Khalid

One Liner: El Paso's favorite surprise high school star now doing hooks on major hits.
Wikipedia Genre:  R&B
Home: El Paso, TX

Poster Position: 2
Day: Friday at 5:45
Both Weekends.

Thoughts:  I've written about this guy a few times before.  For the Grammys, for year-end lists, for Festival spots.  I reviewed his only album a while back, which I very much enjoyed even though normally R&B would be one of the last things I would ride for.  In fact, I'm just going to use most of my review from back then for this post, because it still mostly holds true.
I've been reading about Khalid for a while, he just recently graduated from high school out in El Paso, and grew up feeling out of place wherever he was, so he started putting songs up on Soundcloud for his high school classmates to check out.  From what I remember of the article I read, he had a cool story about this, that the jocks (or some group) had been clowning him about making music but then "Location" actually blew up and the jocks got to eat shit for being jerk faces.  That may not be the way it went, but its how I'm going to remember it.  I may have some left over, pent up energy relating to my time in band and theater in high school.  Here is that first hit, "Location," which has 576.3 million freaking streams (up from 379 million in December 2017).  Huge.

Homie's gonna get laid!  Slinky and sexy booty call song using the mapping function on the phone.  Can you imagine being a freaking high school student and coming up with that song right there?  What a bad ass.  First, his voice is fantastic.  Second, he's put together some great lyrics, that reference the slang of youth while still explaining it in terms that even us old people can understand.  And then the track coming up behind it for new dominance, "Young Dumb & Broke," with 555.8 million streams (268 million in December 2017).

That song is a damn jam.  I mean, that is two legitimate, big-time hits for this 19 year old dude.  Pretty awesome.  I also like "8TEEN," even if the song title makes me want to barf.  I'll admit that the soul-pop-electronic sound is not my normal thing, and after 15 songs I get a little fatigued by it, but those three I've just mentioned are legitimately great tunes.

Now, since that album, if you look at his top ten most popular tracks on Spotify, the top six are all someone else's song, and Khalid has just been brought on to drop the hook or chorus or a verse.  Which is flipping impressive, honestly.  He's got one with Benny Blanco and Halsey (which I heard my girls singing along to last week) (90.8 million).  A Martin Garrix track (136 million), a Billie Eilish song (165 million), someone named Normani (364 million), a Ty Dolla $ign and 6lack tune (what the hell are those people?) (153 million), and finally, one with Marshmello that beats them all, with 607.6 million freaking streams.

Man, I really like Khalid's voice.  Something about it is different.  It's deep and booming and soulful and resonant, but it almost feels like he's not even trying, like he just happens to have warm honey in his veins.  That track is fine - nothing too special from the beats - but I very much enjoy the vocals.  

From his set at Lolla, looks like you'll get three or so of those group tracks, and then a set of his tunes from his sole album.  I kinda wish he would throw some cool covers into the mix, but I guess he still likes doing his own stuff.  I'd probably go check this out.