(Credit: VladTV/YouTube)

Florida emcee Kid Buu, also known as the “Clone Rapper,” emerged rather suddenly in 2018 when he sent the internet into a frenzy with a suspicious and compelling story about human cloning. The lyricist had everybody on social media talking, and due to the detail with which he told the story, many people ended up believing he was rap music’s first clone.

Although many didn’t believe the Opa-Locka artist, everybody was sharing their opinion on it, and, as such, Kid Buu got what he wanted: eyes on him, followers on social media, and an increase in the number of people checking out his music.

Buu first emerged on SoundCloud and initially gained a following organically. As he released tracks such as ‘Double Up (Run It Up)’ and ‘Death 2 SoundCloud’, alongside Ski Mask The Slump God, Kid Buu saw some of his songs accrue up to 3million streams. However, it was his cloning story that thrust him into the limelight.

With the minimal coverage he was receiving as an authentic artist, Kid Buu decided to push a somewhat bizarre story that saw him insist he was cloned and brainwashed as a child. In an interview with DJ Vlad for Vlad TV, the Opa-Locka lyricist declared, “I was cloned by Clonaid in Canada. My model number is 0112568 if anyone wants to see the registration at Clonaid.”

The rapper persisted in using words such as “genomes” and told a wholly false story about escaping from the so-called facility he had been held in. Speaking about his mother, Buu told Vlad, “When I was cloned, they wiped a lot of memory, but when I stole the documents before escaping, I read that the mother was Puerto Rican and the sperm donor was Sicilian.”

When asked about his parents, Buu continuously used pseudo-scientific jargon to convince  people saying things such as, “A lot of the memories from Clonaid were erased just so that way the new-gen can move forward with whatever new programming was made.” For many, it seems ridiculous that fans could be so easily duped. However, the topic became contentious on social media, with “believers” and “non-believers”.

When the sentiment of the hip-hop world began to move against Buu, the emcee sought to prove he was a clone by revealing his supposed carbon copy to his fans via Instagram Live. That said, while sitting on a couch with no shirt on, the rapper screamed, “Y’all talking ’bout the clone being fake. Thought I was lying about being cloned?!”

With the question receiving mixed responses from fans, he suddenly swivelled the camera and focused it on an individual who looked identical to him, stating, “What y’all gotta say now? You see him. We got the same tattoos. Same hair. Same genetic structure. Look at my clone!” According to Buu, his clone cost $2million. However, the film pointed to the highly unimpressive likelihood that he had an identical twin brother.

Unfortunately for the fibber, a mugshot of himself surfaced during his lying spree, and some more information was available to the public. Contrary to what fans inferred from the name Kid Buu, it turned out the Florida native was 30 years old and had child abuse charges to his name. In an interview with XXL magazine, the rhymer fought these allegations, asserting, “The child abuse is, in fact, labelled ‘child abuse with no harm.’ When you play with Florida, they make things sound even more nastier than what it needs to be. I was like, I’m just gonna plead guilty for my own convenience to move on with life.”

After a while, the buzz around him died down as the stories became increasingly unfeasible. In a 2023 interview with YouTuber Asherjax, Kid Buu finally admitted it was purely a marketing move, unveiling, “At that time when I was being Kid Buu ‘Rapper Clone’ if you go to Google trends, you can see at that time I Googles as much as the Kardashians!”

He continued, “I was like ‘This could be really big for me!’ Sure enough, we started getting calls. Labels that weren’t calling me before were calling back like, ‘Hey, can we sit down we want to talk about some numbers!’”