Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you have probably heard of the young hip-hop sensation “24kGoldn.” The 19-year-old rapper, born Golden Landis Von Jones, was previously most well-known for his song “Valentino,” which peaked at #92 on the Billboard Hot 100. However, his most recent single is about to change that.
Golden Von Jones was born November 13, 2000, in San Francisco, CA. In an interview with Genius, one of the premier digital media companies in hip-hop, Von Jones told the story of how he got his prophetic name.
Golden explained to Genius that his father worked in the entertainment industry and had several coworkers of Chinese heritage, who learned that he and his wife had a baby boy on the way. His coworkers explained that the year of the new millennium was the year of the “Golden Dragon” in Chinese culture, an extremely lucky occurrence that only happens once every 60 years. This Chinese zodiac animal symbolizes power, luck, and success, sparking the idea for the name “Golden.”
While on his commute home in San Francisco, Golden’s father passed Ocean Beach and noticed the extremely beautiful golden sunset. He then turned on the radio and, coincidentally, the song “Golden Time of Day” by Maze started to play, leading him to believe that this had to be a sign from some higher power. From there, the rest is history.
During Golden’s high school years, he was a part of the choir and found himself drawn to music and dance. He credits both of his parents with developing his musical palate, as they were in the entertainment industry and exposed him to many different genres of music such as Michael Jackson, Miles Davis, Kanye West, and The Black Eyed Peas. Golden claims that his biggest inspirations in hip-hop are Drake and the A$AP Mob.
Aside from music, Golden took serious interest in his studies, as he was an honors student at Lowell High School. Developing a love for buying and reselling popular sneakers, Golden built a strong side hustle that eventually caused him to plan to go into finance. He received a full scholarship to the University of Southern California as a finance student and hoped to become a hedge fund manager. But when he stepped on campus in 2018, he didn’t know that his world was about to turn upside-down.
After gaining traction on the streaming app Soundcloud with his track “Ballin like Shareef,” Golden started to blow up as a musician. As the social media platform TikTok became more and more popular, Golden realized that he could use this to his advantage, posting short videos with his songs as the audio. Even though his managers strongly advised against this, it turned out to be a huge success, as one of his hit songs “City of Angels” is one of the top trending songs on the app. Since then, he has amassed 2.8 million followers on the platform.
His following has been rapidly growing since he released his debut EP Dropped Outta College, though he’s technically just on a leave of absence from USC. He’s currently signed with Records LLC.
While the young phenom has dropped hit after hit, his most recent single “Mood,” featuring Iann Dior, might be his biggest one yet. Released on July 24, 2020, “Mood” is currently the #3 song in the United States. I myself can confirm that this song is an absolute “banger.” It’s the catchiest song I have heard in a long time. When I walk down the street on my college campus, eight out of every ten cars that drive by are blasting this song with the windows down. If you don’t believe me, check it out for yourself.
With the recent success of his single, 24kGoldn jumped from the #10 to the #1 emerging artist on Billboard’s Emerging Artist chart. The entire hip-hop community is excited to see where he goes from here.
