Christian Felner, better known as Felly, is a 22–year–old rapper who got his start at an all boys prep school in Connecticut. Since the start of his music career at age 13, Felly has kept the same look—shaggy, blonde skater boy. However, Felner has definitely come a long way from his east coast prep school days.
As soon as Felly got to USC, he started getting serious about his career, creating his own independent record label named 2273 (after his room number) out of his dorm room with his roommate. What makes Felly so special is that he cares so much about his music. Although he did alright in his classes, most of Felly's focus during his time at college went into creating beats, which he sold on Bandcamp. Every beat on the site has a different feel to it—in fact so do all of Felly's own songs.
While all the songs have that similar chill, soulful feel, each beat is distinct: some songs have much heavier hip-hop influences, some have a R&B feel, and some, arguably the best ones, have reggae roots.
From a young age, Felly has been really into reggae. He decorated his 14–year–old room decorated with a Bob Marley poster and a Jamaican flag.
This love of reggae has lead Felly to create songs unique from most other rappers of his genre, who focus mostly on trap central beats. Fight The Feeling, a song from his New Flavors EP, is by no means a reggae song, but the influences are definitely there. These influences lead to the creation of one of the few rap songs that captures the L.A. beach daze.
Felly also has a good time making his music. He posts a lot of videos of him making beats to his YouTube channel Felnuts, and just by watching him you can see why his songs have such a hazy, relaxed vibe. He's the kind of guy that just wants to dance with his best buddies at a beach bonfire all night, which he does a lot as evidenced by his Felcams (his vlog videos).
The student body at USC, as well as people in the area, fell in love with Felly's tracks, and as a result Felly started touring heavily starting his junior year of college. Now Felly has over 400,000 monthly listeners on Spotify, and his numbers only continue to grow. For a kid who started out rapping in a prep school dress code, or even for a kid who was making beats from his dorm room, Felly has done well from himself. Some might say his success is due to the sheer amount of content he has produced and how much work he puts into his career, but I think it goes beyond that. Felly's life revolves around the music he makes. Anyone who sees Felly's videos can feel his love for the content he creates and can feel the genuine joy that Felly does when making it. The appeal of Felly is not just in his music, but in watching a man enjoying everything life has to offer.
