Jack Harlow has come a long way since he first started making music. In fact, he recently shared a photo of his 2018 tour that showed less than 20 people in the crowd. That’s why it was especially meaningful for him to be named Hitmaker Of Tomorrow by Variety, who awarded the rapper at their star-studded Hitmaker Brunch over the weekend. While on stage, Harlow told the crowd that he credits his love for the written word to his childhood days of reading Harry Potter books.
Harlow walked on stage to accept the award and during his speech, the rapper shared a story about his youth. He recalled the time when he was in second grade and he won a book-reading contest thanks the reading all the Harry Potter books he could find:
“So we get to the end of the school year and there’s a big assembly. The entire school is there, in my memory at least it feels like a stadium full of people. The climax of this assembly is the staff announcing the top three students who had read the most, or at least, had been credited the most points for reading. In third place they announce some fifth grader, he goes up and they give him his trophy. Second place, another fifth grader — he goes up, they give him a trophy. And in first place, a second grader, they called my name. And I had beat the entire school. I won by a landslide, I probably had quadruple whatever second place had. […] It was a competition and it brought out the competitor in me, which is a big part of the genre I’m in. All that reading is what made me the writer I am now and I’m pretty sure it’s what going to make me the hitmaker of tomorrow.”
Watch Harlow give his speech while accepting his Variety’s Hitmaker Of Tomorrow award above.
Jack Harlow is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.