Benjamin Solomon (born May 31, 1998),[1] known by his stage name KING SOL, is an American recording artist from San Francisco, California. He gained online recognition in 2014 through a series of mixtape releases. Be Somebody, his first album, was released on May 22, 2016, and executive engineered by DJ Khaled's We the Best Studios. Solomon's first popular song was "DeLorean," a time-travel exploration story.[2]
Career
Early releases (2015-2017)
Solomon collaborated with Austrian EDM duo Leaving Las Vegas in 2015, creating the underground meme track "Varth Dader." The song was released simultaneously with Disney's revival of Star Wars. He is also known for his involvement in a school spirit video that included an appearance by NBA star Stephen Curry.[3] Solomon has performed with Billboard-charting artist George Watsky (both musicians attended the same high school in San Francisco). In June 2016, he appeared on the front page of SF Weekly.[4]
In early 2017, Solomon began debuting new songs on a weekly basis, calling the release days "Winter Wednesdays." The releases culminated with a project entitled "Winter Thoughts EP" on February 24, 2017.[5]
Initial full-length albums (2017-2019)
In late 2017, new KING SOL singles were released, including the popular record "OFF AT IT." A full album was released on January 26, 2018. Solomon cited this as the most important and sonically diverse project he had ever worked on. A Twitter post called it his "first year of college in 35 minutes."[6] Album topics include gun control and college relationships.
Several months later, the KING SOL Twitter account began referencing another studio album.[7] "The Insomnia Project" was released in December to generally positive reviews.[8] Although some songs failed to compete with Solomon's earlier work, the single "Bill Gates" did receive a music video.[9] This album refined the KING SOL style to a more concrete hip-hop/pop sound. Solomon says he wrote "The Insomnia Project" during bouts of insomnia he experienced in college.[10]
A third full-length album, released in 2019, did not spawn a successful single.[11] The rapper graduated from Tufts University in Massachusetts.[12]
Pandemic era projects (2020-2022)
Solomon released a new single entitled "2020" on January 1, 2020.[13] He announced via Instagram that he had recorded two albums' worth of material before graduating college and would be releasing the songs individually.[14] For most of 2020, Solomon released a new song every week or every other week.[15] The first 15 songs were packaged as "Sunset in Medford," an album released on October 2, 2020.[16] The album included one of Solomon's most successful songs to date, "Spartacus," which featured recording artist Mike Stud and tallied over 100,000 plays during its first day.[17]
The second set of songs was released throughout 2021-2022 and included on the album "songs i made before the pandemic," which was released on September 30, 2022.[18] Like the previous album, this project also included a popular single with an industry feature, this time "2 x 50" featuring Sammy Adams.
Possible final album (2023-present)
Solomon announced that his new album "self inflicted" would release on September 8, 2023.[19] Via Instagram, he wrote that he had "been working on ["self inflicted"] for nearly 4 years," indicating that this would be the first newly recorded KING SOL project since his college days. Initial singles "lulu" and "way out" offered a more polished, pop-style sound as a departure from Solomon's earlier work.
