Call Me Karizma

Call Me Karizma is a hip-hop artist from Minnesota whose music is a moody fusion of a rappers’ flow and braggadocio, emo-style emotional shadows, and music that reveals influences of pop, rock, and electronic sounds. Call Me Karizma’s lyrics walk a tightrope between an arrogant confidence and introspective self-doubt, and his backing tracks are cool yet urgent, dominated by hip-hop beats and sleek keyboard lines, with guitars adding texture and energy to the music. Call Me Karizma enjoyed a breakthrough hit in 2016 with “F U Til I F U,” which was played more than 11 million times on major streaming services, leading to the artist landing a major-label deal in 2018.
Call Me Karizma was born Morgan Parriott in New Prague, Minnesota on April 28, 1995. He began writing songs when he was just 12 years old and soon started making music with his friend Nikky McGuiggan. McGuiggan went on to form a group called Fre5h AiR, and Parriott recorded a few tracks in collaboration with them. He began honing his skills as a live performer as he took the stage in Minneapolis clubs, first as Karizma and then as Call Me Karizma. CMK was soon playing dates across the United States; he claims he made enough money on the road to pay his college tuition out of pocket, especially after he hit the road for a series of dates with Mod Sun and blackbear during his second year on campus. As Call Me Karizma’s social media following grew, he released his first album, Uninvited, in April 2016, and a track from the set, “F U Til I F U,” became a major success. The track also appeared on his 2017 EP Emo: Everybody Moves On.
Call Me Karizma dropped a handful of tracks in 2017, with that year’s “Frank Ocean” registering with fans as it was streamed more than 1.7 million times. A 2018 collaboration with Illenium, “God Damn It,” racked up more than three million streaming plays, and he earned plenty of attention from critics and fans for his 2018 EP The Gloomy Tapes, Vol. 1, the first in a series of three projected releases under the banner. As his profile steadily rose in the indie hip-hop community, 2018 saw Call Me Karizma sign a contract with Arista Records, a newly revived label affiliated with Sony Music. November 2018 brought CMK’s first release for Arista, a track titled “Serotonin” that was informed by the rapper’s own struggles with depression and anxiety. The song landed on his effort The Gloomy Tapes, Vol. 2, which arrived in 2019. ~ Mark Deming