Jon Bellion – The Biggest Artist You’ve Never Heard Of

When Jon Bellion announced his debut Irish show last week, there was a surprising lack of excitement at the prospect of seeing one of America’s brightest talents live. Given his popularity in the U.S, it was presumed that tickets to his European tour would be some of the most difficult to grab this year. However, his show in the Academy, one of Dublin’s smaller venues, failed to sell out in the first week, and was quickly changed to an all-ages show in an effort to sell more tickets. So what is Ireland missing?Jon Bellion is a singer, songwriter, producer and rapper from Long Island in New York City. He began his career in music as a songwriter for other artists, with songs such as “Trumpets”(Performed by Jason Derulo) and  the hook from “Monster” (Performed by Rihanna and Eminem) under his belt. While he was writing music for other people, he was also saving some for himself, and released four free downloadable EPs. This garnered a lot of attention, and Bellion was signed to Visionary Music Group in 2012. Following the release of the free tape, ‘The Separation’, Bellion embarked on a sold-out American tour.Bellion released his debut album ‘The Human Condition’ on June 10^th 2016 and has been touring the States since, selling out everywhere he goes. The album is an incredible mixture of pop and hip-hop, with the single ‘All Time Low’ set to be one of the songs of the year. Bellion himself has called it a calling card to Disney, with every song given an individual illustration and storyline. The card worked, and Bellion has met with Disney representatives already about scoring a movie, thus realising one of the musician’s biggest dreams. In America “The Human Condition” reached number 5 in the Billboard Top 200, no mean feat for a debut album.While Bellion sells out arenas in the States, it’s unclear why he can’t sell out the Academy here. One thing’s for sure: anyone that does get tickets for the show are in for a treat, if live YouTube videos are a testament to anything. There will be a time when he’s known world-wide, and tickets will be a lot harder to find.Jon Bellion plays the Academy on the 12^th of April 2017, and tickets are on-sale on Ticketmaster.ie.