Billboard congratulated Montgomery County native ‘Joony’ via social media for the rapper’s first appearance on the Hot 100 this week. Joony, who is from Silver Spring and attended Springbrook High School, entered the list after being featured on Brent Faiyaz’s “FYTB.” The Billboard Hot 100 features the week’s most popular artists across all genres.
Faiyaz is from Columbia in neighboring Howard County, and rose to prominence after he was featured on the GoldLink single “Crew” alongside another local rapper, Shy Glizzy, in 2016. The song was certified 5× Platinum by the RIAA, and earned him a nomination for the Grammy Award for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration.
In an interview with Underground Underdogs last year, Joony discussed growing up in Silver Spring. “So Silver Spring in particular is hella diverse. Lots of immigrants and sh*t. It was chill. I was an outside kid. Spent a lot of my time outside. I was skating a lot.” He started making music in 2014, when he was a 14 year old middle school student in MCPS.
In the same interview, he explains how he got connected to Brent Faiyaz, the artist whose track landed both of them on Billboard’s Hot 100. “His photographer, the homie Zoo, started playing my music around Brent. Brent just took a liking to my music, so he and his homies, the Lost Kids crew, was crankin’ my music. And one day I was in L.A. and his mans Trey was like, “Yo, Brent’s havin’ a kickback blah blah blah, you wanna slide? Here’s the addy.” So I slid, I chopped it up with Brent when I was over there, I got his number, we texted a little bit. A couple months later he hit me up. He was talkin’ about my music and sh*t with me. He was like, “Yo, your music hard, blah blah blah.” Then he started quoting my sh*t to me and sendin’ me screenshots of my songs when he was listenin’ to them. Then he told me I gotta come to L.A. to make some shit with him. So I went to LA pretty soon after that and we made two songs. And yeah, that’s how it happened.”
“FYTB” can be heard on almost any music streaming platform and has been featured on various hip hop and pop radio stations across the country.
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