Rolling_Stone_Australia_October_2017

60 | Rolling Stone | RollingStoneAus.com October, 2017

FROM LEFT: GETTY; COURTESY OF KHALID, 2

on tracks with Kendrick Lamar

and Future, and he’s befriended

Kylie Jenner, who gave his

breakout hit, “Location”, a crucial

boostwhensheplayeditonher

Snapchat. In September he’ll

hit the road with Lorde, who

called Khalid’s “Young, Dumb

andBroke”“fuckinggorgeous”,

andwhosemusichasasimilarly

potent combination of zoomed-in

specificity and generational sweep.

(“I love her,” Khalid says of Lorde.)

Khalid is new to Los Angeles,

but he’s already come to see the

art at LACMA “a couple times”,

posting shots of himself among the

sculptures and paintings on his

Instagram. He rents an apartment

in Studio City, in the Valley. A few

monthsago,heboughthimselfa

pre-owned BMW 428i droptop in

El Paso, Texas, where he attended

high school his senior year, and

drovewesttobeclosertothemusic

industry.BeforeElPaso,helived

in Carthage, New York, a small

town upstate; before that, he lived

in Heidelberg, Germany; Georgia;

andKentucky:HewasanArmy

brat, and all the moving left a mark

on him.

Today, he keeps the walls bare in

hisapartment,because,hesays,“I

getattachedtothingslikethat,and

ifIgetattached,Iwon’twanttoleave.”At

thesametime,headdsamomentlater,he

can’tsitstillanywhereforlong:“Ialways

getrestlessandsadifIstayinoneplace

–like,‘Iwannaseesomethingelse.’”Itell

him that he seemingly just

contradicted himself, and he

nods.“Movingmakesmesad

andexcitedatthesametime

–it’samind-fuck.”

When Khalid was about

seven,hislifeveeredinto

tragedy. His parents sepa-

ratedwhenhewas“very

young”,hesays,andwhen

hewasinsecondgradehis

father was killed: “He got hit

byacar–drunkdriver,didn’t

stop.” By that point, Khalid

waslivinginGermanywith

his mother, Linda, who

recently retired as a sergeant

firstclassintheU.S.Army.

“Iwasveryupset,mad–thestagesof

grief,”hesays.“That’sprobablywhyI

maturedalotfasterthanalotofpeople

my age, because I already lost something

superclose to me.” Beyond that, he felt

strains from the unsettled life of “a military

child,whereyou’reconstantlymovingand

youdon’treallyhaveanyformofstability”.

Khalid’s mother performed with a U.S.

Armybandandchorus,andhegrewup

duetting with her at home. At school he

performed in musicals – “I

was Cornelius in Hello, Dolly;

Seaweed in Hairspray” – and

at home he studied YouTube

clips of virtuoso singers like

Andrea Bocelli, the pop-

opera don. “I kind of self-

taught myself, like, let me

watch other singers, picking

up on accents and how they

portray their emotions.” His

list of favourite musicians

includes Fleetwood Mac

(he’s called “Dreams” one of

his all-time jams), Adele, Bill

Withers, Aaliyah and Father

John Misty. “I don’t think of

genre when I create,” he says.

“I just wanna make shit that sounds good

in my car.”

After Germany, he moved to upstate

New York, where “I was sad. I didn’t feel

like I had a home there.” His interest in

performing arts granted him a degree of

popularity at school, but also made him a

target. “My mum raised a self-aware kid,”

he says. “I wasn’t like the typical alpha

male.Iwasntafraidtosing,youknow?

I wasn’t afraid to be in musicals. Kids

are shitty. I got joked on. You had people

saying I was stupid, that I was lame, that

I was feminine, this and that.” He took

that negative energy and turned it into

motivation: “I was like, ‘OK, but I’m still

gonna be successful, and you’re not.’ ”

Khalid once thought he’d become a

music teacher, but during his senior year

in El Paso he began writing and recording

his own songs to deal with the loneliness

of being in a new town and not knowing

anyone. His experience throughout school

had had its rough patches – “people pick-

ing on you, calling you fat, talking shit

about you” – but songwriting helped him

through. “I had to learn to love myself,”

he says.

Khalid started posting his songs to

SoundCloud, building a following among

his classmates. “I put out this voice memo

for a song called ‘Would You’ that I never

fi nished, and the popular guy in school said

it sucked – he said it on his Snapchat, out

of jealousy, because I was a new kid. I was

Contributing editor Jonah Weiner
wrote about Haim in RS 789.

KHALID’S

TEEN SPIRIT

School was

rough for

Khalid –

“people

calling you

fat, talking

shit” – but

songwriting

helped him

through.

1 2

American Teen

(1) Onstage in Los Angeles

this year. (2) With his

mother the night before

she shipped out to Iraq. (3)

With friend and tourmate

Lorde in New York.

3