Before the irresistible pop melodies and smirk-worthy wordplay, KYLE was just Kyle Harvey from Ventura. He was raised mainly by his mother, who listened to 90’s rock, not rap. Nirvana, Incubus, and Sublime were among his main influences growing up. However, when he started developing a substantive relationship with his father at the age of ten, his enthusiasm for music was radically enhanced. A chance introduction to hip-hop via his father playing Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s “Got Your Money” put KYLE over the edge and revolutionized his view of musical expression. His father was so pleased with their shared interest, that he took his then-eleven-year-old son to wade through clouds of marijuana smoke and sit behind the boards at a professional music studio. From there, working toward a music career became an inevitable path.
In 2009, a fifteen-year-old KYLE (known at the time as K.i.D.) began developing a series of mixtapes critical to his eventual breakthrough. After releasing five mixtapes in just under two years, he signed to his first label, Indie-Pop. Under Indie-Pop he released two commercial mixtapes, 2013’s Beautiful Loser, and 2015’s pivotal Smyle. As KYLE’s first project to crack the top 10 of the U.S. Rap charts, Smyle got a huge boost with Chance the Rapper’s feature on the song, “Remember Me?”
Just a year after snagging millions of views online with his newest work, KYLE cast a tall shadow on the Pop/Rap scene with the release of the Billboard Top 10 hit, “iSpy,” with Lil Yachty. Since the release of the multi-platinum hit, KYLE was not only included in the XXL Freshman Class but also signed to Atlantic, under whom he would release 2018’s Light of Mine and 2020’s See You When I Am Famous.
