KennyHoopla

About KennyHoopla

KennyHoopla started making noise around 2019 when Kenneth La'ron figured out how to bottle the specific anxiety of being extremely online and set it to power chords. The Wisconsin-raised, Cleveland-based artist came up through SoundCloud, which you can hear in the way his songs toggle between sung melodies and talk-rapped verses without much warning.

His early tracks like "How Will I Rest in Peace if I'm Buried by a Highway?" had this raw, unpolished energy that connected with people who grew up on both emo and hip-hop. The song titles alone gave away his influences: long, confessional, slightly dramatic. He was clearly pulling from early 2000s pop-punk and MySpace-era alternative, but filtering it through the production aesthetics of modern rap and bedroom pop.

The breakthrough came with "Estella," a collaboration with Tour de Force vocalist Travis Barker, who seems to have appointed himself the godfather of the emo revival whether anyone asked or not. The song hit in 2020 and actually justified Barker's involvement. It had this driving, anxious momentum that felt right for the pandemic era, and suddenly KennyHoopla was getting co-signs from a scene he'd only experienced through YouTube videos and Spotify playlists.

He followed that up with "How Will I Rest in Peace if I'm Buried by a Highway?" the full project, and then dropped "Survivors Guilt: The Mixtape" in 2021. The mixtape worked because it didn't try to sand down any rough edges. Songs like "Hollywood Sucks" and "Silence Is Also an Answer" bounced between genres without apology, matching the restless energy of his lyrics about feeling disconnected and overstimulated at the same time.

What makes KennyHoopla interesting is that he showed up right as this whole hyphenated emo-rap-pop-punk thing was reaching critical mass, but he doesn't sound like he's chasing a trend. When he screams or gets melodramatic, it feels closer to Taking Back Sunday than Lil Peep. The production is cleaner than emo rap, dirtier than pop-punk, and he has this habit of letting his voice crack and strain in ways that modern production usually smooths out.

He signed to Arista Records and has spent the past few years touring and releasing singles, collaborating with people like Jesse Rutherford and Chief Keef, which tells you something about his range. His 2023 album "Survivors Guilt: The Deluxe" expanded on the mixtape with more polished production but the same caffeinated energy.

Right now, he's in that middle zone where he's too big for the DIY scene but not quite a household name. He's built a dedicated following of people who like their rock music with 808s and their rap with power chords, and he's still young enough that he could go several directions from here. The ceiling feels high if he figures out which version of himself connects the hardest.

His shows attract a younger crowd that actually knows the words. There's an intensity that comes from people who've listened to these songs alone with their thoughts. The energy is present but sincere—less mosh pit, more collective catharsis.

Known for Hollywood, Diluted, Scumbag, Nosebleed, Estranged

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