ViewTube

Slater Nalley, a 18-year-old wordsmith and Atlanta native, always gravitated toward music. Armored with a gravelly and soulful twang, Slater focused in on his natural talent despite it all, teaching himself to play piano by ear and learning guitar chords on YouTube by age 14. Eventually, he crafted original music that he began sharing on TikTok. Though he’s admittedly not the biggest fan of social media, he saw it as another means to connect and relate to people, and that’s exactly what it did. The fourth video he posted to the platform blew up—a Tyler Childers cover that now has over 5.3M views. But it wasn’t until he used his talents to help his high school English teacher heal in the wake of the tragic loss of her son that he saw what his gifts were truly meant for. Inspired by a poem his teacher wrote, he crafted a song called “Traces of You,” which helped both his teacher and members of the community heal, motivating him further to create music that moves the masses.