d4vd

David Burke, known professionally as d4vd, was born on October 3, 2004, in Houston, Texas. A self-taught musician, he began making music at home with minimal equipment — his breakthrough song Romantic Homicide was recorded in his sister's closet using audio samples he extracted from the video game Fortnite. He posted it to Spotify and TikTok in 2022, and it went viral almost immediately, accumulating millions of streams and reaching the Billboard Hot 100. The song's dreamy, cinematic quality — blending indie pop, R&B, and alternative aesthetics — struck a chord with a generation of young listeners. He was quickly signed to Interscope Records and released his debut EP Petals to Thorns in 2023. He received a Grammy nomination for Best New Artist at just 19 years old.

d4vd represents a new generation of artists who bypass traditional music industry pathways entirely — recording at home, building audiences online, and signing deals on their own terms. Romantic Homicide's origin story (closet recording, Fortnite samples, TikTok virality) has become one of the defining music discovery stories of the 2020s. His Grammy nomination at 19 cemented his arrival as a genuine artistic voice.