Keenan Cahill, YouTube lip syncer, dies at 27
CNN
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Earlier than there have been numerous TikTok customers lip syncing and making an attempt difficult choreography to pop hits, there was Keenan Cahill – lip-sync extraordinaire.
With little greater than a desktop laptop and pure ardour, Cahill racked up tens of millions of views on his YouTube channel by mouthing the phrases to hits of the day. He even received celebrities, together with Katy Perry and 50 Cent, to hitch him.
Cahill, a captivating, bespectacled musician in his personal proper, whose movies delighted tens of millions, died Thursday in a Chicago hospital, his supervisor David Graham confirmed to CNN. He was 27.
The Chicago native had Maroteaux-Lamy syndrome, a situation that causes organs to enlarge amongst different signs, for which he obtained frequent therapies and underwent a number of surgical procedures. In accordance with his verified social media accounts, he was scheduled to undergo open heart surgery earlier this month.
“Issues arose that he couldn’t overcome,” his household famous in a GoFundMe organized by his aunt and in addition shared on his Fb web page. The fundraiser was began to assist pay for Cahill’s medical and funeral bills.
Cahill grew to become one of many first viral stars of the 2010s together with his lip-syncing movies, filmed in his bed room from his desk whereas he was nonetheless a youngster. The idea was easy: An ever-expressive Cahill would merely mouth lyrics to hits of the period like Usher’s “DJ Received Us Fallin’ in Love” and Rihanna’s “Solely Woman (Within the World)” with aplomb and watch the views pour in.
These movies usually reached the singers behind the hits, starting with Perry after Cahill lip synced to her “Teenage Dream,” certainly one of his hottest movies. She tweeted her love for his rendition and later invited him to seem on a Pennsylvania tour cease in 2011.
Cahill recruited celebrities like 50 Cent and Ariana Grande to lip sync in his YouTube movies, and a few, together with Jennifer Aniston, producer David Guetta and the contestants on “America’s Subsequent High Mannequin” borrowed his viral star energy for their very own movies. Per his supervisor, Cahill grew to become one of many first YouTubers to cross 500 million views on his private channel.
However Cahill needed to be recognized for greater than merely lip syncing, releasing a single of his personal in 2013 and later changing into a DJ and producer.
“He by no means made some huge cash, however he loved what he was doing and introduced smiles to the faces of so many individuals,” his household stated on GoFundMe.
His associates and admirers remembered Cahill’s pleasure and love of music. DJ Pauly D of “Jersey Shore” fame thanked him for “at all times making the world smile.” Perez Hilton, gossip staple of the mid-aughts web, reshared a video the 2 had made years earlier to “Strikes Like Jagger” by Maroon 5. And the favored Twitch person Ellohime, with whom Cahill performed the online game “RimWorld” repeatedly on the platform, paid tribute to Cahill as a “Viking perpetually,” from one viral star to a different.
Graham, his supervisor, referred to as Cahill a “legend.”
“Keenan impressed tens of millions worldwide by being his true self regardless of his quick stature, illness, and age of 15-16,” he stated in an electronic mail to CNN, referring to the age at which Cahill grew to become well-known.
