It’s hard to believe “just how fucking big” The Kid LAROI is - Cahill

Music journalists Mikey Cahill and Marcus Teague discuss whether Aussie rapper The Kid LAROI has been underrated by his home country while he soars up the charts overseas.

Hit Different’s Mikey Cahill and Marcus Teague both find it astounding that Australian rapper The Kid LAROI has been so underappreciated in his homeland.

The 18-year-old Sydney rapper has had immense success in the United States, with 66 million monthly listeners on Spotify, but supposedly slipped through the cracks of the Australian hip-hop music scene.

“He’s just done it all already and he’s only 18, and he seems to be keeping his head screwed on right,” Cahill said on this week’s episode of Hit Different.

“So the question is why was he ignored by the industry here? He somehow bypassed success here and got massive overseas.”

Marcus Teague believes The Kid LAROI’s fusion of Australian and US hip-hop sounds wasn’t initially suitable for Australia’s tastes, but has quickly elevated him to immense success across the world in a time where new age rap is becoming popular.

“Maybe like most 18-year-olds, he’s a product of his influences,” Teague said.

“SoundCloud rap coming up over the past few years has been best represented in Australia by the sounds coming out of Western Sydney.”

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We covered it on Hit Different, a weekly podcast that puts music culture in context.

“In any genre there’s a figurehead or representation of that at any other time, and it feels like this is his little moment in the sunshine.”

With both agreeing that he has a “US hip-hop radio” sound, The Kid LAROI has flourished overseas despite not being automatically recognised by Australian audiences. Even when touring with the late Juice WRLD as a supporting act on the Australian act of his world tour, The Kid LAROI has struggled to achieve popularity in his home country until now.

Having just recently warmed to his music, Cahill thinks “it is very listenable music, I enjoy bumping to it” and that “the beats are quite original”, even when the lyrics don’t necessarily speak to him. But he can understand how The Kid LAROI has grown to be the star he is, especially when citing his drive to succeed in the industry.

“The Sydney Morning Herald story that Robert Moran wrote, he asks what’s next and he (The Kid LAROI) goes world dominion,” Cahill said.

“He makes sure he doesn’t mean world domination, but he goes no, world dominion. Domination has a ceiling. I want everything, I want world dominion.”

“He’s thinking big, and I guess the people around him are as well. It’s incredible just how big this guy is.”

Hear the full story on Hit Different, a free weekly podcast that puts music culture in context.