Quadeca

Biography

Benjamin Fernando Barajas Lasky (born October 2, 2000), better known by his stage name Quadeca, is an American singer-songwriter, record producer and rapper. Lasky began uploading songs and videos to his YouTube channel in the 2010s and began pursuing his musical career in the 2020s, which has since been met with critical acclaim.
Lasky deviated away from his YouTube career as QuadecaX8 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. His fourth studio album, Vanisher, Horizon Scraper, was released in July 2025, and contains features from Danny Brown, Maruja and Olēka. His fifth studio album, Life 1, released on October 1, 2026.

Early life

Benjamin Fernando Barajas Lasky was born on October 2, 2000, in Los Angeles, California. His father, Mitch Lasky, is a general partner for Benchmark, and a 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, spending his free time writing songs on guitar and piano. His younger sister Anna featured in some of his earliest videos; he also has 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. 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. 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.

2018–2021: Voice Memos and From Me to You

In late 2018, YouTuber KSI called out Lasky and other YouTube rappers, referring to them as "frauds". Lasky responded with a diss track, titled "Insecure", within a week. The music video received 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 Lasky's song with his own diss track "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, the album peaked at No. 42 on Billboard's Independent Albums and Heatseekers Albums. He was featured on the song "Roll the Dice" from KSI and Randolph's collaborative album New Age on April 12, 2019, and continued releasing singles for the rest of the year, including the songs "Not a Diss Track", "Schoenberg", and "I Don't Care".
After an extended hiatus, 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.

2022–present: I Didn't Mean to Haunt You, Scrapyard and Vanisher, Horizon Scraper

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. The album, a self-produced concept album where Lasky plays the role of a ghost reckoning with his own suicide as his loved ones move on without him, released on November 11, 2022 and features experimental rapper Danny Brown and the Sunday Service Choir. The album was released alongside an accompanying film later that same day. I Didn't Mean To Haunt You marked a notable stylistic shift in Quadeca's artistry that was celebrated by critics, such as Spill Magazine, who rated the album 4 out of 5 stars, and Anthony Fantano, who ranked the album's lead single "Born Yesterday" as the seventh-best song of 2022.

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 EPs, consisting of 2–3 songs that did not make the cut for I Didn't Mean to Haunt You, or his then-upcoming album Vanisher, Horizon Scraper, 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 15, 2024, Lasky published a music video for his song "Way Too Many Friends" as promotional material for the final installment of the series, a mixtape titled Scrapyard. The mixtape, which compiled all of the songs on the EPs as well as songs previously unreleased, released on February 23, 2024. Scrapyard built upon Quadeca's newfound critical success in online music spaces with Anthony Fantano giving the project a score of 9 out of 10, ranking it as the 12th best album of 2024. KTLA also listed Scrapyard as the seventh best album of 2024.
Quadeca's fourth album, Vanisher, Horizon Scraper, was released on July 25, 2025. It was accompanied by a full-length film posted to YouTube which was written and directed by Lasky, featuring the entire concept album in visual form. Lasky's Vanisher, Horizon Scraper Tour was from September 30, 2025 to December 15, 2025 in the U.S., Ireland, Germany, the Netherlands, and the UK.
Quadeca announced his Australia tour on November 23, 2025. Frontier Touring and Penny Drop made the official public reveal that day through social media posts on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. The Australia tour for Vanisher, Horizon Scraper ran from May 2, 2026 to May 5, 2026.

Style and influences

Lasky's early releases were categorized as "YouTube rap", influenced by rappers like J Cole. In his second album From Me To You, Quadeca drew from influences such as Tyler, the Creator, Joji, Childish Gambino and Frank Ocean.
With I Didn't Mean to Haunt You, Scrapyard and Vanisher, Horizon Scraper, Quadeca has since cited artists such as Duster, the Microphones, Lingua Ignota, Björk, and Caroline Polachek as influences. As a part of Pitchfork's "Perfect 10" social media series, Lasky described how the album Construção by Brazilian musician Chico Buarque influenced his 2025 album, Vanisher, Horizon Scraper. The opening track from Buarque's album, "Deus Lhe Pague", was sampled on Vanisher, Horizon Scraper's opening track, "NO QUESTIONS ASKED".