Who is Loren Kramar? The ‘unsigned’ artist Apple advertised has major label connections

Amidst the launch of Apple Music and a cavalcade of other new information from Apple including iOS 9, watchOS 2 and lots of dev-pleasing fare like Swift 2, one mystery stuck out for me: Who is Loren Kramar?

During his demo of the Apple Music app, Eddy Cue lingered on the New York-based artist, giving him promo time in front of millions of viewers and screen cap happy hacks.

But before WWDC kicked off, practically no one had heard of Kramar. So what do we know? Well, he’s not as unconnected as he might first appear…

1. He’s an artist and the co-founder of an art magazine called Megazine…

…which received patronage from 80s artist Julian Schnabel. A 2012 profile by Capital New York  describes Kramar as:

…not exactly an established artist—or at least not yet. He has performed in public only a handful of times. His non-collegiate exhibition history is limited to the 2010 Brucennial, an alternative art show, for which he fabricated a set of silver spoons as part of a young design collective.

2. He was a cabaret singer with a taste for Celine Dion covers…

…according to this 2008 Time Out interview where he confessed to belting out the Canadian’s hits along with songs by the Bee Gees. He said his choices were far from ironic:

No way. I think I have a sense of humor and it comes through in the songs that I’m singing, but I wouldn’t say it’s an ironic performance.

3. In the same interview he was pictured wearing a fur coat…

…and said he loved wearing it, which might not be so palatable to the mass audience the Apple attention could bring him. He commented:

There’s a great furrier and custom tailor who works with leather and exotic skins. His name is Rafael and his store is called Ruslan, on 30th Street and Seventh Avenue. The quality of the skins and his technical abilities as a tailor are very impressive. Do I have qualms about murdering animals for clothing? Well, no. I don’t.

4. He’s on Twitter but only just…

…as his account went live a few minutes after Cue name-checked him.

https://twitter.com/thelorenkramar/status/607991471275282432

This appears to be the ‘real’ Loren, but until we talk to him directly/Twitter verifies him, we can’t be entirely sure.

5. He has celebrity connections which might have helped with the Apple hook up 

That same Capital New York profile reveals he had a pretty upmarket childhood:

Kramar, the son of a wealthy scrap metal magnate, grew up in the San Fernando Valley and attended the prestigious Campbell Hall, a hotbed for Hollywood kids. He starred opposite Elizabeth Olsen, the younger sister of the Olsen twins, in a musical adaptation of “Two Gentlemen of Verona,” and took Tony Danza’s daughter, Katie, to the winter formal.

Also in that profile we’re told he met the interviewer while wearing “a pair of 1930’s pajamas from Melet Mercantile, a vintage showroom in Soho” and once had aspirations to be a music producer.

6. He also did some more credible covers: 

He sang this amazing rendition of ‘Paint it Black’ in Spanish,” said a member of the BHQF, who asked to remain anonymous, as all of the Bruces, who are said to change frequently, always are. “He owned the stage. It was the first time we all realized he had it in him.”

7. His single, ‘My Life’, isn’t on Spotify…

…or iTunes for that matter. Will it be an iTunes Music exclusive? Predictably, his MySpace page is also a ghost town. Only time or perhaps Kramar himself will tell. This guy…

proud of @thelorenkramar amazing intro of his new single "my life"…. we will release the song officially very soon…. x thanks apple

— Joe Weinberger (@JoeJoe3H) June 8, 2015

…implies he has something to do with the record, but has yet to reply to messages.

8. And Weinberger is where it get interesting, because Joe ‘3H’ Weinberger was an A&R at Interscope… 

…where Apple’s new music supremo Jimmy Iovine – the guy who introduced Apple Music today – was the label boss. Weinberger has claimed credit for discovering artists including Kanye West, 50 Cent and Soulja Boy as well as producing early Eminem shows.

If, and it’s still an if, the owner of that Twitter account is Weinberger then we have the connection that took the apparently ‘unsigned’ Kramar from nowhere to being introduced to the world by Apple.

I’m still investigating this story and will update it as and when we get new information. If you know more about Loren Kramar email mic@thenextweb.com 

Read next: Everything Apple announced at WWDC