Salem Rising Star: Local-born YouTube sensation Matt Almendinger drops new Hip-Hop album
Keizer-born Matt Almendinger, known in the Hip-Hop world as MATTY and on YouTube as Matty Tingles, has just dropped his ninth album, “Not Supposed To Be Here.” The album marks a major milestone in his career as a content creator.
Almendinger’s Hip-Hop journey began in 2007 with the release of his first album, “Where I’m From.” Three more albums followed in 2007, 2009, and 2016, with four online-only albums dropping in the mix of those years. He toured around the country, sharing his music while holding down what he called “normal jobs,” working for Apple and Guild Mortgage.
In 2012, looking for some help relaxing and falling asleep, Almendinger stumbled across ASMR (autonomous sensory meridian response) on YouTube. At the time, ASMR was just emerging, but has since become hugely popular across YouTube and other media platforms, attracting millions of viewers.
Almendinger tried his hand at making ASMR videos in 2015, having little success at first. Until a video of him impersonating an Apple employee (which he was at the time) turned that all around in a single night. “I went to bed with it having 20 views and woke up with it having over 150,000,” Almendinger said. “Luckily, I was prepared for the moment and literally haven’t stopped creating videos since then.”
Almendinger has worked as a full-time YouTuber since 2017, with his main channel, Matty Tingles, garnering over 638,000 subscribers. He has uploaded over 800 full-length videos, totaling more than 160 million views, he said. His ASMR channel expanded into a second channel for his vlog, More Matty Tingles, which now has almost 50,000 subscribers. He also hosts a weekly podcast with two of his best friends, which gets around 7 million views per week. But for the past year and a half, Almendinger has poured his passion mainly into his new album, “Not Supposed To Be Here.”
“16 months ago, I was sitting in my office one day, and it hit me. I have something to talk about now”, he explained. Almendinger lost his father to cancer in 2019. Three years later, he lost two of his best friends within a month of each other. The album provided him a creative outlet to process his grief and share it with the world.
Since its release on July 12th, the album has been well-received. The music video for the single and second track on the album, “I’m Him,” already has more than 52,000 views on YouTube. Almendinger sees this album as just the beginning. “I look at it as my first album, because it’s the first one people will hear after gaining a large online following,” he said.
From ASMR to Hip-Hop, Almendinger remains dedicated to creating content that helps his audience. He explained that he often receives messages from fans saying that his content helped them through something difficult.
“Not Supposed To Be Here” is both a tribute to lost loved ones and another huge step forward in Almendinger’s content creation career. And this media sensation is just getting started.