ARIA

The Kid LAROI has seen the world, and, at times, owned it with a string of chart hits, awards and records smashed. On Monday night, Nov. 17, the inner-Sydney raised, Los Angles-based singer returned home in triumphant fashion for a secret gig, a launch pad for ARIAs Week.

Performing with a four-piece backing band, and wearing an all-black ensemble, including a black tie and leather jacket, LAROI is grateful and in a soulful mood, laughing at times as he slides through a mid-tempo collection of songs.

Gone are the hoodies, baggies and the floppy blonde locks. This 22-year-old is all grown up.

“It’s been a crazy last year. I don’t know how to process it still,” he tells the gathering at Cell Block Theatre in Darlinghurst, where the likes of Ninajirachi, Baker Boy and members of the Wiggles watch on.

When he last time performed on home soil, exactly a year ago, LAROI played arenas for his The First Time tour, and at Accor Stadium, for the NRL Grand Final. On Monday, for this inaugural Spotify Artist Party, LAROI played to a space smaller than some of the L.A. parties he attends.

ARIAs Week is always a special time of year. The Australian sun is typically baking in mid-to-late November, the holiday period is closing in, and the ARIA Awards, the national recording industry’s flagship event, is the crescendo for the year in music.

Homegrown stars Dom Dolla, Missy Higgins, Amy Shark and many more will stroll the red carpet, and brave the heat, alongside internationals Kacey Musgraves and Olivia Dean.

LAROI won’t be there. He bailed for a flight early Tuesday. The Kid admittedly has work to do setting up his next record, but he played his part in this annual celebration of Aussie music.

Spotify wants in, too. 2025 marks the first in the streaming giant’s three-year partnership with the ARIA Awards, and comes at a time when domestic artists are struggling to impact the national charts, the official singles tally in particular.

According to data supplied by Spotify, this campaign has already driven hundreds of thousands of additional streams for ARIA-nominated artists, and included 800-plus “high-impact” placements across Australia and key global markets, including the United States, United Kingdom, Korea and Japan.

Ahead of the big show, more than 250,000 Australians have already cast votes in-app for the public-voted categories, including best music festival, a new category. That result is said to surpass total engagement for the past two years combined.

Billboard caught up with Joe Hadley, Spotify’s global head of music partnerships & audience, to peel back the layers on the ARIAs collaboration.

Billboard: Let’s talk about the three-year partnership, how that came about and why?

Joe Hadley: If you were to just zoom out and look at our partnership strategy as a whole, we really want to show up as a company where culture is happening, in a way that we can be supportive of both the industry and the artists.

When we were looking at the ARIAs, it was a no-brainer to show up here for this community.

It’s not about sponsoring an event. It’s about creating something together with the artists and the labels and our partners to build long-lasting impact.

You worked closely with the Music Awards Japan. Were there any lessons to learn from that?

That was a little bit different. It was the first year that something like that had happened in Japan. It was an incredible moment, so we were really in it with them from the beginning, to build something special. The ARIAs are long-established. We wanted to make sure that if we were to partner, we could amplify and take a national event and make it truly global, so we’ve worked really hard in partnership with the ARIA to do that. One thing you’ll hear me keep repeating through this is we’re taking something that has been a truly incredible national event and helping to globalize it.

Spotify is traditionally looked at as a digital company. We wanted too show up in real life in places where it matters, so seeing the artist-facing billboards in-person adds another layer of realness, to what we’re doing. But then having the event, the party with some incredible performances, that was also a key part of bringing this all together.

Do you have any takeaways from the ARIAs’ in-app voting?

What I think is more interesting is that the last couple of years, the most voted-for category has been international artist of the year, and with this shift to in-app voting on Spotify, that’s now changed to song of the year, which is obviously local artists. Which is a really incredible moment for us in the ARIAs to really push local music.

Is Australian music having a moment, or is it anywhere near having a moment?

Australian music is always having a moment. Dance and electronic music is leading the global breakthrough story. Dom Dollar, FISHER, Ninajirachi are in that genre and it’s having a real explosive moment right now.