Ten years ago, pop music offered an escape from people’s problems, buoyant with carefree lyrics and upbeat dance breaks. As a new generation takes over the airwaves, the pop genre has shifted to somber resonance full of deeply personal material—a catharsis for those problems.

Although it seems as though Alec Benjamin is joining this new wave of young pop artists with dark and poignant content, the rising singer-songwriter is actually pulling inspiration from the past—his attempt to keep something classic alive.

“I want to be like Leonard Cohen,” he says. “I’m just trying to continue the tradition of American storytelling, which I feel like hasn’t happened in a long time. Everyone else has been more of an Adele-style thing, which is cool, but it’s a different art form.”

Benjamin catches himself, quickly amending his sentences for fear of saying something he doesn’t entirely mean. “Sometimes I have a difficult time articulating myself,” he confesses. “That’s why I do it in song.”

Still, for all of his old-soul tendencies, Benjamin has connected in a big way with younger audiences, particularly on video-sharing app TikTok, which is quickly taking a stranglehold on determining which songs are the next to explode. “TikTok has been a vital part of discovering my music,” he says. “It’s awesome.” Just look at the scores of preteens eager to upload their own dance video to fellow Internet superstar Doja Cat’s “Say So.”

As life continues to shift online, the gap between what labels think people want and what they actually want is quickly becoming a chasm, something that Benjamin is well aware of. “It’s just culture,” he says. “These are kids that dictate what’s popular. They like it, and that’s what goes, and it doesn’t really matter what anyone else says. So many times, people that I work with will be like, ‘that song’s not a hit,’ and it’s like, look at the numbers! That’s a hit!”

Just look to Benjamin’s most popular song, “Let Me Down Slowly,” which has racked up more than 500 million streams on Spotify with no radio play or debut album to back it up.

For someone whose music is full of harrowing references to his own struggles with mental health and toxic relationships, Benjamin doesn’t seem too concerned with how much the kids seem to gravitate to his darker material.

“I think they’re pretty perceptive,” he says of his fans. “If you watch YouTube vlogs and things like that, people are talking about some serious stuff. I felt a lot of the same things in the music that I’m writing now when I was 14. If I felt that way, there’s gotta be other 14-year-olds that feel the same way, right?”

Of course, Benjamin knows the impact that powerful lyrics can have on someone at a very young age all too well—he was jamming out to Eminem at age seven, and even credits the provocative rapper for teaching him the power of a shocking and blunt lyric.

“I heard his lyrics and I was like, ‘oh man, it’d be tight if I could do something like that,’” he says. Obviously, any second grader cool enough to be dancing around his house to “Without Me” was always destined for big things.

Outside of such wide-ranging influences as Cohen and Slim Shady, Benjamin names Paul Simon and John Mayer as some of his musical idols, and has been working with artists from all over the musical spectrum, most recently country-pop queen Kacey Musgraves.

But don’t try to silo him into one genre. To him, fitting into a category is largely unimportant. What matters most is the heartfelt story a song can tell. “I feel like when you strip a song down and just play it on acoustic guitar, you could make any song a country song, or a pop song, so I don’t think that matters so much,” he says. “I want to tell a story that can stand on its own without music, but you also want the music to stand on its own, and I think that’s where it becomes an art—storytelling in music.”

Sometimes, it’s as simple as how physically good it feels to say the words. Benjamin says his most recent single, “The Book of You & I,” is one of his favourite songs he’s ever written. “I like the way the lyrics feel phonetically when I sing them. I don’t know why! Some songs, they just feel good to sing, physiologically, or the chord shapes on the guitar.”

Regardless of his many influences and approaches, it’s clear the raw presentation of his inner demons is already striking a chord to his widespread allegiance of fans.

For Benjamin, that means his mission is accomplished.

Alec Benjamin’s debut album, These Two Windows, is available now via Warner Music.