In an Apple Music interview from mid-2020, The Kid LAROI reminisced about the short but formative time he spent in LA living with the late emo rapper Juice WRLD. They’d hang out all day, bonding, making music, seeing friends, whatever. People always coming and going, never a dull moment. Sometimes, Juice would wake LAROI up in the middle of the night, wild with excitement about a track LAROI had to put a verse on. Other mornings, LAROI would wake up to his and Juice’s managers saying it was time to pack up and head to Texas. Like, now. He was 15, 16 years old. “I’d never experienced anything like that,” he said. “Especially coming from Australia, where everything is kind of like its own bubble.”
Not that 15-year-olds outside Australia would be used to it either. But such is the meteoric ascent of a talented young rapper circa 2020. Born Charlton Howard in 2003, LAROI—named for the Kamilaroi, an Indigenous Australian group of which he is a member—grew up in the suburbs of Sydney, and began to work on music when he was a preteen. Like Juice WRLD, Post Malone, or even Lil Peep, LAROI’s key tracks—“ALWAYS DO,” “TRAGIC,” and the Juice WRLD collaboration “GO”—blend ultra-melodic trap with shades of alternative rock and classic pop, a fusion that has put him on the front burner of pop-rap. His first album, F*CK LOVE, hit the Top 10 before he turned 18.