It started with the beat, Heidi White said.
On a March day at The Kabin Studio, an arts nonprofit in Cork, Ireland, Heidi, 11, and a group of other children were trying to write a rap with the help of Garry McCarthy, who is a music producer and Kabin Studio’s creative director. It was part of a weekly songwriting program.
“It’s a safe space for young people in the community to come create music, hang out and just to make bangers,” Mr. McCarthy said.
On this day, the group was trying to write an anthem for Cruinniú na nÓg, a government-sponsored day in Ireland devoted to children’s creativity, scheduled for June 15. Everyone was feeling a little shy and the ideas weren’t exactly flowing, Heidi said.
“Then Garry had put on a drum-and-bass beat, and suddenly it was like a switch flipped and everyone started getting involved,” she said. “It was like magic.”
That infectious beat has also captivated viewers around the world. The group’s song, “The Spark,” has become a sensation on social media, hailed by some on TikTok as an early contender for song of the summer. (This isn’t first time a tune made for social media tune has been praised as such. See here: A 2023 earworm about margaritas.)
What could have easily sounded grating to adult ears — think Kidz Bop — is instead unrelentingly catchy. The song’s accompanying music video, which culminates in all of the kids rapping, loudly, in unison on the top deck of a bus, is utterly charming.
Online, people of all ages cannot seem to get enough. The children’s television show “Teletubbies” and the luxury carmaker McLaren are among the brands to use the song in recent videos.
“Who is teaching the kids in Ireland to spit this kind of fire,” the dancers Austin and Marideth Telenko, better known online as Cost n’ Mayor, captioned a video in which they performed a routine they had choreographed to the song.
To write the lyrics, Heidi said the group brainstormed central themes they wanted the song to be about, landing on positive words like “independence,” “encouragement” and “spark.”
“It was a group effort,” said Heidi, whose favorite genre of music is show tunes from musicals like “Heathers” and “Hamilton.”
The Cork kids — who perform as the Kabin Crew — collaborated on “The Spark” with another youth rap crew based out of Lisdoonvarna, Ireland, a few hours’ drive away. That group wrote their verses separately with Mr. McCarthy’s help, said Treasure Kanikwu, 13, who was interviewed alongside her fellow rappers, Mercy Imoniaro, Elene Kurtanidze, Kada Rrudhani and Tuana Rrudhani.
The Lisdoonvarna Crew drew inspiration from their favorite musicians, including Nicki Minaj, Rihanna, Taylor Swift and Olivia Rodrigo, they said.
“I like that first line: ‘Think you can stop what we do, I doubt it.’ It’s telling you that no matter what you do, we’re not going to stop. Something that you love doing, no one is going to be able to stop you from doing that,” Treasure said.
After writing their verses, the Lisdoonvarna kids traveled to Cork to meet up with the Kabin Crew and film a music video to accompany the song, both groups dressing in colorful clothing and accessories. When they gathered in the morning, Heidi said, they were encouraged to decorate themselves with face paint and glow sticks.
Heidi wore a green bucket hat for the video, while Treasure performed with a pair of sunglasses that were perched atop her head before slowly sliding down to the bridge of her nose. “Grooving through my town, people be like ‘who are they?’. Moving to my music, yeah, that gets me through the day,” she raps.
In the final scenes of the music video, the kids perform on a bus. That wasn’t a set, Mercy , 9, explained. Instead, they boarded an operational city bus and turned it into an impromptu dance party. “The bus was moving so much and there were people on the bus recording us,” Kada , 10, said. “Everyone was looking at us like, ‘What are they up to? Those people aren’t OK,’” Heidi added.
Since it was posted online, the video has elicited reactions that have made the kids local celebrities with their classmates and teachers.
The Lisdoonvarna Crew had previously had a small taste of fame when its 2023 song “Let Me Do My Thing” landed the group a spot on an Irish television special, “The Late Late Toy Show,” at the end of last year. Still, the reaction to “The Spark” was on another level, the kids said, explaining that unlike the 2023 tune, this song and video attracted an audience that spread well beyond Ireland.
Mr. McCarthy, the producer, chalked the international success of “The Spark” up to its organic feel. “None of these kids are stage school kids, where they’re training to be actors or musicians. This is just their natural selves,” he said.
As for what’s next, the groups have a few live performances planned for this summer in Cork. Mr. McCarthy is also hoping to release the song on streaming platforms, he said.
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