From bagging groceries and working at H&M to selling out festival venues with a deal from Interscope Records, this SoundCloud artist has become one of the hottest headliners of the era.

Unlike most of these new artists that have been popping up out of nowhere, 20-year-old Atlanta rapper Playboy Carti isn’t just some overnight success. Carti began from dropping his first mixtape, Young Mi$Fit under the name Sir Cartier, to landing rapper Key! and Awful records as mentors while still in high school. Since 2014, Carti’s been building his fan base from songs on the internet to eventually landing himself a meeting with A$AP Rocky at SXSW in 2015.

What gave Carti his first breakout moment was his song “Broke Boi” which now has over 25 million plays. Stardom truly fell upon Carti later in 2016, with features on a few of Lil Uzi’s tracks along with a feature on “Telephone Calls” from A$AP Mob’s album Cozy Tapes. By 2017 Carti had already toured the country with some of the hottest names in Rap, and since became the popular yet mysterious phenomenon he is known by today.

Carti dropped his debut album Playboi Carti back in April, getting major buzz from fans, to fellow artists, to media outlets. Singles off the album have broken into the Billboard Top 100 like “Magnolia” receiving attention as a memeable anthem. With a new mentorship from A$AP Rocky and the success he’s already gotten from music to breaking into fashion and acting, Carti is in an atmosphere of success right now.

Maybe SoundCloud artists do have a future in the industry, if they work as hard as Playboi Carti that is.

Check out Playboi Carti below: