Reviewed by Ian Phillips.
By The Kid Laroi, Sony Music 2021.
To say that The Kid Laroi’s rise to prominence has been meteoric would be an understatement.
From the time he burst onto the scene with his debut EP, 14 With a Dream, which was released in 2018, and became a finalist in the Triple J unearthed competition of the same year, influential voices within the industry were hailing him as a future superstar.
Right from the word go Laroi (real name Charlton Kenneth Jeffrey Howard) was blending rapped or spoken word with sung passages.
This is not particularly revolutionary but the point of difference that he brings is the quality of both the rap and his singing. The kid Laroi possesses a brilliant voice.
In 2019 Laroi came to the attention of the major labels and he signed with American rapper Lil Bibby’s label Grade A Productions, which is part of the Columbia Records group.
Throughout 2020 he released a series of singles which all charted well but it was his collaboration with the late Juice Wrld on the track Go that really lit the spark.
Go became his first single to chart in the Billboard Top 100 and when he released his highly anticipated album, F*ck Love, in August 2020 his skyrocketing career took off.
F*ck Love has charted world-wide reaching the top 10 almost everywhere and scaling to number three in Australia, Canada, and importantly the US.
The album was marketed as a mixtape and it’s garnered a swathe of award nominations and been heavily mined for singles.
Charlton currently resides in L.A. and rock royalty, including Elton John, have been singing his praises.
John has predicted that 2021 will see Laroi become “one of the biggest artists in the whole wide world.”
Without You is a great track that presents Laroi at his best, the song is completely sung and the chorus is unbelievably catchy.
Laroi’s rise has been nothing short of phenomenal.
It’s a lot for a young (he’s still only 17) indigenous lad to take in and I hope there’s plenty of wise counsel and support around him to help him navigate the next couple of years.
