Meet Black Summer: The Eleven Year Old DJ

Most eleven-year-olds spend their time playing on sports teams, struggling to learn their times tables, or fantasizing about their most recent crush in school. But not Australia native Rhys Toms, the child savant of the EDM world, who produces under the alias Black Summer. This eleven year old spends his time producing electronic dance music in his home studio and has been experimenting with beats (he really likes dubstep/bass!) since his parents gifted him with the proper equipment at the age of six. To get his name out there, the young DJ did as any musician would do and released his songs onto the Internet. Rhys uploaded three tracks onto his Unearthed account, but it wasn’t until his original track “Dark Times, Bright Lights” was played on the radio that Black Summer started to take off.

Like any artist, Rhys had suffered some bad breaks when he didn’t make the cut for his school’s talent contest. However, kid-DJ bounced back and just last weekend played his first live set in front of 10,000 people at Canberra’s Groovin The Moo festival. Other big name artists at the Australian festival included RL Grime, Hot Dub Time Machine, and A$AP Ferg. Take that, school talent contest! Black Summer also has caught the attention of his long time idol, Flume, who recorded a video message giving advice to the young fellow Aussie prodigy. “My number one tip to you would be to always experiment, always try new things, and to have your mistakes.”

Best of luck to you, Black Summer! We will be tracking your career and who knows, maybe you will follow in Flume‘s footsteps and play a show Relentless Beats show in Phoenix! Want to follow his career? Check out his Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/pages/Black-Summer/361167554074910