A 16-year-old from Australia is the future of emo rap. And maybe all of music.
The Kid LAROI is going to be one of the biggest names in all of music before he turns 20.
This isn't even a hot take; he averaged almost 14 million monthly Spotify listeners, and that was before his debut project came out.
Whether it be due to a lack of competition or his actual talent, LAROI is emo rap royalty.
His debut mixtape, F*CK LOVE, shows why he's destined for the crown, but it doesn't stack up to the past kings of the subgenre.
The Kid LAROI's talent is undeniable.
In the first minute of the opening track alone he somehow bounces from his own sound to Trippie Redd's patented screams to an almost identical Juice WRLD delivery. This wheel of sounds is all accompanied by detailed verses on rejection, dependency and self-loathing.
LAROI's songwriting skills are top-tier at nearly every level of this mixtape. Aside from the lazy chorus on "GO", every hook and verse sounds progressive, in terms of both songwriting and storytelling.
Every song could serve as an example of LAROI's talent, but one of the best displays comes on "NEED YOU MOST (So Sick)". The song features an ambitious sample of Ne-Yo's biggest hit "So Sick".
LAROI perfectly covers Ne-Yo's initial lines of "I'm so sick of love songs, so sad and slow" then adds his own flair with lines in the hook like "And baby I've been fucked up since you've been gone".
When you take into account his songwriting his ability combined with his ability to pull off any delivery, it's easy to see how LAROI went 11-for-11 on his debut project.
There are no misses on F*CK LOVE, but the project does fall short of the debuts of some of emo rap's finest.
It's not as experimental as Trippie Redd's A Love Letter To You. It doesn't create an atmosphere like Lil Peep's Come Over When You're Sober. And, despite clearly following Goodbye & Good Riddance's structure, it's just not as good as Juice WRLD's debut project.
F*CK LOVE is the most refined emo rap album I could think of.
Even Juice WRLD's posthumous Legends Never Die is rougher around the edges. Normally, this would be a positive, but for a subgenre that strives off emotional deep dives and offkey wails, not providing many extremes gives the album less character than its peers.
With that being said, these shortcomings are only shortcomings if LAROI decides to stick with his emo rap sound.
It's a sound that he already seems to be moving on from throughout the mixtape, as he subs out the Trippie Redd-like screams for a Post Malone-like tremble on the single track, "Tell Me Why".
It's not hard to imagine the 16-year-old successfully pivoting from the sound of his emo rap mentor(Juice WRLD) to the similar, yet more profitable Post Malone sound. If that does turn out to be the plan for LAROI, then all previous gripes toward F*CK LOVE are irrelevant.
Final Score: Squidward Future Meme/10
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