16-Year-Old Guitar Prodigy and 2026 Canadian High School Songwriter of the Year Cooper Benaiah Releases Debut Album 'CRUSH'

Cooper Benaiah, the Toronto-based 16-year-old singer-songwriter, guitarist, multi-instrumentalist, and producer who won the 2026 Canadian High School Songwriter of the Year award for his single "Falling," releases his debut album 'CRUSH' today on Spotify and all major platforms.

Eight original songs, written, recorded, and produced entirely by himself in a makeshift basement studio, 'CRUSH' is a high-energy indie pop record that moves with the instincts of an artist well beyond his years and the fearless, unfiltered charm of someone who has absolutely nothing to prove and everything to share.

What makes 'CRUSH' remarkable is not just that a 16-year-old made it, but how he made it. Benaiah writes in the shower at night, melody arriving moments before the lyrics, the songs arriving nearly fully formed. He captures raw versions on a Taylor guitar on his parents' couch with a voice memo app, then takes them downstairs to Logic to add what he calls the bells and whistles. The result is music with genuine intimacy baked into its bones, indie pop in the truest sense, homegrown and hook-filled and shot through with a guitar sensibility that reflects a young musician who has absorbed everything from Noah Kahan's emotional dynamics to the atmospheric tension of MICO and made it entirely his own.

The album works as a complete arc, an accidental rom-com in eight chapters. "Falling" opens it with the giddy, gravity-defying rush of early infatuation: "Feels like I'm falling / Into your arms when I hear you calling out my name." From there, "1000" sends the story spinning into longing and distance, "Oxygen" deepens the need, "Whatever" plays at denial, and "August" captures the electric warmth of summer romance with acoustic guitar, cajón, and just enough rap to make it feel like a windows-down driving anthem. "Before You Go" and "Left Me at the Altar" navigate the bittersweet turn, the latter arriving as an ironically joyful country-tinged anthem built around fiddles and the liberating realisation that a clean break is its own kind of good fortune. "Pull Me Back" closes the whole thing as a full-room party, a bass-driven invitation to start the whole beautiful cycle again.

Benaiah already performs the material with the stage presence of someone who has been doing this for decades, inhabiting what he describes simply as the rockstar, the part you play for the audience once you get on stage and everything else falls away. To celebrate the release of 'CRUSH,' he performs solo at Taste of Philippines in Hamilton on June 13 and at Sessionista Summer Music Festival in Halton on June 20, before fronting his band KASK at It's Your Festival in Hamilton on June 27. 'CRUSH' is available now everywhere.

TOUR DATES

Jun 13 — Hamilton, ON — Taste of Philippines (Solo)

Jun 20 — Halton, ON — Sessionista Summer Music Festival (Solo)

Jun 27 — Hamilton, ON — It's Your Festival (with KASK)