Biography
Detroit rapper Lelo has pointed to Midwestern figures such as Earl Sweatshirt and Lucki as key shapers of his eerie, left-field style. By the time his 2024 track “No Contempt” entered the Billboard TikTok Top 50, he had already spent roughly five years creating music, three of them posting on TikTok.
Khalil Jewell, raised in Oak Park just outside Detroit, began laying down tracks with friends in the late 2010s. His first streaming releases arrived with the 2019 single “Pink” and the 2021 cut “Life Interlude,” the latter appearing as he began uploading short clips of his work to TikTok. Over the following years he maintained a consistent flow of new material, expanding his audience through 2022’s “Stuck Up” and “Upset,” until a deal with 10K Projects drew wider notice to 2023 offerings such as “Drapes” and “Holes.” Early 2024 saw the label issue his debut full-length, Nightingale.
Still, it was the non-album April 2024 release “No Contempt” that placed him on the Billboard TikTok Top 50, where it reached number 24 and helped transfer momentum to later singles including May’s “Limbless” and October 2024’s “GOAWAY.”
Khalil Jewell, raised in Oak Park just outside Detroit, began laying down tracks with friends in the late 2010s. His first streaming releases arrived with the 2019 single “Pink” and the 2021 cut “Life Interlude,” the latter appearing as he began uploading short clips of his work to TikTok. Over the following years he maintained a consistent flow of new material, expanding his audience through 2022’s “Stuck Up” and “Upset,” until a deal with 10K Projects drew wider notice to 2023 offerings such as “Drapes” and “Holes.” Early 2024 saw the label issue his debut full-length, Nightingale.
Still, it was the non-album April 2024 release “No Contempt” that placed him on the Billboard TikTok Top 50, where it reached number 24 and helped transfer momentum to later singles including May’s “Limbless” and October 2024’s “GOAWAY.”
Singles
