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RUSSELL! Grew Up Online. Now He’s Making Some of the Best Music of His Career. [Exclusive]

RUSSELL! built his career before the internet made that look easy. With Flowers, he’s showing what two decades of persistence can sound like.

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Before he was RUSSELL!, he was D-Pryde, a young kid from Brampton, Ontario, Canada, who discovered posting videos on YouTube years before the rest of the world. And unlike the record industry, it didn’t take him long to realize this new platform he was using to post silly remixes to popular songs could be something bigger: a stage.

RUSSELL! uploaded his first YouTube videos around 20 years ago, when he was barely a teenager. Those first uploads were parodies and remixes of popular Soulja Boy songs, making them the most “late 2000s” internet thing possible. Still, he was watching people like Smosh, Ryan Higa, and Tim Chantarangsu make videos from their bedrooms and build real audiences online. He was paying attention… close attention.

“The root of it was Timothy DeLaGhetto, Soulja Boy, and Smosh,” RUSSELL! said during his exclusive conversation with VICE. “It only tells you what kind of times we were in.”

During those early days, RUSSELL! says he was motivated only by passion, which was pivotal to his overall growth as an artist. It’s important to remember that there........

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