Central Coast born and Eora based, BOY SODA has turned a bedroom project into one of the most interesting stories in Australian R&B. Real name Brae Luafalealo, he grew up in Terrigal, studied music and sound design at UTS, and started dropping early singles in 2019 that caught the ear of Converse’s All Stars program, led to an invite to open for Dominic Fike at a Camp Flog Gnaw x Converse pop up in LA, and eventually to a deal with Warner Music Australia in 2021.
From there the pace picked up. His debut EP The Distance Between Thinking and Feeling arrived in 2022, framed by him as six conversations with himself about love, healing and celebration. A mixtape, YC-Tape Vol. 1, followed, stretching his sound across collaborations and more club-leaning ideas. In 2025 he pushed everything into focus with Soulstar, a 13 track debut album that folds grief, faith, romance and ego into a glossy R&B record that still feels personal. The lead single Lil’ Obsession picked up an ARIA for Best Soul/R&B Release and helped cement him in the national conversation, while Rolling Stone AU/NZ framed the album as a statement of who he is at 27, not just a collection of songs.
A lot of that arc can be traced back to WELCOME TO THE GLOW UP. Released in late 2021 as a stand alone single, the track arrived as a kind of line in the sand. Produced by Korky Buchek, it leans on a bright, percussive hip hop and R&B crossover beat, Craig David style hooks and quick melodic runs that sit right in his wheelhouse. Australian press called it a high energy anthem, heavy on self love and progress, and locked it in as one of the standout local R&B pop releases of the moment.
Lyrically, WELCOME TO THE GLOW UP is self mythologising in a very online, very 2020s way, but there is real work sitting underneath the flex. He talks about the grind, the late nights, the mental rewiring that comes with trying to turn talent into something sustainable. The song does not wallow in that. It treats growth as something worth throwing a party for. In interviews around the release, he described it as a celebration of self acknowledgement and a reminder to stop and notice how far he had already come, even while he was planning the next ten steps.
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