The Kid LAROI: Aussie Hip Hop’s Golden Boy

Our golden boy glowing-up in L.A.

Bursting onto the hip hop scene with his debut album, F*CK LOVE (Savage), 17-year-old rapper The Kid LAROI (Charlton Howard) has quickly become one of Australia’s heavyweight musical exports. Now living in Los Angeles, LAROI is building a career from confessional trap beats and emo-rap that listeners can’t get enough of (he recently topped Kendrick Lamar in monthly Spotify streams). Collaborating with the likes of OneFour, Machine Gun Kelly, and Marshmello, the Sydney-born artist’s steep ascent is loaded with lyrical nous and deft composition well beyond his years. Considering that he recently became the youngest Aussie to have a number one album in the ARIA charts (sorry, Delta!), we thought it was time you got to know The Kid LAROI: Aussie hip hop’s golden boy!

From Waterloo to L.A.
Born in Waterloo, Sydney, The Kid LAROI was already freestyling at nine years old, and uploading bars to SoundCloud at 13. After making the finals of Triple J’s Unearthed competition in 2018, talk of the young rapper was ubiquitous in underground hip hop circles. Lil Bibby – a rapper from Chicago and music executive – was impressed, signing the prodigious talent to Grade A Productions (the very same label the late Juice WRLD inked a deal with).

Soon, The Kid LAROI was living with Juice WRLD in L.A., where the young talent committed to a kind of hip hop apprenticeship.

"We were around the house every day. And things like being in the studio, even when we weren’t recording together, Juice WRLD would be in the studio obviously every day recording fucking a million songs," LAROI recently told Zane Lowe. "And I would go in there and just watch him and watch how he was doing shit."

Undaunted by the star-studded industry in Los Angeles, it didn’t take long for The Kid LAROI to make his own mark, linking up with sought-after videographer Cole Bennett for the track, ‘Let Her Go’. (Bennett is known for his grungy, low budget aesthetic that’s inspiring the new generation of SoundCloud rappers).

LAROI quickly followed-up on the success of ‘Let Her Go’ by collaborating with Lil Tecca for ‘Diva’ and ‘Fade Away’ with Lil Tjay. In July 2020, he released his epic 15-track mixtape F*CK LOVE with long-time collaborator and partner-in-crime KhaledBEATS (whose CV includes YoungBoy Never Broke Again, Internet Money, Marshmello, and Machine Gun Kelly.)

The Kid LAROI’s collaboration with Juice WRLD ‘Go’ was the first track to break into the Billboards Top 100 – the mixtape would go on to peak at number 3 with more than 1 billion streams globally. Recorded while The Kid LAROI and Juice WRLD travelled Greece, the song served as a tribute to LAROI’s late friend and mentor.

Via Instagram @thekidlaroi

Shortly after debuting the track, The Kid LAROI shared a message on his Instagram page.

‘Before we even met you were my favourite artist, and I still think everyday how cool it was that I got to be damn near family with my idol. you took me all over the world on a f*cking private jet and showed me a whole different side of life that not many people get to see. from all the months you let me live at your crib, to all the nights I spent watching and learning from you in the studio, to all the concerts and tours I got to witness.’

After releasing an extended deluxe version of the mixtape in November 2020, The Kid LAROI has captured attention from all corners of the music industry. A watermark talent of the ‘rap rock’ permeating contemporary hip hop, LAROI’s gauzy lyrics and melancholic crooning even recently scored a co-sign from Sir Elton John!

"You’re already huge, but I hope you realise what’s gonna happen to you in 2021," he told LAROI. "You’re gonna be one of the biggest artists in the whole wide world."

Already working on a new full-length project to follow up F*CK LOVE (Savage), we can only imagine what the kid prodigy will achieve next. Yes, LAROI is our golden boy glowing-up in L.A., but fingers crossed he will return for a tour Down Under soon!

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