The students at Richmond-Burton Community High School shared a portion of their playlist via the “Song of the Week” feature in the Rocket Review, the student newspaper at the school in Richmond, Illinois.
This week’s pick is “Young Dumb & Broke” by Khalid on his American Teen album. That’s the debut album of the up-and-coming artist, who sings about teenagers’ real lives and shares the truth as he, and apparently millions of teens, see it. It was released March 3.
Khalid was raised in El Paso, Texas, and is most known for his hit single “Location,” which he dropped only last year. Needless to say, the artist’s rise has been explosive.
Such a quick rise—American Teen sold 37,000 copies in its first week, which isn’t completely a blockbuster number but solid for a teen vocalist who dropped lone singles on the SoundCloud less than a year earlier—is bound to prompt naysayers who might suspect something other than hard work contributed to his success. A meteoric climb, which this isn’t, would require a bit of luck in addition to obvious talent, but he disputes that characterization:
Don't be mad at me bc I work hard LMFAO you should work hard too ♂️ https://t.co/FahJATf1K8
— Khalid (@thegreatkhalid) April 5, 2017
And he has collected respect for his hard work as well as his talent from the industry. “At 19, Khalid is one of the the most original voices in both R&B and pop, creating a late-night music full of warmth and flickering light,” Rolling Stone wrote about him in June, calling American Teen one of the 50 best albums of 2017 up to that point.
“In songs like ‘Young Dumb and Broke’ and ‘8Teen,’ he skips trap fantasies to talk about living with your parents and the ups and downs of millennial romance, where every love and loss is stored on a phone for future reference.”
