Laprete

Aidan James Laprete Powell (born September 6, 2001) is an American singer, songwriter, actor, and record producer. Early life Laprete was born on September 6, 2001, in Honolulu, Hawaii. Laprete's first time acting was at the age of 18 months in a TV pilot, "The Break". He continued to do commercials as a child. Laprete started playing the ukulele at age four, and started to sing at age eight. He started performing at age six in children's groups at local ukulele festivals. Musical style The ukulele, played as a pop instrument rather than in traditional Hawaiian style, is his trademark. He has said, "I want to be able to show the ukulele to everybody and be able to show that you can do anything with it." After rebranding to Laprete from Aidan James in 2020, he changed his sound completely, now being labeled as alternative pop music with electronic, hip hop, ambient, and UK garage influences. His influences include Jon Bellion, The 1975, Bon Iver, Jai Paul, and Sevdaliza. In live performances, James uses a Boss RC-300 to create loops live on the spot, Roland SPD-SX to trigger samples, Ableton Live, and TC Helicon's Voicelive 3 for ukulele and singing effects. Career At age eight, Laprete performed the song "Hey Soul Sister" by Train at the 2010 Ukulele Festival. On July 19, 2010, a video of this performance was uploaded by "elrollo79" onto YouTube. The video quickly went viral and has received over twenty million views. The video got the attention of a number of popular artists, among them Jack Johnson and Mick Fleetwood as well as Train's Pat Monahan who is reported to have called it his favorite cover version of the song. Jack Johnson asked James to be a part of the 2010 Kokua Festival. James played at the keiki stage at the festival.