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Crowning glory as The Kid Laroi, king of the kids, returns home to Sydney

If nothing else, The Kid Laroi’s ascent is proof of hard work and a hunger to succeed. For years, he’s been speaking of his goal to make it big — and now his dream is a reality.

Global teenage musical sensation The Kid Laroi in front of a mural of himself in Redfern, in inner-city Sydney, where he grew up. Picture: Jess Gleeson
Global teenage musical sensation The Kid Laroi in front of a mural of himself in Redfern, in inner-city Sydney, where he grew up. Picture: Jess Gleeson

A new king of Australian music took wide-eyed receipt of his proverbial crown this week, when 18-year-old The Kid Laroi made a triumphant return to his hometown of Sydney.

The last time he performed in Sydney three years ago, the crowd scarcely hit triple figures, and many of those watching would have known him personally.

Now based in Los Angeles, he has swiftly become one of the ­biggest artists in the world. His monthly listenership on streaming platform Spotify exceeds 45 million, and his music is evidently connecting with young listeners in droves.

He writes songs about love and desire, heartbreak and disappointment, altered states and everyday frustrations. To people under the age of 25, he’s the voice of their generation, soundtracking their lives with a rare intelligence and songwriting savvy.

On Thursday night, at the first of two sold-out concerts at Qudos Bank Arena, the Redfern-raised artist born Charlton Howard was visibly moved by what he saw and heard from the stage.

Australian artist The Kid Laroi performs at Qudos Bank Arena, Sydney, on Thursday. Picture: Getty Images
Australian artist The Kid Laroi performs at Qudos Bank Arena, Sydney, on Thursday. Picture: Getty Images

During his 75-minute set, as about 16,000 people sang his songs back to him at an astounding volume, it was impossible not to reflect on his remarkable story to date. From an improbably young age, the talented First Nations kid had a dream, and used every tool in his belt to get heard and make that dream a reality.

If nothing else, his ascent is proof of hard work and a hunger to succeed. For years, he’s been speaking of his goal to make it big.

In an interview from April 2019, the then-15-year-old said: “I want to show these other Australian kids – kids from my area, even – if that’s what they want to do, I want to show them you can do this shit too, because a lot of Australian rap is capped in Australia.”

He swiped his arm across his body, as if brandishing a sword, then said, “There’s a ceiling on that shit. I want to break the f..kin’ ceiling, bro.”

The Kid Laroi performs on Thursday. Picture: Getty Images
The Kid Laroi performs on Thursday. Picture: Getty Images

On Thursday night, about half an hour into his set, The Kid Laroi said, “I’m so happy to be home. This is my city. This is where I’m from. Three years ago, I played a show to maybe 150 people,” he said. “I thought it was the shit, I thought I’d made it. And now I’m here: two nights in a row, sold out. This shit’s f. king beautiful.”

Though Laroi came up in the Sydney hip-hop scene, his music has long since transcended that genre. With a keen ear for melody and an evident knack for writing simple-sounding hooks, he now happily sits astride pop and hip-hop in a confident, assured and truly global style we’ve never seen from an Australian artist before.

He closed his set with Stay, his phenomenally popular song with Canadian singer-songwriter Justin Bieber, while his sole encore was another hit titled Without You, which is based on acoustic guitar and his keening voice.

It was a ­remarkable way to end a career-defining performance: a young man with a microphone at the start of a 100-date world tour.

That metaphorical ceiling he spoke of? Well and truly smashed. What it took for him to get there is extraordinary. Where he’ll go next is unfathomable.

The Kid Laroi’s national tour continues in Perth (Monday), followed by Adelaide (Wednesday), Melbourne (June 3-4), Brisbane (June 6-7) and Hobart (June 11).

READ MORE: Live review of The Kid Laroi’s Thursday night concert in Sydney.

Andrew McMillen
Andrew McMillenMusic Writer

Andrew McMillen is an award-winning journalist and author based in Brisbane. Since January 2018, he has worked as national music writer at The Australian. Previously, his feature writing has been published in The New York Times, Rolling Stone and GQ. He won the feature writing category at the Queensland Clarion Awards in 2017 for a story published in The Weekend Australian Magazine, and won the freelance journalism category at the Queensland Clarion Awards from 2015–2017. In 2014, UQP published his book Talking Smack: Honest Conversations About Drugs, a collection of stories that featured 14 prominent Australian musicians.

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Original URL: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/arts/music/crowning-glory-as-the-kid-laroi-king-of-the-kids-returns-home-to-sydney/news-story/cd1c03453970d687c8d9de0e61ed4204