The latest viral earworm on social media has an uncanny resemblance to the King of Pop. “Big Michael Michael,” first born as a freestyle on the musician and content creator Looze Cannon’s livestream, has taken the internet by storm. Delivered in a cotton-soft register not unlike Jackson’s, the track has gone on to top the iTunes Hip-Hop/Rap chart and inspire a lip-sync video from Lil Baby. Earlier this month, Looze Cannon brought his “Big Michael” character to G Herbo’s show at Chicago’s United Center, performing in front of a nearly sold-out crowd.
“G Herbo, I think he did a post where he was singing a song, and the next thing I know, my management was just telling me, ‘Hey, Herbo wants you to come out at the United Center in Chicago and perform,’” Cannon tells Rolling Stone. “I was like, ‘What?’ I thought everybody was playing, but it was real. We got in the Sprinter and we drove straight from Detroit to Chicago. And next thing I know, I was on stage, man, having the biggest moment of my life.”
The crowd size was the biggest Looze Cannon, who’s been rapping in Detroit since the 2010s, had ever performed in front of. “I’ve been around some big crowds because I’ve always been on stages and stuff like that, but that was the biggest thus far, was the G Herbo show,” he says. “That was the most I’ve ever performed in front of all at once.”
Cannon is among a new generation of artists who, in addition to releasing music, have developed a career livestreaming and making online video content. In his videos, he uses an AI face filter to perform as Jackson and various other characters on his livestreams. After first premiering the character early last month, he officially released the single “Big Michael Michael” on October 24.
“I had no clue that ‘Big Michael Michael’ would take off like that because it was just me playing around,” he says. “And so I just look back and I just say, wow, man, I can’t blame anybody but God, man, because I’ve been doing this for a long time and to see how this transition to what it is, it’s unexplainable.”
A Detroit native, Cannon’s been releasing music since at least 2016, when he put out Looze Minded. In 2020, he released Lil Glen, followed by Now or Never in 2023. Even so, he says detractors try to discredit his current moment as merely a viral gimmick. “I knew my wittiness and my funniness would help push the music because what I learned throughout the years is you got to get the people,” he says. “A lot of rappers, sometimes they focus on being too cool and trying to put off an image that they think will propel them into stardom or whatever, and people lose sight of being who they are.”
While he says he isn’t a Michael Jackson impersonator, he credits the singer with making him want to pursue music.
“I’m a big Michael Jackson fan. Michael was the reason why I even really wanted to do music,” he says. “I knew that there’s so many different versions of the impersonators out there and things like that, but I analyzed the game. What is it that no one is doing? And I just hit the live button, man, with that filter on and just blacked out. I just blacked out and it happened.”
He’d already been trying out other characters on livestream. “I have over 10 characters and I haven’t really unleashed all of them yet,” he says. “I was on an app called BIGO LIVE where I did multiple characters.”
Cannon’s other characters include a version of Dr. Seuss who tells stories in costume. He says he’s preparing to shoot a movie based on another of his characters. For TikTok, he went with Jackson. “I chose Mike on the TikTok side because I just knew the shock value of what it would do,” he says.
“I thought back on just implementing my music into what I do, or pretty much taking the characters that I do and implementing what I really do into those characters,” he says. “And so that’s where the freestyling and doing the song, the parody songs, came into play.”
Cannon says commenters have mocked his advice to “be yourself” because he’s impersonating someone else. “They’re only looking at the surface of the filter,” he notes.
“None of them do what I do,” Cannon says of people who think his content doesn’t require skill or talent. “And it’s a reason for that because I’m actually being Looze Cannon. And I think that’s what the game is missing is just originality.”
“I always tell people, ‘Put a Prince filter on and see if you can dance with me in the same type of ring,’” he adds. “And if you can’t do that, then what you’re saying is just, in my eyes, just hate.”
When I suggest that the filters are still new, Cannon corrects me. “It’s not really new,” he says. “Anybody can put a filter on, but how can you bring it to life? People get so lost on, ‘Oh, I can put a filter on,’ and things like that. But after you put the filter on, you only have the attention span of a person for at least five to 10, 15 seconds max to lock them in, or they swiping somewhere else.”
“It takes a certain type of charisma to bring the filter to life because people want to really get into what’s happening,” he continues. “But if you’re just banking on a filter and talking like your regular self or not performing in a certain way, then it means nothing.”
Cannon is independent and says he’d been selling downloads directly to fans before “Big Michael Michael” took off.
“I’ve been pretty much direct-to-consumer because I’m an independent artist and I always was in the streaming world,” he says.
The appeal was how much a small group of fans could bring in. “I had to get the mindset of, you know what? Hey, if I have 50 loyal fans that’ll buy my download for $1.99, I’m beating a majority of the people that’s getting 100,000 streams,” he says. “But in the midst of that, I understand the times that we’re in and you got to play ball sometimes. And how this record took off, I knew that I had to service the platforms. So I did it, but I’ve always been direct-to-consumer for a long time now.”
He says the new listeners are finding his older music, too. “I’m actually seeing the numbers of my other songs and they are picking up. They skyrocketing right as well,” he says. “So people hear ‘Big Michael Michael’ and they’re like, ‘Oh wait, he has more music. Let me go check it out.’”
“My Spotify is up, my Apple Music is up,” Cannon adds. “I’m seeing people actually post my other records and doing videos to my other songs, so that’s a good sign.”
He says Snoop Dogg, Timbaland, and Usher have reached out, along with comedians Tiffany Haddish and Funny Marco. “I got a lot of celebrity friends now,” he says. “Uncle Snoop Dogg, that’s my guy.”
“I’ve been in the studio working with a few different talented artists from the Eric Bellingers, the Roscoe Dash, and many more,” he adds. “I’ll just say more for right now.”
Now, Looze Cannon is planning a project to follow the single. “Yes, I’m definitely about to drop a project because it’s time,” he says. “It’s time to show everybody that outside of my content that I do on social media, I’m a serious artist and I’m going to show the world that now that I got the eyes, it’s time to show them the prize.”