Australia has a new musical superstar, and he's a 16-year-old rapper from the housing flats in Waterloo in inner-city Sydney named The Kid Laroi. Last month his debut album, a mixtape titled, opened at #3 on ARIA's album chart and reached #8 on the US's Billboard 200, the best result ever for an Australian hiphop artist in the US outside Mullumbimby transplant Iggy Azalea.Sony Music
"I saw this kid standing in the corner at the back of one of the studios, and he was so young I was like, 'What are you doing out at this time of night?' And he's like, 'I make music, I'm a rapper.' So I was like, 'Yeah? Play me your music,'" Rohaim remembers. "He played me four songs and I was blown away. I was like, 'You're better than all the writers that I work with. At the age you are now, you're better than all of them.
"His sound has quite an international scope. It has so many elements of American trap and American Soundcloud rap that aren't necessarily Australian sounds," says Lesaguis. "My brother, who was about 16 when he told me about Laroi, would've been putting Kid Laroi in playlists with artists like Juice Wrld, Trippie Redd. They could see he was already at that level, when at the same time he's just a kid they'd also see around the area and at local parties.
The gig proved Howard's following among local underage audiences even before he'd earned co-signs from US artists, or appeared on the influential US YouTube channel Lyrical Lemonade, or became a close protege of Juice Wrld.
No, Australia does not have a new musical superstar. You have a new headline, and it is more like the Telegraph, and less like something I would pay for.
Fascinating! I ask again. Is he from the Aboriginal community? Or the European community such as the Armenian Australian NSW Premier Berejiklian? Or the Asian community such as the Chinese Australian Mathematician Eddie Woo?
Savilianraps