The Northern Irish rapper has been nominated in the Best Melodic Rap Performance category at the Grammy Awards for his popular song, ‘Kehlani’. Since its release in June of this year, the song has over 275 million streams on Spotify and 45 million views on YouTube.
Adetunji, who was born in London, moved to Belfast at the age of 10. The 25-year-old debuted in 2019, making music whilst still at school and uploading it Tiktok. After gaining their attention, he then signed a contract with RCA records. ‘Kehlani’ is by far his most popular song on streaming services and has multiple versions, including a remix with the popular r&b artist Kehlani.
On his official website, Adetunji is categorised as an Alternative Hip Hop Artist and says he merges rap and r&b post punk to make his own unique genre. His other songs include “Zack & Cody” and most recent release “Options” which features Lil Baby. He has been featured on official Spotify playlists such as Alternative Hip Hop, Chillmatic, New Punk Tracks and Fresh Finds Rock. Featuring on playlists helps artists to reach an audience that may not already know about them, but are interested or trying to learn about that genre.
In talking about his beginnings, in an interview with the BBC, he said “It’s taught me a lesson to keep going, no matter what the circumstances are. Your phone is your tool…You can do it all. You can do it all from your bedroom.” He speaks of his humble beginnings, making music from his room using his phone. Progressing from there to being a Grammy-nominated artist is something even he could not believe, saying in the same interview, that it was a surprise and that he thought when the news came out that it might be from a “fake prediction list”. In an Instagram post on the Grammy nomination, Adetunji mentioned that he recorded the nominated song with an interface that cost just £100.
