Hopatcong dad remixing songs for son goes viral

HOPATCONG Jell-O, is it me you’re looking for?

A Hopatcong dad and his adorable 1-year-old son are going viral after videos of him singing while feeding his baby boy are gaining tens of thousands of views online.

Charles Flartey, 36, has posted half a dozen videos on YouTube of him feeding his son, Tommy, while singing kid-friendly, food-based remixed tunes from R. Kelly, Wu-Tang Clan and Gwen Stefani.

Flartey works nights, so he cares for Tommy while his wife, Melissa, works during the days.

“I sing to him all day long anyway. One day I thought ‘this is funny enough to turn a camera on,’” Flartey said. “Then I put it on Facebook, and enough people liked it for me to keep doing it.”

Flartey said he made his first video, “Jell-O,” a cover of Lionel Richie’s “Hello,” a few months ago.

“It was first just on Facebook for my friends, and the one thing led to another, and someone said I should put it on YouTube,” Flartey said. “So I made a YouTube channel, and it started taking off about four days ago.”

This week, those videos netted  thousands of views after a friend posted one on the website Reddit.

In addition to being discussed on morning news shows, including “Today” and “Good Morning America,” Flartey’s videos are gaining traction through celebrity fans like “Modern Family” actress Sophia Vergara, who shared the video with her nearly 8 million Facebook followers.

As of Thursday afternoon, his most popular video, “Jell-O,” netted more than 80,000 views and continues to climb. The attention, much like Tommy’s yogurt, is bananas.

“It’s pretty crazy. I’m not sure what to make of it all,” Flartey said. “But if this is my 15 minutes of fame, I’m going to ride it.”

And as evidenced by the videos, Tommy enjoys his father’s singing as much as anyone.

“Oh he loves it,” Flartey said. “He’s into it, which is why I keep doing it.”

Flartey said all of his videos are spontaneous, with the ideas and lyrics coming to him on a whim, so he can’t say what his next masterpiece will be. But since they’ve taken off the past few days, he’s released about one new video per day.

“I’ve always made music,” he said. “I sing. I rap. I write my own songs.”

To see more of Flartey’s videos, check out his Charles Only Channel on YouTube.

To hear some of Flartey’s original music, go to http://soundcloud.com/charlesonlymusic or http://theyesyesyalls.com.

Staff Writer Michael Izzo: 973-428-6636; mizzo@GannettNJ.com