Dope look for Sway Clarke II! Now is probably the best time for you to jump on the bandwagon.

Who on earth would blend a “Bennie and the Jets” groove, trilling harpsichords evoking the Beatles’ “In My Life” and a dance-floor-quaking bass into an exuberant paean to infidelity? Answer: Sway Clarke II. The song, “Secret Garden, ” is one of several by the Berlin-by-way-of-Toronto singer-songwriter that have taken off on the Internet (another is a moody cover of Kendrick Lamar’s “Swimming Pools”) and propelled the singer (who plays his first American show this evening at Bardot’s School Night in Los Angeles) to next-big-thing status. His combination of storytelling and hooks has earned comparisons to the hitmaking likes of Lorde and Frank Ocean, but a streak of naughty humor, often at the singer’s own expense, is uniquely his own. “That comes out of being Canadian,” he laughs. “There’s a reason why great comedians like Jim Carrey and Mike Myers came from Canada. It’s in our DNA to be self-deprecating and funny.”

That tendency was evident in the first song that got Clarke attention, “I Don’t Need Much.” In it, he says that all he needs is “Some cigarettes and alcohol/iPhone for a few calls/A crew, and a main broad” via a wistful melody that’s as indebted to Coldplay as to new-school R&B. The approach reflects Clarke’s own personal evolution. Ten years ago, he had grown disenchanted with hip-hop’s worldview and began to focus more, he says, on music that valued “songwriting, musicianship and telling a story. OutKast’s ‘Speakerboxxx/The Love Below’ was my saving grace: it was so adventurous, it became a reference point proving I could do something different. And then I started digging into the renaissance of Brit rock. Radiohead, Pulp and Blur changed my life, and made me need to learn guitar. During that period, I wanted to be Liam Gallagher: I was attracted to him because he was gangster, like a rapper.”

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