Music
"My whole life changed": Masked Wolf's incredible ride to the top
In 2021, Sydney rapper Masked Wolf topped charts around the world with his track Astronaut in the Ocean. It was a breakthrough moment a decade in the make.
For eleven long years, Masked Wolf hustled.
“From literally 18 to 29-years-old, I was working full time, writing during the week and then going to studios either after work or on the weekends,” he tells Red Bull. “I was in sales a lot. I did real estate. JB HiFi. Telemarketing. And then I just had to find the time outside of that to write and make songs.”
The hard work paid off – eventually. Today, Masked Wolf is one of Australia rap’s most staggering success stories. His breakthrough track, Astronaut in the Ocean, a heady rap tune you’ve probably heard on TikTok or played several times a day on the radio, took him from obscurity to the top of the charts. It’s gone platinum everywhere from Australia to the US, Brazil and France. It was a #1 track in eight countries worldwide, scored five ARIA Award nominations, and was one of only two Australian tracks to hit a billion streams in 2021. (The other was a Tame Impala song from 2015.)
It’s a success story Masked Wolf – AKA Harry, or just Wolf –- knows he owes to that decade of blood, sweat and tears.
“I always say the difference between someone making it and someone not making it is the person that didn't make it gave up,” Wolf says down the line from Croatia, where he’s now onto his second month of touring through Europe. “Like, you look anyone – Kid Laroi was hustling ever since he was 13, going backstage at shows. I walked around Sydney with a backpack full of hip-hop albums on my own, just handing them out and trying to sell them.”
“I've had so many rappers since I was teenager tell me that I was never going to make it. And then I've seen them or people around them just give up.”
Today, a year on from his breakthrough moment, Masked Wolf is still out to prove the naysayers wrong. He is the latest artist to step up for Red Bull 64 Bars, delivering a slick two-minute track with a message: Astronaut in the Ocean was no fluke.
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Masked Wolf
Hugely talented Sydney-based rapper Masked Wolf lays down 64 bars on a track produced by Tyron Hapi.
Wolf’s bars are clever, considered and full of acerbic wordplay aimed directly at the rap heads. He says he wanted to set the standard for other Australian rappers and make it clear that there’s more to his arsenal than just that world-conquering hit.
“I’m just trying to make our scene competitive and more heard,” he explains. “So my aim was just to have a lot of punch lines and cool bars but at the same time have people be like, okay, he’s serious. He’s not just a one hit wonder. He can actually rap.”
He can certainly rap. Wolf has been honing his flow since he was a teenager, after taking a somewhat different path into the booth than most. A keen English student at school, he enjoyed writing and, inspired by musical heroes like Eminem, Kanye and Jay-Z, turned his attention to penning bars of his own. Then he started recording Christian raps after the pastor’s son at his church urged him to give it a go.
“I used to go to church every Sunday,” Wolf says. “The pastor's son had a studio and one day he was like, ‘Do you want to come into the studio? You could do really well.”
Eventually, Wolf transitioned away from those religious bars into rhymes about his life, his feelings and stories he wanted to tell. It was the days before streaming so he would record his tracks, grab an image off Google and upload them to YouTube or Facebook groups, where he’d ask for feedback from strangers on the internet. Along the way, he started hitting up managers wherever he could, asking for business cards at shows and cold emailing over his music. There were moments he thought about giving it all up, but a voice in his head kept him going.
“This was actually false information, but one of my friends once said to me, ‘Keep going, G-Eazy got signed when he was 32,'” he says. “And every time I got to 25, or 26, and I started to think that maybe I'm just too old and only really young rappers get signed, I just thought, but G-Eazy got signed when he was 32.”
Eventually, Wolf caught the ear of Melbourne music company Lucky Entertainment, who signed him and put him in the studio with producer Tyron Hapi. Together, the pair made and released a few tracks before the one that would change everything.
Masked Wolf in the studio with Tyron Hapi.
© Tristan Stefan Edouard
In mid-2019, Masked Wolf released Astronaut in the Ocean – but it didn’t blow up immediately. Even more incredible than the track’s mammoth success is the fact that it would be another two years before Astronaut became a global hit. Momentum grew gradually as listeners shared the track with others and “snowball effect” began to build, Wolf remembers.
“Then once it got a bit of traction on TikTok, it just went from snowball to avalanche or landslide”
Then it dropped like a bomb on TikTok: “Once it got a bit of traction on TikTok, it just went from snowball to avalanche or landslide. And from then it was everywhere. But it all started with word of mouth, which was the real genuine part about it.”
That landslide of listeners upended Masked Wolf’s life.
“I would say within the span of one or two months, everything changed,” he recalls. “All of these interviews were suddenly happening and all of these lights were on. You're going to these events, you're speaking to these different people. My whole life did a 180 – a complete flip.”
That incredible success sometimes felt strange.
“It was scary, to be honest. It was really scary,” Wolf says. “You dream of it. You think, no way it's gonna happen. But at the same time, you're like, I'll never give up. You don't know what could happen. And then it happens… it was hard to manage at times, but I had to roll with the punches and roll with what I've always wanted.”
By early 2021, Wolf had quit his job to focus on music full time. Once the pandemic eased, the non-stop touring began, with sold out gigs everywhere from Egypt to Romania. He’s dropped follow-up hits in Fallout and Say So, and enjoyed the way fans have elevated cuts from his earlier discography like 2018’s Speed Racer. In a full circle moment, Wolf even got his idol G-Eazy on Astronaut in the Ocean’s official remix.
“So when I say it's been a complete 180, I literally mean my whole life changed,” he says.
Masked Wolf for Red Bull 64 Bars.
© Tristan Stefan Edouard
Now, after everywhere Astronaut in the Ocean has taken him, Masked Wolf just wants to show off his penmanship – the reason he got into rap in the first place. Red Bull 64 Bars was the perfect avenue to put his skills in the spotlight without any distractions.
“I felt like it was a very good opportunity to showcase what I'm able to write. I mean, it's not a small platform, Red Bull,” he says. “And it’s not like, hey, we'll get you back in six months to do another 64 Bars – this is the one the one shot you get to really put yourself out there, especially as it's very big in Australia. I just wanted to showcase my bars a bit more, and I hope I do that.”
But as much as Masked Wolf wants to flex his talent, he’s at peace with whatever comes next.
“Whether my career goes until I'm 40 or I'm 50 or for another three or four years, whatever it may be, that's not my decision,” he says. “I would love it to be everlasting. But at the same time, I'd rather I'd rather music be heard by people that need it. I'd rather it actually help and change someone's life or give them inspiration.”
