmas with Brandy album and worked on the duet “Show Me” with Leslie Odom Jr. from his album When the Crooner Dies.

Even though she receives proposals from producers, composers, and companies, she keeps creating videos to showcase her artistic side.

“I of course do my content in hopes that [it goes viral again], but my head will not hang down if it doesn’t. I am grateful for the traction that my page has gotten. I’ve gained hundreds of thousands of followers within these past three months, so I’m grateful for that,” she remarked. 

“Just the fact that people can see me now, I can post something, and more than 100 people can see it is more than enough for me. So I don’t really care that much about the viral moment. I’m glad that it happened, and I just know that it’s leading to something greater in the future.”