Jelo The Weirdo

Acosta was born on December 15, 2001, in Quezon City, Philippines. He has an older sibling; their father, who was a cop in Manila was murdered on duty when they were kids and their mother had to raise them on her own.[3] At age 12, he began recording in different studios from time to time.[3][4] He transferred schools because they moved out of apartments almost every year.

From 2013 to 2016, Acosta recorded hundreds of unreleased songs in his native language, but the hard drive containing his tracks was lost when a fire broke besides their house when he was 15 in a densely-populated area with informal settlers in Navotas. [5] In 2017, he rode a bus by himself to audition for "Sinong Nanay Mo?" (lit. Who's Your Mother?), a quiz bee contest in TV for intellectual kids aired on ABS-CBN's It's Showtime. He made the segment marking his first national TV appearance but lost. He was then persuaded by an agent to work as a commercial model while studying, he was paid $10 for his first job as an acting extra and $200 when he was first cast as a lead in a Grab advertisement.[6] "When I was a teenager, I went to 200 castings and I only got like 5 roles, I just needed to move towards my goal of being a musician in any way possible.", Acosta said on an interview.

In 2020, Acosta participated in the blind auditions of the second season of The Voice Teens & sang Shanti Dope's hit "Nadarang" with Bamboo and apl.de.ap turning. He picked the latter as his coach.[7][8] He was the first hip-hop artist across all seasons of the show & was eliminated in the Battles.[9]

On a radio interview, Acosta said that he "grew up listening" to Bruno Mars and Gloc-9 as an eight-year-old[10][4] before discovering his main musical influences that include Frank Ocean, Ed Sheeran, Childish Gambino and Drake. Other artists Acosta has said inspired his work include The Weeknd, Mac Miller, XXXTentacion, and Post Malone.[4]