Quadeca

Benjamin Fernando Barajas Lasky (born October 2, 2000), better known by his stage name Quadeca (formerly QuadecaX8), is an American rapper, singer-songwriter, record producer, YouTuber, and former video game commentator. Lasky began on the Internet by uploading rap songs, music videos, comedy sketches, and video game gameplay to his YouTube channel.

Quadeca deviated away from his YouTube career to focus on his music career, releasing four mixtapes prior to the albums Voice Memos in 2019, From Me to You in 2021, and I Didn't Mean to Haunt You in 2022. The mixtape SCRAPYARD, released on February 16, 2024, contains features from Brakence and Kevin Abstract.

Early life
Benjamin Lasky was born on October 2, 2000, in Los Angeles, California. His father, Mitch Lasky, is a Benchmark general partner and former entrepreneur and video game executive. Lasky became an avid soccer player as a child and was enthusiastic about hip hop and other forms of music. He also has a younger sister named Anna who was featured in some of his earliest videos, along with an older sister, Natasha. Lasky opened his YouTube channel on June 11, 2012, under the name QuadecaX8; his early videos were based around video game commentating and the FIFA franchise. He was admitted to Menlo School in 2015, where he joined the soccer team. Lasky continued to play with his soccer team through his student years and became a tri-captain of the team.

Career
In 2014, Lasky began to create rap-related content and freestyles for his YouTube channel. In February, he performed at a middle school talent show that went viral on YouTube. On September 16, 2015, at the age of 14, he released his debut mixtape Work in Progress. The mixtape acquired 10 million streams on Spotify with the stand-out song "Wii Music Fire" attracting over 7 million streams on Spotify. He released his second mixtape Nostalgia for the Now on May 11, 2016.

On January 31, 2017, Lasky released his third mixtape Bad Internet Rapper and followed it up with his fourth mixtape, Out of Order in November of that year. In early 2018, Lasky released two singles "Clouted Up" and "Heart Attack." In October 2018, he teamed up with Saint G to drop a joint project, 1Day, produced in one day.

In late 2018, popular YouTuber, KSI, called out Quadeca and other YouTube rappers claiming they were frauds. Lasky responded with a diss track "Insecure" within a week. The music video acquired over 8 million views within 10 days. In November, KSI gave a review of the track and praised it, saying that it warranted a diss track from himself. He responded to with his own diss "Ares," to which Lasky gave a lukewarm response in a tweet. Logan Paul revealed that he had wanted to collaborate with Lasky to diss KSI as well, but was denied.

On March 8, 2019, he released his debut studio album Voice Memos, and on March 22, Voice Memos peaked at No. 42 on Billboard's Independent Albums and Heatseekers Albums. He was invited to explain the lyrics of the song "Uh Huh!" on a Genius interview.

He was featured as a guest on the song "Roll the Dice" from KSI and Randolph's collaborative album New Age on April 12, 2019. On April 21, 2019, Lasky released the single "Not a Diss Track". On May 12, Famous American rapper Twista reacted to him and other new rappers on Genius's The Cosign, where he criticized Lasky for being "corny." On May 26, he released a music video to "The Man on my Left Shoulder." On August 1, 2019, Lasky released the single "Tomfoolery" with Egovert, Kil, and Moxas. On September 6, he released the single "I Don't Care", and on September 27, Quadeca and Moxas released "Schoenberg." At the end of the Schoenberg music video, he announced his next album From Me To You, which was set to release in early 2020. Quadeca went on to release two more singles that year, "Fish Outta Bacardi" with EGOVERT and "Beamin’", produced by Mathias Tyner.

In March 2020, he announced the lead single for From Me To You, "Where'd You Go", which he then released in April. He was able to explain the lyrics in a second interview with Genius. In April he also announced the second single, "Alone Together", which was subsequently released later that month. Starting in August, Quadeca took a five-month hiatus from all social platforms, to finalize From Me To You.

On January 29, 2021, Lasky reannounced his second studio album titled From Me to You on YouTube, which released on March 30, 2021, under AWAL. He released the self-produced single "Sisyphus" on March 20, 2021, which garnered widespread critical praise.

On September 19, 2022, Lasky released the lead single to his third album I Didn't Mean to Haunt You, titled "Born Yesterday". He then released the album's second single, titled "Tell Me a Joke", on October 25, 2022. On the same day, he announced his album, revealing the cover art, tracklist, and release date. I Didn't Mean to Haunt You was scheduled to release on November 11, 2022, however was ultimately released a day earlier on November 10.

On October 3, 2023, Lasky announced via his Twitter and Instagram pages an upcoming project, "The Scrapyard Series". Lasky detailed that the project would consist of five separate 2-3 song EPs, each one being released every 2-3 weeks. The first EP was released on October 11, 2023, titled SCRAPYARD I. The second EP, SCRAPYARD II, was released October 30, 2023, and the third EP, SCRAPYARD III, was released on November 22, 2023. On December 24, 2023, Lasky announced that the remainder of the SCRAPYARD EPs would not be released, but promised that the series would "go out with a bang." On February 6, 2024, Lasky announced the release of SCRAPYARD, a mixtape containing all of the previously released EP tracks, with seven new ones, including a feature from Kevin Abstract.

On February 15, 2024, Lasky published a music video for his song 'WAY TOO MANY FRIENDS' off his recent mixtape SCRAPYARD, on YouTube, while also teasing his upcoming album "Vanisher, Horizon Scraper" at the end of the video, which is currently in the works.

Style and influences
Lasky's early releases were categorized as YouTube rap but he has since diversified, combining elements of Experimental hip hop, Art pop, Neo-Psychedelia and Folktronica. His earlier projects were influenced by rappers like Logic and J Cole. In his second album From Me To You, Quadeca draws from influences such as Tyler, The Creator, Joji, Childish Gambino and Frank Ocean. Quadeca has cited artists such as The Microphones, Duster, Lingua Ignota, Björk, Jane Remover and Caroline Polachek as influences for his third studio album I Didn't Mean To Haunt You.