Virtually Famous: 24kGoldn

Golden boy: The San Francisco rapper guests on the latest single from Clean Bandit
David Enriquez
David Smyth18 September 2020

Teenage San Francisco rapper 24kGoldn is having such a fine time of it that he may even be able to afford a letter E soon. Last month he was named in hip-hop magazine XXL’s latest “Freshman Class”, its list of the dozen most buzzworthy new acts. Now his song Mood has cracked the top 10 in both the US and UK charts.

He’s on a second hit over here as the special guest on the latest single from Clean Bandit, featuring Mabel — a song so determined to go viral on TikTok that it’s called Tick Tock. Mood is the better of the pair, a track that covers multiple bases by pairing his sing-song rapping style with the kind of indie guitar riff that would usually be more at home on a song by Weezer. He has talked about influences including Blur’s Song 2 and the pop-punk band Sum 41.

As someone whose real first name is Golden and who was studying finance at the University of Southern California before his musical success led him to drop out, he clearly knows where riches lie. This hybrid sound is already paying off.

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