Six Months on the Streets, Then Belgium's Rap King

William Kalubi, who raps as Damso, was born in Kinshasa and raised in Belgium. While studying psychology at university, he decided to commit to music and drew up a ten-year plan, with the aim of succeeding in the industry and then leaving it.

His parents saw the plan as nonsense and put him out of the family home. He told The Guardian that for them it was nonsense, and so he spent six months on the streets. The article does not give a date for this period and does not describe how it ended, beyond saying that he stayed with his plan.

He kept to it. In his words, he wrote, signed to a record label and released his first project, followed by his second, third and fourth albums. He says he had the title of each album before he started recording it.

All four of his albums have gone platinum in France, some many times over, and three reached number one. His fourth album, QALF, released in September 2020 without any promotion, drew 14 million streams in 24 hours, which made him the most streamed artist in the world that day. From QALF onwards, he has released his music independently.

The last step of his plan, as he describes it, is a camper van fitted with recording equipment, which he wants to drive somewhere remote in order to make music. The newspaper presents him as Belgium's biggest rap star, a musician who turned six months without a home into part of a long and carefully held plan.