Virginia singer Tommy Richman, a protege of the Maryland R&B star Brent Faiyaz, was pretty much unknown until this year, when he released his single “Million Dollar Baby.” Snippets of that song went viral on TikTok before it even came out, and the resulting buzz was strong enough that “Million Dollar Baby” debuted at #2 and stuck around as a song-of-the-summer contender. Last night, Richman sang “Million Dollar Baby” on Jimmy Kimmel Live, his first time performing for late-night TV cameras.

“Million Dollar Baby” is a wildly catchy piece of ’80s-style computer-funk, and its amateurish quality is part of its appeal. (It’s probably also why Funkmaster Flex wasn’t a fan.) Richman sings the song in a thin, creaky falsetto, showing plenty of swagger but very little technical ability. Live videos of Richman performing live have been going viral for a couple of months, largely because it’s clear that he’s not any kind of live singer — not yet, anyway. When he was on TV last night, you could tell.

Guest-host RuPaul introduced Tommy Richman on Kimmel, which led to a pretty funny Richman “wassup, RuPaul?” ad-lib during the performance. Richman sang over his own pre-recorded voice, so you could barely hear him, but what you could hear wasn’t that impressive. Richman performed with a couple of musicians who played distorted power chords over “Million Dollar Baby,” which didn’t add anything. I liked the stage setup, with its dry ice and its desert-landscape backdrop, but none of that made much of a case for “Million Dollar Baby.” It’s not a good performance, but it’s an interesting example of what it looks like when a viral phenomenon tries to become something else. Watch it below.

Tommy Richman’s debut album Coyote is coming out sometime this year. At the end of the Kimmel performance, he calls it the “album of the year,” something that he first tweeted almost a year ago. I don’t know about that, but I can confirm that follow-up single “Devil Is A Lie” is also a jam.