The Kid LAROI has matured from a kid with a dream to reigning over sales charts on both ends of the globe, making the grade in the blink of an eye.
Now aged 20, the Los Angeles-based singer and rapper is the subject of the new documentary Kids Are Growing Up: A Story About A Kid Named LAROI, directed by Michael D. Ratner and produced by OBB Pictures for Prime Video.
Raised in inner-city Sydney, LAROI (real name Charlton Howard) grew up fast, and took the express elevator to the top.
On the way, he led the singles and albums charts in the United States and Australia, logged a record setting stay at the top tier of the Billboard Hot 100 with “Stay,” his collaboration with Justin Bieber, and accumulated a towering collection of awards.
Among them, ARIA Awards, APRA Music Awards, NIMAs, and, in 2022, the artist landed a brace of Grammy Award nominations, for best new artist and album of the year.
The Gadigal-born artist with Kamilaroi roots has experienced some painful lows, which he confronts in the documentary. “Maybe I’m just feeling lost,” he says in the doc. “Maybe I’m just going through what maybe most people my age go through. I guess the difference is that this is the time for people to figure out what they want to do in life. I already know what I’m doing in life. I have a job, a family and a lot of people I support and stuff like that, so I don’t really have time to be a lost teenager. I’m just lost with a job.”
On Thursday night (Feb. 29), LAROI channeled those emotions when he stopped by Jimmy Kimmel Live for a performance “Bleed,” a ballad lifted from his 2023 album The First Time. There’s no confetti, no laser show, just the Kid sat alone on stage with his mic, backing band and some neat visuals.
Fun fact, the Kid will play stadiums across Australia this October, his first tour of that scale in his homeland. That trek in support of The First Time will see LAROI join the likes of AC/DC, Sia and Rüfüs Du Sol as homegrown stadium acts.
In the meantime, keep an eye on the Spotify streaming ticker for his hit “Stay”. The track currently has 2.969 billion streams and is nudging towards the 3 billion milestone on the streaming platform, a result that will make him the first Australian male to reach that club, and the second Aussie overall after Tones And I’s “Dance Monkey” climbed the mountain this week.
Watch The Kid LAROI’s performance of “Bleed” on late-night TV below.