Jaten Dimsdale, known by his moniker, Teddy Swims, is an American singer and songwriter from Atlanta, GA. Teddy grew up navigating different worlds: he was a football player, a musical theater student and the grandson of a Pentecostal pastor. Teddy was exposed to a wider variety of music than most “country boys”. In high school and over the next few years he was in several bands, genres ranging from 80’s hair metal, funk, modern metalcore, soul, and country alternative bands. These experiences make Teddy who he is as an artist. In March of 2019, Teddy went on his first US tour as a hip-hop artist with his best friend Addy Maxwell, which he describes as freeing experience, as he was able to continue to expand into uncharted territory. With this in mind, Teddy began to explore integrating the various genres he loved: metal, pop-punk, soul/funk, country, gospel, r&b, and show-tunes, into one genre that is Teddy Swims. Teddy is the accumulation of past projects. Swims stands for: someone who isn’t me sometimes, a reference to Teddy’s struggle to integrate the different parts of himself. For Teddy, the goal is to break barriers and bring people together. About the project, Teddy says, “There are no categories, no stereotypes, no statistic is a definite number. Until we learn to see every person as an individual, we will never truly reach unity.”