Unlike his SoundCloud rap progenitors, the Kid Laroi isn’t in the business of lowercase sadness, but brutally attention-claiming capital letters: like his song titles, he loudly styles it LAROI. Since his ascent in 2019, the 18-year-old Kamilaroi rapper has collaborated with the likes of Miley Cyrus, Machine Gun Kelly and Justin Bieber, making nine-figure streams sprinting towards the billions look like light work.
At the first of two headline shows at Brixton Academy, he sweats out his setlist like a fever, tearing through two-minute tracks titled like confessions of teen rage: Not Fair, F*ck You, Goodbye and So Done from his debut mixtape, F*ck Love. He paces across the stage with a desperate, kinetic energy, his blond mane slicked with perspiration, aptly wearing a shredded God Save the Queen T-shirt with 5,000 phones glaring back at him.
