Dario Darnell wouldn't be where he is now if he'd grown a little bit more. At school he was a prodigious basketball talent, playing on a national level, with his eyes set on playing professionally. "But then I got to 13," he laughs, "and all my mates shot up, and I stayed the same size!" So, instead, he fixed his sights on music, and – though it's been a long and peculiar path from there to his current success as Youngr, with millions of YouTube views and dedicated fans all over the world – hasn't looked back.
Some kids of musician parents try hard to differentiate themselves, but Dario is proud of his roots. He'll happily show you video of himself as a tiny kid, wearing a zoot suit like his dad ("I used to wear one three-piece suit in the day," he says, "then insist on changing into a different one for dinner!") and playing the drums. Both he and his brother Lorne picked up every instrument they could lay hands on, and were jamming in the basement from as early as he can remember. Even when basketball was Dario's focus, they never stopped playing music.
It wasn't easy going, mind. He was earning money however he could through his music: not just gigging with the band, but playing covers in bars for £50 a night. Then one night, he got home from one of these sessions and fired up his Ableton production software. He pulled out a Calvin Harris vocal from a sample pack and decided he was going to build a new version there and then. He worked through the night and filmed a video of himself putting all the parts into their final form. He threw it online without thinking, but it immediately exploded around the world.
He'd better be ready for even more success, mind. With his first official Youngr single now over 15 million plays on Spotify and counting, it looks like the constant upwards trajectory he's been on since he first had to give up his sporting ambitions at 13 isn't going to stop soon. But this product of the hyper-modern world – conquering the world on a wave of computer clicks, worshipped by kids as a "YouTuber" – is also a very traditional musician, inspired by his father and by generation of proper pop stars, and with skills honed through years of practice and paying of dues. So there is no doubt at all that he's got what it takes to build on what he's achieved so far. He might have been working for years already, but his ambitions to make 'global' pop are undimmed: Youngr has only just begun.