Caroline. Does it ring a bell? Not to be confused with the iconic 2009 movie, “Coraline,” but the 2016 song by rapper and songwriter Aminé. This song blew up and was played all over the radio during the summer of 2017, and I’m not complaining. Written by Adam Aminé Daniel, commonly known as just Aminé, he was born on April 18, 1994, which makes him a worldwide known rapper at just age 26. The best part is he was born in Woodland Portland, Oregon. He takes pride in being born in Oregon, shown when he commonly references it in his songs. Not to mention, on his deluxe album cover for Limbo (2020), he is tattooed with the words, “RIP CITY” on his back.   

     The Caroline singer has a very supportive family, as well as friends that influenced him throughout his rap career. He is the son of two Ethiopian immigrants and stated his mother had a huge impact on his childhood. While driving him to school, his mother would play songs by Keith Urban, Bob Marly, and Tupac, enforcing a wide range of music tastes on the young rapper. While Aminé was in high school, he tried out for his school basketball team but was cut out during his freshman and sophomore years. His friends would commonly use the school studio to create beats, and just simply mess around with music. As he developed his love for music, he was able to start releasing mixtapes and EP’s from his computer at home.

     He released his first mixtape through SoundCloud, Odyssey To Me, on June 17, 2014. This was followed by his first EP, Vogue, which was released on September 4, 2014. His second mixtape, Calling Brío (2015) was when he caught the attention of Republic Records. This is a music company/label that has signed various popular artists such as Ariana Grande, Drake, The Weeknd and so much more. Once he accepted their offer, Aminé was able to obtain a larger audience. A couple of months later, he wrote, sang, rapped, and directed his 2016 song and music video for Caroline. With such a catchy verse and chorus, the song has accumulated about 307 million views on YouTube and peaked at number 11 on the US Billboard Hot 100. With so much positive feedback on this song, Amine released his first studio album, Good for you, in 2017. This album had many featured artists like Ty Dolla $ign, Nelly, Offset, Christ Wilson, and Kehlani. In addition to Caroline, the artist had other very successful songs on the album including Spice girl, wedding crashers, and heebiejeebies. In 2018, Aminé released his 2nd studio album titled, ONEPOINTFIVE. The song titled, Reel it in is his 2nd most listened to song on Apple Music, right under Caroline. 

    After taking a 2-year break, Aminé released his 3rd album titled Limbo. This album has a total of 14 songs with many featured artists. On December 4, 2020, he released the deluxe version of Limbo. This version has a total of 21 songs such as Compensating featuring Young Thug, Woodlawn, and Mr. Clean.

    As Aminé continues to release music and spread his talent worldwide, we can gladly say we enjoy the music he has put out thus far. It’s awesome to know that he’s from Woodlawn Portland, Oregon, since there aren’t many artists from here that represent the rap and hip-hop industry. Overall, Aminé is a great artist and has so much to offer moving forward.