For the average Tulane student, summer vacation is likely to be relatively uneventful — work, a few days at the beach, hanging out with friends from high school and maybe an internship, if you play your cards right.

For Dylan Rhodes, however, known as “Dyl” in the music industry, the summer going into junior year involved a hit rap song, signing with a record label and a trip to Miami to shoot a music video that now has over 3 million hits on YouTube.

“I would say my life is changing right now quicker than I ever thought possible before,” Rhodes said. “It’s constantly evolving.”

Life is definitely changing for Rhodes, ever since the release of the song “Jordan Belfort,” which he created with middle school friend Wes Walker.

“We really found our own way into the music industry,” Rhodes said. “We created ‘Jordan Belfort’ honestly just for fun, and from there it sort of took off on its own.” 

While the song might have had a humble beginning, it’s definitely taken off since then. Today, it ranks 68 on the iTunes “Top Songs” chart, ranking above hits by Adele, Andy Grammer and Fetty Wap. It’s been ranked by Spotify as the number one song for college students.

Rhodes travels almost every weekend for shows at other colleges around the country. He continues releasing new musical content on his SoundCloud account, with his newest song, “Snapchat Gold” reaching 24,500 hits. He’s even preparing to spend time away from Tulane in order to focus in on his music career.

“I’m really just taking my chance,” Rhodes said. “Which is why I decided to take some time off from school, to work on music.”  

Rhodes definitely plans to keep busy during his time off — in addition to performances and other promotional activities, he is hoping to continue creating as much musical content as possible, as well as working on updating his online presence through his website, “itslit.org.”

“I’m the type of person who sees the world literally, so I was never dreaming too hard of being a musician, or a sports player or something where your chances are very low of success, but now here I am with ‘Jordan Belfort’,” Rhodes said.

Check out The Hullabaloo’s interview with Dylan Rhodes: