Everytime you take a nature walk with a melophile, you’ll always hear him or her saying, ” Music gives me the energy to carry on in life”,  ” Music is the soundtrack of my life “, or ” Music is the shorthand of emotion.” Their hearts get thrilled through listening to music and no doubt, they’ll ever live to be happy. One interesting fact about melophiles is that they are addicted to their favourite artist. One will say, ” Chris Brown is my favourite R&B singer”, or ” Khalid has the energy. My day kicks off by listening to his songs.”

 

Haha! Well, I don’t have to conceal my status anymore, I’m a melophile too! And we all have different tastes. We have several R&B artists who have been striving and for a purpose, to release their best singles and albums. They grok what’s to come next after days and nights of hard work. Singer Khalid, obviously, deserves to be called “The Big Fish”. His remarkable achievements in the music industry are encouraging.

 

Khalid Donnel Robinson is an American singer and songwriter signed to Right Hand Music Group and RCA Records. Born on February 11, 1998 in Fort Stewart, Georgia, he rose to fame after the release of his debut single “Location” which peaked at number 16 on the ‘US Billboard Hot 100’ chart. His debut studio album “American Teen”, which was consciously named such to combat stereotypical views on ‘Proper American’, was equally successful and reached number four on ‘US Billboard 200’ albums chart.

 

Khalid was raised by his mother, whose military career necessitated itinérant upbringing. He lived in military réservations in Kentucky and New York, as well as in Heidelberg, Germany, before his mother was transferred to Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas. Throughout, music had been a constant—Khalid started singing as early as hé could speak and his mother performed with thé US army chorus—but a supportive environment at El Paso’s Americas High School nourished his creativity and boosted his confidence. While at Americas, Khalid uploaded his first recordings. They quickly reached A&R exécutive Tunji Balogan, who signed thé artist to major-label RCA.

 

Career

• Some of the early songs that Khalid uploaded on the internet include ”Saved” and ”Stuck On You”. Eager to bring out another song before prom, he managed to contact producer Syk Sense and secured an invitation to work with him in an Atlanta studio.
• He first worked on the song in Atlanta and then back in El Paso, and released ”Location”, which eventually became a breakthrough single and earned him multiple platinum certification from RIAA. The song finished at No. 20 on the Billboard’s ‘Mainstream R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay’ chart in 2016 and reached the Top 10 on the ‘Billboard Hot R&B Songs’ chart on January 21, 2017.
• He featured on the single ”Electric” by Alina Baraz, released in January 2016. In December that year, he collaborated with Brooklyn-based duo Brasstracks on the track ”Whirlwind” from Yours Truly and Adidas Originals Songs from Scratch series, which was played over 700,000 times on SoundCloud.
• In January and February 2017, he went on his debut headlining tour, the ‘Location Tour’, covering 21 cities around the US, as well as Canada and Europe. He sold out all the venues of the 25 tour dates, including El Paso’s 1,500 capacity Tricky Falls.
• After the tour concluded, Khalid released his debut studio album ”American Teen” on March 3, 2017. Supported by singles like ”Location” and ”Young Dumb & Broke”, the album debuted at number nine on the ‘Billboard 200’ and reached number four in August, and also topped the R&B Albums chart.
• Kendrick Lamar’s promotional song ”The Heart Part 4”, which was released on March 24, 2017, featured uncredited vocals by him. The following month, he featured alongside Alessia Cara on the single ‘1-800-273-8255’ by Logic, which became his highest charting single, peaking at number three on the ‘Billboard Hot 100’.
• He made his first television appearance on ‘The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon’ on March 15, 2017 and performed the song ”Location”, backed by ”The Roots”. One of his songs, ”Angels”, was featured on the episode ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’ of the ABC drama series ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ on April 27, 2017.
• He began his second headlining tour, the 25-city ‘American Teen Tour’, on July 12, 2017. In September that year, he joined Lorde, who heavily influenced him, to serve as the opening act on her tour around the UK.
• The following year, Khalid released the number-one pop songs “Love Lies” with Normani and “Eastside” with Benny Blanco and Halsey, both of which tied the record for longest charting songs on the Mainstream Top 40 chart and reached the top-10 on the Billboard Hot 100.
• In September 2018, he released the number-one Rhythmic song “Better” as the lead single from his top-10 EP Suncity.
• In April 2019, he released his second studio album, “Free Spirit”, which debuted atop the Billboard 200 chart. The lead single “Talk” peaked at No. 3 in the US and earned him a Grammy Award for Record of the Year nomination.
• In July 2021, the silence was broken again with another ballad “New normal”.
• On Friday December 3, 2021 Khalid released his first mixtape the “Scenic Drive” (The Tape) album which featured contributions from artists like Alicia Keys, QUIN and JID.

 

Major Works

Khalid’s debut album ”American Teen” received critical acclaim and was certified platinum by RIAA on October 24, 2017 for selling over 1,000,000 in combined pure sales and album-equivalent units. The song ‘Location’ from the album also received platinum certification and sold over 4 million copies.

 

Awards & Achievements

• In July 2016, Khalid reached No. 2 on the ‘Billboard Twitter Emerging Artists’ chart and was named among top 10 new artists to watch in 2017 by several publications including ‘Billboard’, Yahoo and ‘Rolling Stone’.
• In 2017, he was named the ‘Best New Artist’ at the ‘MTV Video Music Awards’ and also won the ‘Woodie To Watch’ honor at the ‘Woodie Awards’. That year, he was nominated for several other awards such as the ‘BET Awards’, ‘Teen Choice Awards’, ‘American Music Awards’ and ‘Soul Train Music Awards’.
• He was nominated for a number of awards at the 2018 ‘Grammy Award’ ceremony. He was nominated for ‘Best New Artist’, his debut album was nominated for ‘Best Urban Contemporary Album’, and the single ‘Location’ was nominated for ‘Best R&B Song’.
• In 2019, Khalid was named one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People.
• During the BET Awards 2020 he was awarded best male R&B/ pop singer.
• His song “Talk” was nominated as Record Of The Year at the 2020 ‘Grammy Award’ ceremony.

 

From the records, we can inarguably conclude that Khalid will still be offering good music to his beloved fans year by year.

 

 

Blue Star Insider

Crédits: http://www.thefamouspeople.com

By Maxwell Kamau