WHO SHOT SCOTT has been on Rolling Stone AU/NZ‘s radar for years now, dropping one barnstorming rock-meets-hip-hop anthem after another.
It’s all been carefully building to his highly anticipated debut album, HAIRY, which dropped last week and made it into our best-of ANZ music roundup.
The electrifying collection is worth the wait, the Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland rapper and artist effortlessly moving between alt-rock and hip-hop at will.
It’s a deeply personal release for WHO SHOT SCOTT. It’s a reclamation of his high school years, after he tried to settle in Aotearoa after fleeing war-torn Iraq with his mother aged 2. (Even the album title is an act of reclamation: it refers to the intense ridicule he facd for having body hair at school.)
HAIRY follows a hugely successful debut headline tour of the UK for WHO SHOT SCOTT, including an appearance at The Great Escape 2026 alongside fellow Kiwis Vera Ellen, Hemi Hemingway, and more.
HAIRY features standout tracks such as “I’M YOUR ALIEN”, a lively song that WHO SHOT SCOTT says “is the ultimate acceptance of being ‘other’.”
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“I had so many experiences in high school where it felt like I was being made out to be the school joke,” he explains. “Even ‘friends’ who would come over to my house were really only doing it to gather more information to bully me on – whether it was my unfinished demos, my Arabic household, or just my general vibe.
“They made me feel very different, and like there was something wrong with me for things that were a really beautiful part of my growing up and things I found solace in, too.
“This song is me finally looking at their critiques and agreeing, but with a huge caveat: full ownership of being ‘alien’, full ownership of being ‘other’, and being proud of that, because that otherness is exactly why I’ve been able to create the art that I love.”
Well, those ‘friends’ aren’t on Rolling Stone this week.
For a special edition of our On the Record series, WHO SHOT SCOTT went shopping at one of the world’s most iconic record stores: Tower Records in Tokyo.
Check out his record picks below, and listen to HAIRY in full above.
Following his Japan and UK trips, WHO SHOT SCOTT is now heading to Canada, where he’s due to perform at Toronto’s NXNE Festival this month.
WHO SHOT SCOTT’s HAIRY is out now.
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