City schoolboy rapper is a hit in the charts
IT is likely you have bobbed your head or tapped your foot to this song, without knowing it came from a Cov Kid.
‘Latest Trends’ is currently sitting high in the official UK Charts and is the work of rapping duo A1 & J1.
From Coventry and Kent respectively, the two met at the start of the pandemic on the Houseparty app.
Realising they shared rapping aspirations, they came together remotely to create their song, Latest Trends, which has since rocketed to the top of the charts.
15-year-old A1 from Coventry is still studying for his GCSES, and J1 from Kent is studying music at college.
The pair started off by releasing a 15 second clip of their song on the video sharing platform Tik Tok, which went viral, hitting more than 2million views, leading them to release it officially.
It’s an unbelievable story, and they have balanced all of this alongside their school books. So just how have they managed it?
We spoke to 15-year-old A1, over Zoom after a busy day of revision.
“It was completely random, J1 joined [our chat on Houseparty] and we start talking, he tells me that he’s a rapper and at that time I said I did freestyles on Instagram, and he said me too, we started talking about music, and realised we were quite similar, and yeah man, we literally connected, and now J1 is like a brother to me.”
He added: “It feels amazing, it feels so special, the fact that I didn’t want J1 to put that Tik Tok up, I was like what are you doing, take it down, J1 was like no, it’s staying, and to see where it was and where it is now is beautiful, it’s a blessing.”
A1 is currently in year 11 at school in Coventry, but speaks like someone ten years older, describing how he manages his time equally between his music and studies.
“I still want to ride along the education system, education is so important, in terms of like in a couple of years, I’ll still have to go back to the education system, so why not just do it now to get it over and done with.
“I’ve actually distributed my time, so I knew I had this interview and distributed my time, revise during the day.”
Such was their success, they attracted the attention of rap heavyweight Aitch, who collaborated with them and released a remix of Latest Trends.
“Literally, that experience with Aitch was amazing, seeing Aitch enter the room we were shocked, me and J1 looked at each other and said Aitch is in the studio!” A1 said.
It was pure chance that A1 and J1 ended up in the same virtual room on the Houseparty app, and from that initial teaser of their song on Tik Tok, they are now in the studio every week working on new material.
“The fact that I showed my
friends the song before it went on Tik Tok, this song is amazing, this is it, I didn’t really take it in, but it is like whoa, people said it was a hit.”
From The Specials and The Selecter, to The Enemy, Jay1 and Pa Salieu, Coventry has form for producing hit musicians.
So who would A1 like to collaborate with in the city? “Pa Salieu is a big one, the music we make is completely different if we were to collab, Jay1 too, he’s very talented.”
A1 lives with his mum and little sister in Coventry, and said the support has been amazing at home and in school.
“They’re so proud, mum is smiling every single day.
“Everything is just a blessing, people are saying thank you, you made me smile, for me, it’s a blessing just to see someone say that you made me smile and gave me good energy.”