In incredible news for the Aussie hip hop and wider music community, Sydney’s The Kid LAROI has started his 2021 on a very strong note by overtaking Kendrick Lamar on monthly listeners on Spotify.
Keen eyes noticed the eclipse this morning, where the 17-year-old Kamilaroi rapper clocked in 25, 569, 361 monthly listeners, zipping past Kendrick’s 24,470,054 listeners.
Considering LAROI relocated from his childhood home in Sydney’s Redfern/Waterloo area to Los Angeles after being mentored by the late JuiceWRLD, and spent his 2020 dropping his debut album F*CK LOVE, another single, ‘Reminds Me Of You’, with JuiceWRLD in December, and featured on tracks by Bankrol Hayden, Tokyo’s Revenge and fellow Sydney collective OneFour, it’s not too surprising he’s hitting the big numbers.
Kendrick, on the other hand, has managed to maintain a monthly listener base of over 24 million even though his last collab was with SiR in 2019, and he dropped DAMN. back in 2017.
Rising rapper @TheKidLaroi trends on Twitter after people discovered he has more monthly listeners on Spotify than Kendrick Lamar. pic.twitter.com/C4LkszA31J
— Pop Crave (@PopCrave) January 11, 2021
In the short week and a bit of 2021, LAROI has already scooted 22 spots up the Billboard 200 charts for F*CK LOVE, and broke the top 10 on the UK singles chart with ‘WITHOUT YOU‘. He’s also got the likes of Justin Bieber and Post Malone following him on Instagram now.
Justin Bieber AND Post Malone
are following Laroi on Instagram 🤓 pic.twitter.com/6L19eizqeS— The Kid LAROI Updates (@thekidlaroii) January 10, 2021
The people, they love the boy from Sydney.
Because of this new milestone in his career, The Kid LAROI started trending on Twitter, fuelling not only the streaming numbers but also attracting critics who allege he’s an industry plant or somehow gaming the Spotify algorithm to scam himself more listeners and streams.
https://twitter.com/big_hasso/status/1348393959295488002?s=20
https://twitter.com/theyhatesilver/status/1348758073201065984?s=20
A LIVE IMAGE OF KID LAROI LISTENERS pic.twitter.com/20zQsq4ryP
— LIL CANDLE (@LILCANDLE2) January 12, 2021
Honestly, no matter what people are trying to claim about The Kid LAROI and how he’s getting his numbers, the fact the lad’s made friends with TikTok stars like Addison Rae (who has used his track ‘Addison Rae‘ on her videos) proves the Sydney-born teen is making a serious name for himself in the right circles overseas.
@addisonre moms reaction to hearing the song @sherinicolee
2021 is gonna be a huge year for the Kamilaroi rapper. Get ready.
