BOY $COUT GATSBY

2023 is the year of Wollongong based Gamilaraay rapper, BOY $COUT GATSBY. He’s hot off supporting viral Canadian rap star bbno$ across the country, playing to sold-out Forum, Roundhouse and Princess Theatre crowds last month in what were his first-ever live solo shows.

Born in the Sydney suburb of Minto before moving to coastal city Wollongong aged five, Gatsby grew up the middle child of three with a dad who wasn’t often around due to working multiple jobs and a mum who openly struggled with raising three boys. Gatsby connected with the honest storytelling of country musicians like Johnny Cash and Kenny Rogers, and later discovered rap artists like Lil Wayne and Tyler, The Creator. Seeing music as “cheaper than therapy”, Gatsby “started writing some stuff one day” and wanted to “try some different shit” more like what he was listening to.

Since then, Gatsby has done everything possible to turn his life around. While getting his first radio play and later clocking 100,000 streams were pivotal achievements, releasing his single ‘Let Me In’ was an epiphany-like moment: “that was when I realised that I had levelled-up, and then started to think that I could really do music full-time”.