In a couple days Fortnite is going to run this concert for this guy called Kid Laroi and it seems to be pretty high budget.
Now I'm not exactly plugged in to popular music. Never have been. I'm one of those dorks who listened to, and continues to listen to, video game music. But I was aware of Travis Scott when he got his big Fortnite concert, and it feels like it was impossible to not know who Ariana Grande was when she got her big Fortnite concert.
But this Kid Laroi dude? I've never heard of him. Ever. And he seems like he's getting a big deal concert, the biggest deal since Ariana in 2021.
Fortnite has concerts all the time, but it's more about scale and presumably who has the money to spend. A lot of Fortnite concerts are done in the game's Creative Mode, and most of the smaller ones amount to "video screens around the borders of an arena full of collectibles." I'm not complaining, usually they're always interesting on some level, but I just mean there's a clear gulf in quality between the big ones and the small ones.
Ariana Grande gets multiple custom player skins, and a huge event full of custom minigames and basically takes over the whole game for a day, because she's Ariana Grande. Other musicians get smaller scale concerts that are still fun but have visibly less production value.
Whoever this Kid Laroi guy is, he's getting promotion on the same level as Ariana Grande. And I've never heard of him before.
But still, that's probably on me, right? I'm out of touch. I ask some of my friends, and they've never heard of him either. But they're also around my age, so maybe it's just the same thing there, where we're just all getting too old to know about what the teens of today are in to.
So let's learn about this Kid Laroi guy, I guess.
Charlton Kenneth Jeffrey Howard (born 17 August 2003), known professionally as the Kid Laroi (stylised as the Kid LAROI), is an Australian rapper, singer and songwriter. He originally gained recognition from his association and friendship with American rapper Juice Wrld while he was on tour in Australia. He gained a local following before joining a partnership agreement with Lil Bibby's Grade A Productions and Columbia Records, and attained further popularity in 2020 with his collaboration with Juice Wrld on "Go", which peaked at number 52 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Ah, okay. So he's Australian. I guess that makes sense why I might not know who he is. And he only rose to prominence sometime in the last 18 months.
His father, Nick Howard, is a music producer and sound engineer who has worked with Australian stars such as Bardot and Delta Goodrem. His mother, Sloane Howard, was a talent manager, record label founder and music executive of Aboriginal descent who once managed Popstars winner Scott Cain.
Okay, so his parents are producers and record label people...
When Howard's parents separated when he was four, his childhood became more chaotic. Howard said that sometimes his mother sold drugs to get by. At the age of seven he moved to the rural town of Broken Hill in New South Wales and lived with his mother, brother and grandparents at the time.
His mother, a music executive, was apparently so broke she had to sell drugs "just to get by"?
He attended a private school, Sacred Heart Parish School, where he was a house captain and won a speaking award.
But he still went to private schools???
In Sydney, Howard attended the Australian Performing Arts Grammar School on a scholarship, but he dropped out midway through year nine to pursue his international career. During this period, his family lived in a Housing Commission building in Redfern and he drifted between friends' houses. In a 2021 interview, he explained that his mother is his best friend and he wanted to help her through their tough financial situation, so he found a part-time job at a fruit store.
...she's an executive and a talent scout?????
Howard's drive and confidence to one day be seen as a peer amongst his idols was noted in an interview with Acclaim where he was asked if he could name three Australian acts who he thought were going to be future legends and he stated "...I’d have to say… Can it be me? Can I pick myself? I hate to be that guy, but I definitely hope that I’m a legend."
Stay humble, I guess
The discography of Australian rapper and singer the Kid Laroi consists of one mixtape, one extended play (EP), twenty singles (including three as a featured artist), and twenty-one music videos.
Dude doesn't even have one album yet and he's being given the same treatment as some of the biggest pop-stars of their era? And his whole backstory is "he grew up on the wrong side of the tracks in private schools with his record executive mother"?
???
?????????????????
i had also assumed i was just Out Of Touch™ when i saw the promo pop up and had no idea who this kid was, but i guess that's normal. shoutouts to obvious industry plants buying a funny fortnite party with mom and dad's record company/hard times from the streets drug money[citation needed] i guess


