Surf Mesa

Electronic music producer Surf Mesa scored a surprise hit in 2020 with “ily (i love you baby),” a collaboration with Emilee Flood, a singer he found on TikTok. • Surf Mesa is Powell Aguirre, a Seattle native who began experimenting with electronic music in third grade. The gaming enthusiast got his stage name from a map in the video game Counter-Strike. • In 2016, he began posting experimental songs that showed his whimsical style. He released a four-song EP, Bedroom, in 2019. • In late 2019, Surf Mesa came across singer Emilee Flood’s cover of Franki Valli’s 1967 classic “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” while scrolling through TikTok. By the next morning, he’d created a remix, which they titled “ily (i love you baby).” • Three months after its indie release, “ily (i love you baby)” was reissued via Astralwerks/Universal. It went on to achieve hundreds of millions of streams and peak at No. 23 on the Billboard Hot 100. • In 2020, Surf Mesa provided an official remix for Marshmello and Halsey’s platinum single “Be Kind.”