11 November 2026
Thekidszn may seem an appropriate pseudonym for an artist producing hit singles at just 22. Yet the distinctly pop-punk, melodic sound of his most recent singles, ‘IMPULSIVE’ and ‘ASHAMED’, signals a newly forged artistic identity six years in the making. With both releases pulling in millions of streams alongside a remix collaboration with Jordan Adetunji, Thekidszn’s recent success amounts to more than commercial momentum; it signifies a decisive departure from his TikTok-rap roots and a transition into adulthood as an artist in his own right.
The Ohio-born singer’s upcoming shows in New York, LA and London offer a symbolic shift from his origins as a bedroom artist, as he trades the confines of his bedroom walls for the international stage. Mixtape Madness caught up with Thekidszn to discuss the ongoing evolution of his music, overcoming the blues attached to adolescence, and embracing a new reality as an LA-based artist with country origins.
Firstly, congratulations on the success of your 2026 singles, ‘IMPULSIVE’ and ‘ASHAMED’, on making it onto the Billboard Hot 100, and on your sold-out shows in LA and New York. How are you feeling right now in the wake of this success?
Thank you. I’m feeling great. It’s been a crazy year so far. And, you know, I’ve been doing this for a long time, but I always felt like we were gonna get here. But it’s been crazy, especially recently. I’m just grateful and I’m excited. I can’t wait to go see everyone in person soon on this show run we’re gonna do, and I’m coming to London too, so that’ll be fun.
You rose to prominence at only 16 years old, releasing your debut EP ‘Elevated’ in 2020. How would you say you and your sound have evolved since then?
When I was, like, 15, 14, making music, I was getting beats off of YouTube and just doing anything I could to try to almost replicate what I like to listen to. I think now as an adult I’ve really found a sound unique to me and figured out what I really love doing musically.
I make a lot of my music with my roommate, who’s my main producer, and we just really locked in and focussed on what we wanted to do. But I think it’s transitioned super well and I think we have a super cool, dark, melodic, sounding vibe going on that has a lot of elements of pop, rap, R&B – kind of everything blended into one, which I’m super happy with.
You gained notoriety during the pandemic from your singles ‘Go’ and ‘Leave Me Alone’, gaining traction on TikTok and Fortnite. What do you think it was about the pandemic era – a time when TikTok was growing in prominence, that made it so conducive to your emergence as an artist?
I think I was locked down like everyone else was, in my room with nothing to do, and I started making music a little before then. But I was in school, and, you know, I had to go to school every day, and all of a sudden, it was like, “I’m at home, let’s just do this full time, let’s just fucking lock in and make this a real thing every day.” It kind of just became a space for me to be creative and put myself out there online and do whatever I wanted to do, kind of in my own world. That was huge for me to be able to grow into that.
Which artists have influenced your music the most?
It’s funny, like, growing up, I grew up in the country on a farm. So I only heard country music. And then when I got the internet and an iPod, I started listening to Lil Wayne and Future and fell in love with that. Then when I got older, I really got into the SoundCloud scene. I used to listen to a lot of XXXTENTACION when I was young. I loved his music, and that was a huge inspiration for me, that whole era of X and Juice WRLD and everything – that was what originally started it.
Now I feel like I listen to everything from every era of music, and I really just spread everything out, and I don’t obsess over things anymore. I feel like it gets in my head too much if I don’t listen to more than, I don’t know, 10 artists at once. I feel like now it’s just super spread out and I just enjoy everything.
Even at a young age, it seemed you had a pretty solid idea that you would become a star. In ‘Jet’ from your EP ‘Elevated’, you rapped, “You’re gonna know my name. I’m getting bigger every day, but I’m still the same.” How would 16-year-old you react to where you are now?
That’s a good pull right there that you found out. Man, 16-year-old me would be so excited, but I really did always have a very, very strong belief and manifestation that this was going to be big, and that this is what I wanted to do. I knew that this was something that if I put everything into it, it would happen. Of course, I would dream about the things that I’m doing now when I was younger, so I would be so excited if I was 16 hearing this now. I always had that belief, though. For real, I did.
In that same song, you also said “I learned from all my mistakes, I don’t have regrets.” Looking back retrospectively, is there anything you would have done differently?
Man, probably if I sat down and thought about, it there’d be some things I definitely wish I did differently, but I honestly think I fucked up a lot on the way here and it 100% just made me better. I remember being upset about not getting this opportunity or not doing this right.
Then, when I look back, I think sometimes you have to mess up or not do something you wanted to. Maybe it just wasn’t the right opportunity, and you weren’t ready for it. I still don’t regret anything, but of course, there’s probably some shit I wish I didn’t do.
Anything you want to mention right now that you wish you hadn’t done?
Some of my cover art was pretty bad. That’s what I’ll say right there. I probably wish I had a better creative vision back then. Some of my outfits, too, looking back, were really, really bad. I wish I had a better sense of fashion. That’s the one that gets me, I think.
In many of your tracks, such as ‘AIN’T LIVING RIGHT’, you talk a lot about working hard to get to where you are now. Could you tell us a little bit about that journey?
Yeah, 100%. A year and a half ago I was really unmotivated and not putting out much music, not doing much. I think that when I dropped ‘AIN’T LIVING RIGHT’, this was a period where I basically had to start over from zero again in my career. And that’s what it felt like. I really had to rebuild myself as an artist and rebuild momentum.
I was dropping a song every two weeks for the whole year in 2025 and I was doing a video shoot every day, going out and filming content and posting on multiple accounts. For six months, I got no views or any traction on any of the videos and I would wake up every day and do it again and again and again. I think it took six months of every single day posting twice a day, dropping music every two weeks to get one video that got like a 1000 likes. That’s how long it took. There was just a period where it almost was like, “when is this gonna actually work?” And it finally did. It was a lot of work, a lot of music, and it took a while for it to start resonating.
There are also recurring themes of heartbreak, and particularly in your early work, battling demons in your head, to even losing a family member to suicide, which you explore in your single ‘PROUD OF ME’ from 2024. How have your lived experiences shaped you as an artist and the work you produce?
I think that when I was younger – and I think everyone remembers when you’re young and you first get into a relationship – it’s obviously your first love or first heartbreak that feels very deep. I think I was just going through that same type of situation and that was obviously very prominent in my music. Even though I was super young, people related to it.
I lost an uncle around that time as well, and I think all those things are very deep and impactful for me. I want to always, through my music, spread positivity outside of the things that you go through. There’s always better things coming for you, and there’s always a light at the end of the tunnel, I guess. That’s kind of what the ‘PROUD OF ME’ song was about.
And now, how do you navigate those demons in your head? Are they still there?
I think everyone goes through things, but I think when I was younger, I was a lot more of a little sad kid than I am now. I love life now and I love everything that comes with it, even the bad things. I really appreciate every day and I thank God for it.
I think people just need to be grateful. Everyone can find someone in a worse situation than themselves and compare themselves. But at the end of the day, you just have to be grateful for everything and just appreciate every good thing happening. You need to make sure you remember that when things are not going well. It only makes you a more bitter, terrible person if you just sit there and think about all the things that you hate happening in your life.
You were born in Columbus, Ohio, and moved to LA recently. How has moving from Columbus to LA impacted the growth of your work and your artistry?
Yeah, LA’s a crazy place, as a lot of people have heard or experienced. But it’s also very, very inspirational. There’s a lot of amazing people here that I’ve met and worked with. I’m from the East Coast, I’m from Ohio, born there, then lived a little bit in upstate New York. LA is completely different, and it took a while for me to figure out what I wanted to do and who I was. But I’m really grateful for it. I think it allowed me to completely find myself separate from where I grew up, you know. But I really like it. I think LA has a lot of amazing things about it, it’s been great.
Did it give you access to a greater network in the music industry?
Everyone in music is either out here or coming out here, of course, so everyone comes to LA. Some people think you just come to LA and all of a sudden you’re just gonna be on top of the world. It’s not like that and it’s very transactional. Everyone normally wants something from you here and that’s what you have to realise. It’s not just a bunch of friendly people that want to just turn you into an amazing artist and work with you. You really have to work for yourself before anyone else wants to work with you.
It’s still just as much of a grind, but the opportunity here is unbelievable and the amount of amazing creative people in all aspects of music and entertainment is super, super cool. So it’s definitely the complete opposite of where I started, where I was making everything in my room and there was really no one around me that did music.
You toured at the start of this year in the US. You have upcoming sold-out tours in LA, New York, including a London performance that was announced recently. As someone who characterises themselves as a bedroom artist, how have you navigated performing live?
Yeah, that’s a good question. I used to be absolutely terrified of live performing and it was super scary to me. I think I’ve even turned down live performances when I was younger because I was like, I don’t think I can do this. I wasn’t super out there, didn’t get my start in music by live singing or performing. So it was really terrifying, but I just did a tour in April and it was one of the most fun two weeks of my life. It was such a fun time.
I put a lot of time into rehearsing and making sure my live show was good. Once I get out there and start seeing everyone in person that listens to my music it really is the most fun thing ever. I normally black out when I’m on stage and don’t really remember the performance, but getting to see everyone after the show, meeting people, all of that really is great. I love how much I enjoy it now because I can’t wait to do more shows now. I’m itching to get out and see more people. So I’m really excited for these three shows and it’s just such a fun time.
Your music is being streamed worldwide, with over 100,000 listeners based in London. This might be a tough question to answer, but why do you think your music has resonated so strongly with a London audience?
I don’t know, but I love it, and I was just in London a few months ago. I actually really, really enjoy London – it has a super cool atmosphere and vibe. I love the city so I’m really excited to go back. I’ve had big listening bases such as in Germany and some other places, but I think recently London has been like a really big listening base out of nowhere. It’s kind of become the number one city in Europe for me right now, which is amazing.
I think that my sound is a little bit different from what the mainstream rap or pop lane is taking in the US, and I’ve noticed that in Europe a lot of people find me really early and appreciate my sound before it becomes popular in the US. Other than that, I don’t know, but I love it, and the London show’s going to be sick. I can’t wait.
And throughout your career, you’ve worked alongside many artists, from Tommy Ice to Jordan Adetunji on the ‘IMPULSIVE’ remix. What was it like working with him? And can we expect to see him featuring in any of your live shows?
Working with Jordan was super sick. I love Jordan. He’s such a talented artist and someone that I really think is gonna be around for a very long time because he has such a unique sound and style. It was a very tricky situation because Jordan lives in Europe, and he was in the US for like one more day and I had to fly. I was supposed to fly to New York to do this remix. That didn’t work. So at like 4 AM, I got a flight from upstate New York to Atlanta, and then I had to find a studio at the last minute and we got the feature done after flying in. I had no sleep and it ended up being such a sick feature, such a cool moment. Jordan’s so dope.
Definitely a possibility where we see Jordan coming out. I think he needs to come out for the IMPULSIVE remix. So maybe London, who knows, we’ll see. But shout out to Jordan. He’s dope, and it was super cool working with him.
Are there any other artists you wish to work with in the future?
I would love to do a song with Don Toliver. I think he sounds super sick and I think our sounds would work really well together. So, manifesting that one.
Since your music style is constantly evolving, are there any sounds in the future that you wish to explore?
Yeah, I think I really like a lot of the indie pop sounding guitar synth. And I love a lot of the house synth stuff going on too. So I’d love to, you know, work a little more with that. But, yeah, it’s always, like you said, always changing■
Words by Billie White
Thekidszn will be playing at The Courtyard Theatre on Thursday 24th November. Tickets are available here.