To say that Canberra rapper YNG Martyr had an unusual start to his career would be an understatement.
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Even how - or more to the point, where - he started rapping was out of the ordinary. The first time YNG Martyr tried his hand at a rap battle at 12 years old, it was part of the video game, Call of Duty.
"I was a massive nerd as a kid, I'm still a massive nerd," he says.
"I was in a Call of Duty lobby and there was a kid in there like mouthing off ... he was just going crazy [saying] 'Someone rap battle me. Someone rap battle me.' And I was like, I'll give it a go.
"I don't know what I said. It was probably terrible. I probably rhymed the word 'school' with the word 'cool'. But everyone went off. I'd never really been the centre of attention and it blew my mind that I captured people's attention like that."
Believe it or not, this was not the biggest influence the virtual world has had on YNG Martyr's career. When the rapper left high school, he went straight into the public service, working in web design. Realising that he neither liked nor was talented at web design, he decided to get a $15,000 loan from the bank and try his hand at rapping professionally.
But rather than using that money to buy some studio time - as one would expect - YNG Martyr used it to pay influencers to use his song Nike Ticks in their online content.
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"There was this whole internet wave of content creation at the time - and still is," he says.
"Once I started seeing artists that I liked have their music in the [video] memes, I wondered if I could just reach out to these influencers and do the same. I just kept the finger on the pulse because I love that stuff.
"I just started producing content with my music in it, and also working with people to put my songs in the background of the memes."
It's a strategy that's worked. It's been three years since YNG Martyr marketed himself online and that same song he paid people to use online now has more than 63 million streams on Spotify.
What's more, the rapper now has a record deal and is included in festival line-ups across the country, including this year's sold-out Spilt Milk festival. With the fact that the past two years have not exactly seen a thriving live music scene, combined with the speed in which the rapper's career has risen, the gig will be his first in Canberra as YNG Martyr. In the time leading up to the November festival, he's also expected to release his next album, as well as his upcoming single It Happened.
But the question remains, is a career that kicked off using social media influenced by influencers or is YNG Martyr still in control of his sound?
"I feel like no matter what you're going to experience, no matter what field you're in, or no matter what job you're doing, you're going to be influenced by what's in front of you," he says.
"And you're going to influence what's in front of you. In my opinion, it's a never-ending cycle of you being influenced externally, but you're internally influencing the external as well."
Spilt Milk is in Canberra on November 26.
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