How Sombr Became A Best New Artist Nominee With "Back to Friends"

When Sombr thinks back to the moment everything changed, it still feels surreal. Before the Grammy nomination, before the packed shows, and before “Back to Friends,” he was just another teenager making music alone in his bedroom. One of those songs, “Caroline,” produced entirely on his own in his parents’ house, would become the moment that set the rest of his career in motion.

“I went to bed just a normal high school kid and I wake up the next day, it’s viral. Literally the next day,” Sombr told Variety in an episode of Behind the Song presented by TikTok. “Every record label is in my inbox.” Months earlier, he had been sending songs to labels with no responses at all. When he told his father what was happening, “he was like, ‘I don’t believe you.'” But it was real. Within days Sombr