Charlieonnafriday is a star on the rise — the Seattle born artist has a knack for melody, catchy hooks, and authenticity that can’t be taught. On “Same Friends,” featuring Lil Tjay, Charlie offers his best record yet. He waxes poetic about his come-up in the music game and bringing his same friends along for the ride with him before Lil Tjay comes in to deliver a bar-heavy verse that’s reminiscent of early Tjay records. In the video, Charlie and his day 1 friends from Seattle are settled into a lavish home in LA, kicking it and recording before all heading over to Lil Tjay’s house where Tjay and his guys are doing the same. “Same Friends” ft. Lil Tjay is a banger primed for long car rides with the windows down and the speakers all the way up.
Charlie hasn’t let up once this year. While he’s been flooding his fans with new music, he’s also been on the road. He kicked off 2023 with the ONNAFRIDAY college tour, making stops at some of the biggest colleges around the country and performing fan favorites like “Enough” and “That’s What I Get.” He’s currently opening for Jessie Murph across the states before heading to Europe in April to open for his mentor Macklemore. The Macklemore tour is particularly special for him — growing up in Seattle, Charlie has always been a Macklemore fan and now he’s added collaborator and friend to their relationship in addition to tour, Charlie was featured on Macklemore’s recent BEN.
To understand charlieonnafriday and where he’s headed, it’s important to go back to where he started. Raised in many neighborhoods in and around Seattle, but noting the Greenlake neighborhood as his home, Charlie says, “I just like capturing moments.”
When COVID hit in 2020, Charlie was a junior in high school and started thinking big-picture about what he wanted to do with his life. He reflected on what brought him the most joy, and knew music was it — specifically, continuing the lineage of iconic artistry that comes out of a city like Seattle. And then he manifested a career. By his senior year, he focused his songwriting and landed a hit with the slow banger “After Hours.” The song distilled the essence of the party, connecting with young people all over the world, as well as older adults remembering the good old days.
From there things happened fast. Just a few months later, Lil Keed wandered into the studio where Charlie was recording in L.A., heard what Charlie was working on, and demanded a track together immediately. They made “Misfit,” right on the spot, and Charlie calls it, “one of the craziest experiences of my life.” That was lucky timing. But writing anthems like “Colorado Boulder” with Kidd G, about college girls who blow all their money on “Titos and weed” — that’s not luck, that’s skill.
For Charlie it all comes back to the genesis of Seattle and that penchant for bottling life; “I’m not the same person I was in high school,” he says, having seen the world a few times now. “But I’m still making songs in my bedroom. I’m still capturing moments. And hopefully people want to live through what I capture.”
FOLLOW CHARLIE:
© 2023, Seth "Digital Crates" Barmash. All rights reserved.
