Büttner originally aspired to become a classical conductor. In 2010, Büttner produced the song
Mignon Mignon for
René la Taupe, which became a number-one single in France. Around that time, he also produced the song "Audubon Ballroom" on
Lupe Fiasco's album
Food & Liquor II: The Great American Rap Album Pt. 1, which charted at #5 on the
Billboard 200. In July 2011, he began making solo music under the pseudonym TheFatRat. The nickname given to him was Ratte, which is German for rat. It came from his short stature as he is 5 feet tall. His career began with the release of his first
EP,
Do Be Do Be Do. curated by
Tom Cassell, one of the most subscribed streamers on
Twitch. In November 2016, Büttner released his second EP,
Jackpot on the
Universal Music label. The EP reached #23 on the
Billboard Dance/Electronic Albums chart. In June 2017, Büttner released the single "Fly Away" featuring vocalist
Anjulie. In July, he performed at the
Electric Forest Festival. In October 2017, he released the single "Oblivion" featuring vocalist
Lola Blanc. In March 2018, he released the single "MAYDAY". In July 2018, he released "Warrior Songs", a music pack for the video game
Dota 2, which has been made available in the game as of 13 September 2018, according to Matthew "Cyborgmatt" Bailey, director of operations of
Team Secret. In December 2018, he posted a video about how YouTube's content ID system is "
broken", as an anonymous user known as Ramjets claimed all the earnings for his song "The Calling" and YouTube refused to settle the dispute. The claim was removed by YouTube later. As an act of gratitude towards the YouTube community standing up for him, he announced that all of his music would be free to use for creative videos on the platform, without fear of him claiming or copyright striking any video. From sometime around 2020,
Redbull.com made a 10-minute documentary about Büttner and his career titled,
TheFatRat: Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Him. They released this within their article, "TheFatRat: Meet the EDM DJ who's elevated video game music to high art." On 7 February 2020, Büttner released a
sci-fi music video on YouTube starring himself and Maisy Kay for a special song called "The Storm," where he performed with Kay. The music video was filmed in
Iceland, with
Surtshellir Cave on the first day,
Hekla Mountain on the second day, and
Hjörleifshöfði on the third and final day. Accompanying the music video is a game for mobile titled
The Storm - Interactive, where one can play through the story of the video. To conclude the year, he did a collaboration with
South Korean vocalist
AleXa for “Rule the World”. On 13 April 2021, he released his first studio album, titled
Parallax, containing over 10 songs. Artists featured on the collaborative setlist were Laura Brehm, Anjulie, RIELL, Cecilia Gault, Lindsey Stirling, and Everen Maxwell. ==Discography==