Hotboii Details

The right path will reveal itself to an artist, no matter what they're going through. At just 7 years old, Orlando, Fla. rapper Hotboii was already rapping. His mother took note of his natural interest in music at such a young age. While he was just a kid with talent at that time, Hotboii, born Javarri Walker, didn't release his music until eight years later when he was 15.

Once he started dropping music, he caught some local buzz around his high school with his song "Switcharoo." At that same time, the then-aspiring rapper was starting to take more risks in the streets, stealing iPhones from people then escalating to breaking and entering. As a result, Hotboii found himself in trouble with the law, and was arrested and charged with criminal mischief for the latter crime. Since he was forced to spend two years in a juvenile detention program in 2016, Hotboii honed his songwriting talent while serving his time.

In 2018, he was a free man at 18 years old. Hotboii was trying to get back on his feet, but he also faced questions from his friends asking when would he get back to music—something the rapper wasn't fully interested in at the time. A year later, he dropped the 2019 song "YG's," a detailed walk through Hotboii's experiences and survival tactics in the street. The track has a unique bounce to it, and Hotboii's flow and touch on the hook sell the song. "Sometimes I feel like the only thing that could heal me is the bag, done fell in love with cash," he rhymes. The song's accompanying video has nearly 2 million views now, but it would pale in comparison to Hotboii's true breakout track, the somber "Don't Need Time."

Released in April and dedicated to his fallen friend Wolph, the piano-driven song, which has a slower pace than his previous work, shows another side of Hotboii, one that's more self-reflective as he questions the loss. "How my Z die? Thought real niggas never die/Gotta sleep tight ’cause people ain't waking up now/I know my nigga made it to heaven, I know it/Wish I could call his phone and tell him how it's going," Hotboii raps on the K Hendrix and LilHBeats-produced "Don't Need Time." He's already locked in over 9 million streams of the track on Spotify.