Has Triple J found Australia’s youngest producer?

Triple J Unearthed may have just unearthed Australia’s youngest music producer. Meet 11 year old Rhys Toms, aka “Black Summer”.

Rhys is still a few years away from being able to hit the night club scene, but this hasn’t stopped the Canberra youngster from producing his own music. Rhys has been making his own music for about 5 years, but it was his father’s idea to enter his music into triple J’s Unearthed. Rhys and his dad Rick set up a triple J Unearthed profile under his stage name ‘Black Summer’ just for fun back in February. They never guessed the three tracks would generate so much interest.

“It was one of the best things we’ve ever done,” says the 11 year old.  “My main goal is just to be noticed and be appreciated by other people who like my style of music.”

The primary school student is learning piano, however his production skills are self-taught from watching internet videos.  He hopes when he masters the piano he can learn guitar and drums, just like his hero will.i.am.

“All together I’ve made about 20 songs but most are from when I was about 8 years old so they’re not the best, right now the 10 that I call complete songs are on my album.”

So, where does his stage name ‘Black Summer’ come from?

“My original name was DJ Summer Soda but I didn’t want to have that name because I found out I don’t want to be a DJ, I want to be producer and design my own songs,” Rhys said.  His alias was inspired by his dad’s Holden V8 named Black Betty,  and the annual Canberra Summernats.
 

Is Black Summer Australia's youngest producer?

Posted by triple j Unearthed on Tuesday, 14 April 2015

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