Jack Harlow Artistfacts

March 13, 1998
In high school, his brand was white and nerdy. He wore glasses, dressed shabbily, and wrote a lot of self-deprecating rhymes. A lot of this was to avoid posturing; a middle-class white kid, he didn't want to act like he had a more hardscrabble upbringing.
When he was young, Harlow lived in Shelbyville, Kentucky, but moved to Louisville with his family when he was in third grade. Many of his songs reference places and events in and around Louisville.
He doesn't have any tattoos because he considers himself an "evolutionary person."

"Doing something permanently intimidates me," he told Rolling Stone. "I like the thought of being an actor and having no limitations in that."
He signed his first record deal, to the Atlantic subsidiary Generation Now, in 2018 when he was 20. Years earlier, when his self-distributed mixtapes started getting attention locally, he got some nibbles from agents and record labels, but nothing worked out. Looking back, Harlow is glad he didn't sign a deal as a teenager, as it would have robbed him of the normal life events he got to experience as a non-celebrity.
He doesn't like to farm out his talents for guest verses, but made exceptions for Lil Nas X (on "Industry Baby") and Eminem (on a remix of "Killer").
He popularized a trend of releasing bits of songs on TikTok before their official debuts. In 2022, he did it with "First Class," which got users talking about the track and using it in videos before it was issued.

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