BIOGRAPHY
d4vd has emerged as a visionary artist only one year after he began writing and recording heart-piercing tracks alone in his closet in Houston, Texas. Having released a smattering of singles touching everything from indie-alternative to pop to R&B, the 17-year-old, born David Burke, scored a breakout hit in summer 2022 with the melancholic indie rock song “Romantic Homicide,” whose brutally honest lyrics about heartbreak and resentment have connected with hundreds of thousands of listeners. “Romantic Homicide,” which was recorded entirely on an iPhone in his sister’s closet, reached No. 34 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and led to d4vd signing to Darkroom/Interscope before he’d even graduated high school.
Having only listened to gospel until age 15, d4vd gained his now-eclectic taste in rap and indie music from internet wormholes and fan-made Fortnite videos on YouTube, which he also started creating as a homeschooled teenager. d4vd is also an avid Fortnite player who has amassed over fifty thousand subscribers on his gaming channel. When he noticed that the songs in his game montages were getting copyright strikes, his mother suggested that he should write his own original music as a solve. This motivated d4vd to start recording his own tracks after discovering an easy-to-use music-making app called BandLab. Gamer friends left comments urging him to release songs officially, so he started sharing tracks in December 2021 and soon built a presence in the “sped-up sound” corner of TikTok.
The runaway success of “Romantic Homicide” was unexpected because d4vd made the song according to his usual process. He’d find a pre-made instrumental on YouTube, go into his sister’s closet, and then “say whatever the instrumental needs me to say,” he explains. The lyrics came to him through stream-of-consciousness, and he later edited down hours’ worth of ideas into the eventual two-minute gut-punch in which he sings, “In the back of my mind / You died,” to a parting lover. “It’s literally the feeling that millions of people have when they have to leave somebody or they’re being left behind,” he says. “‘Killing somebody,’ or making them disappear in the back of your mind, is also like a form of forgiveness—having those thoughts erased from your mind.”
d4vd’s intuitive command of lyricism stems from his years of scribbling raps and poems in his journal since childhood. Growing up in the quiet suburbs of Houston in a Christian household, he was drawn to graphic novels and Japanese manga—especially the intense, gory ones like Attack on Titan and Demon Slayer, where he related to the “real and grounded” narratives surrounding ego and honor at the core of their fantastical imagery. “I would take bits and pieces from these mangas and add it into my own stories and worlds,” he says. His particular interest in storylines focused on relationships and isolation now shows up in his lyrics, which often evoke a sense of loneliness and yearning for connection.
d4vd’s early tracks show off his versatility and knack for crafting sentimental lines and melodies across genres, as on the surf-rock song “Take Me to the Sun,” the gloomy R&B of “Right Now,” and “DTN,” an experimental dance track. “I’m just trying to create my own genre and build a community around it,” he says. “Not many people who like Jersey club also like shoegaze, indie, and R&B. With my music, I can bring all those people together.”