BUBBLE - EP

Editors’ Notes After Ant Saunders’ hit “Yellow Hearts” went viral on TikTok, labels came knocking. The New Jersey native signed with Arista Records in late 2019, and here he shares his debut EP. “Not a lot of songs that blow up on TikTok stick with people,” he says on Verified, a video series by Apple Music and Genius. “They’re usually just a trend, like they’re here and then they’re gone the next week. It’s really encouraging to me that people actually like my songs.”

BUBBLE is proof that the fast-rising singer-songwriter is capable of more than catchy hooks; he drifts from warped harmonies to acoustic balladry to mumbling R&B-pop serenades strung over trap beats. “It’s Over,” a project highlight, feels bathed in gospel light, with Saunders alternating between soulful from-the-gut singing and rap verses that verge on spoken-word poetry where the singer lets us in on his own story: “Mental scars constantly concealed/I never thought after so long I’ve fought/That they could be healed.”