Laroi the Kid

 

Just like in the Olympics (when they are allowed to take place), it seems every week or so comes with a new record or exploit of some kind stemming from the music charts. To be fair, we’ve been gifted with a few sensational weeks as of late, with the successive launches of Kanye West’s Donda and Drake’s Certified Lover Boy, thus confirming that the high (musical) season is back and that major artists are competing for our attention once again — hopefully soon on stage as well.

Last week, a bit of an anomaly had BTS and Coldplay skyrocket to the top of the Billboard Hot 100 singles charts with “My Universe“. We say an ‘anomaly’ because that track seemingly showed up from nowhere — and promptly moved out of the top 10 the following week — but that has everything to do with the fact that both BTS and Coldplay are global musical powerhouses who have both been accustomed to reaching the top of such charts time and again. Yet, they only remained there for one week. Pushed out by the previous week’s king — sorry, kid: no, that’s not Drake we’re talking about here, but a certain The Kid LAROI…

Although Drake is not far behind (reaching #4 with “Way 2 Sexy” this week and, crucially, topping the Streaming charts), even he couldn’t do anything against the 1-2 punch of 18-year old Australian rapper and singer The Kid LAROI — and his new best friend: Mr. Justin Bieber. That is a pairing made in trap-pop heaven, if you don’t mind us saying so: at this point, 27-year old Bieber has effectively become a veteran in the field, and his now iconic status is clearly something he acknowledges and leverages to promote other, younger artists. Such as The Kid LAROI.

Although LAROI is young, he is not an unknown entity, far from it: last summer, he released a (posthumous) duet with rapper Juice WRLD, another hot young artist whose untimely death at the age of 20 the year before that sent shock waves through the trap world. The two had met and befriended while Juice was on tour in Australia, hence that fateful collaboration. That same year, LAROI’s first mixtape, the aplty named F*ck Love, was released worldwide, reaching the top spot… worldwide. Well, maybe not the whole world, but Australia (where he was the youngest ever solo performer to do so), the US, Canada, the Netherlands… Out of music’s key geographies, only the UK didn’t show as much love to the kid, with the album “only” reaching #6 over there. Still, some might consider that a win…

Now, LAROI and Bieber’s “Stay” is enjoying its seventh non-consecutive week on top of the US singles charts. What’s next, the (musical) moon?