Hoodie Allen is a US singer, rapper and songwriter who became well known to the American listener in 2012 after the release of his debut EP album All American. It immediately hit the top 10 best-selling releases on the Billboard 200 chart.
The beginning of the creative life of Hoodie Allen
The real name of the musician is Steven Adam Markowitz. The musician was born on August 19, 1988 in New York. The boy grew up in a Jewish family in the Plainview area. As a child, he began to be interested in rap. From the age of 12, the boy began to write the first rap texts and read them to his friends at school. However, in the process of growing up, the dream of a musical career had to be forgotten for a while.
After receiving his diploma (the young man graduated from the University of Pennsylvania) in 2010, Stephen worked at Google. At the same time, he managed to record songs, write lyrics, even shoot videos, despite a full-time job. Hoody already had a small fan base that allowed him to perform in small clubs and earn his first money from music.
As the musician recalls, then he had the feeling that he was working at two jobs at once - the schedule was very busy. Soon, the novice performer had the opportunity to perform with his own music and make full money at concerts. As a result, the young man decided to leave Google and start a full-fledged musical career.
Hoodie Allen was originally a duo of Steven and Obie City (Obi had been Markowitz's childhood friend). Their group was created back in 2009 while studying at the university. Already at this time, the guys gained their first glory. After releasing two releases (the Bagels & Beats EP and the Making Waves mixtape), they even received a prestigious music award on Campus. However, a year later, Obi stopped making music and Hoodie Allen turned from a duet into a pseudonym for one singer.
One of the first solo tracks You Are Not a Robot became very popular on the Internet, which prompted Stephen to record new songs, which later grew into the first solo mixtape Pep Rally. The mixtape turned out to be quite successful, and Hoody released a new Leap Year a year later. After the release of the release, the musician was invited to tour by the Fortune Family group. Steven performed as an opening act in 15 cities, which added to the base of fans of his work.
The Rise of Hoody Allen's Popularity
With such a start, Hoody thought that now is the time to release an album. After quitting Google, he started recording. The release was small and created in the format of an EP - a short-format album. The album was released in April 2012 and was commercially successful.
In addition to hitting the top 10 on the Billboard 200, it did well on iTunes, debuting at #1. The album gave Hoody the opportunity to tour cities in the United States solo. So 22 concerts took place at once, and in many cities Alain was invited to famous TV shows. The popularity of the musician has increased rapidly. In the middle of the year, a UK tour was also organized - these were the first performances of the musician abroad.
To consolidate the popularity of Hoody decided to release a new mixtape. Crew Cuts was released in 2013 and became popular among listeners. The singles had music videos that received millions of views on YouTube. In the summer, the musician released a new EP, the concept of which was to perform acoustic versions of songs already beloved by the "fans".
The release debuted again on iTunes at number 1. Sales and views of video clips showed that Hoody became a prominent artist, he was invited for interviews by famous bloggers and TV shows. In parallel, the musician continued to tour the United States and Europe.
At that moment, Alain realized that the time had come for the release of the first full-length LP album. People Keep Talking was released in the fall of 2014 and was accompanied by a number of successful singles that were recorded with the participation of musicians from different genres. In particular, rapper D-WHY and rock singer Tommy Lee can be heard in the songs. The title of the album means "People keep talking". If you correlate it with a career as a musician, then it turned out to be true - people continued to talk about the new star of American hip-hop.
Steven did a tour of the same name to "promote" the album in 2015. At the same time, it covered the maximum number of cities in different countries and continents. Hoody performed with concerts in Canada, the USA, Europe and even Australia, and the tour lasted about 8 months.
Further creativity
The second studio album was recorded immediately after the return of Alain from the tour and was called Happy Camper. The album also sold well, as did the debut release.
A year later, The Hype was released, and two more years later, the Whatever USA album. These two releases were not as successful as the first two discs. However, the musician has created a base of fans of his work, who willingly buy his records and wait on tour in their cities. Recently, Hoody has also been in the news due to scandals involving the seduction of underage girls.
Today, the singer's music is a combination of hip-hop, funk and pop music. This is what makes him so popular with the audience.
