Yesterday (December 29) marked the final New Music Friday of the year. We were surprised to see how many artists still came through with new content. Jack Harlow’s Instagram-exclusive track “Drive Safe” is quickly growing on fans. Meanwhile, Chief Keef helped Sexyy Red remix her viral club banger, “Bow Bow Bow (F My Baby Dad).” At HNHH, we’ve already shared our favourite rap and R&B releases of the year. Still, that doesn’t mean we’re done celebrating all that’s dropping in the final moments of 2023. tobi lou is among those who caught our attention this weekend, finally sharing the full solo cut of his “Numbers” snippet from much earlier in his career.
“She say I changed like I switched up on her / I ain’t change, I just didn’t want you,” he confidently sings. “I just started believing in myself / You don’t know how good that s**t feels.” His heartfelt lyrics continue, “What is you doing? / I’m f**king up the economy / Doing numbers like the lottery / All you ever did was doubted me / And now you can’t get a hold of me.”
As Genius notes, “Numbers” will appear on lou’s forthcoming LP, tobi lou and the Mood. Days before dropping this off, we heard the singer on “FOOD” with FARADA and WIND MIRAGE, as well as September EP, Perish Blue (Fall Tour). Across those eight titles, the only guest feature TL relied upon came from Young Thug on “Cobra,” which continues to be a fan favourite.
Check out the latest version of tobi lou’s “Numbers” above. If you’re feeling the groovy track, make sure to add it to your playlist on Spotify/Apple Music. For more HNHH release recommendations, check out our weekly Fire Emoji round-up at the link below.
Tobi Lou and FARADA are a duo you might not know, but they are one you will want to continue to hear from. The Nigerian-born and Chicago-raised rapper is a dynamic and multi-talented artist. He can spit some goofy and playful bars but also sing some heartfelt lyrics. On top of that, you have FARADA’s wavy, R&B, and trappy beats that will have you floating on a cloud. You can trace their works together back to earlier this year.
They already have two full projects together in just nine months. The first offering came out on March 31 and it was called, Baggy Weather (Mini Version). Following that was ‘Decent released back on June 30. While those were straightforward outputs, the last handful is a little more unconventional. It all started with tobi lou and FARADA’s single “Fee.” Since then, they have gone on to add new tracks over the past month.
Listen To Perish Blue (Fall Tour) From Tobi Lou And FARADA
Fast forward to September 22, and we are now on the eighth track, with the most recent title being “Come See Me Live.” However, when a new track is added to the list, it earns a new title to what has now become an album of sorts. Perish Blue (Fall Tour) is what tobi lou and FARADA have chosen. “Come See Me Live” is another enjoyable listen from this wavy duo and we can only expect more to come from them in the coming weeks.
What are your initial thoughts on this newest version of the original Caturday EP, Perish Blue (Fall Tour), from tobi lou and FARADA? Is this an underrated duo? Do you like the newest song, “Come See Live,” that was added? We want to hear what you have to say about all of this. With that in mind, be sure to leave all of your thoughts and opinions in the comments section below. Additionally, always keep it locked in with HNHH for all of the hottest project releases, as well as all of the latest breaking news around the music world.
Nigerian-born rapper and singer tobi lou just a week ago dropped a new EP called Caturday. It was a short, four-track project featuring some nice production from frequent collaborator, FARADA. The duo has quite an extensive list of songs together due to their two team efforts on their projectsfrom just earlier this year. ‘Decent and Baggy Weather (Mini Version) were released two months apart, with the latter containing no features. Caturday contains no guests too and is an R&B and rap outing for these two.
However, tobi lou and FARADA are adding another track called “Losing You.” In addition, the EP has an alternate title too, Why Do It Feel Like I’m Losing You. It essentially takes on the title of the new song and is also the first track on the EP. The order from Caturday stays the same: 1. “Caturday” 2. “Meteorite” 3. “Roller Coaster” 4. “Fee.”
“Losing You” adds on to some of the themes and moods of the other tracks. This one talks about a relationship that is hanging on by a thread. Internal and external noise is splitting the two apart. FARADA’s beat contains spicy synths, trap percussion, and smooth 808s. Lou’s lyrics and delivery are a nice pairing and it could be the best track now from Caturday/Why Do It Feel Like I’m Losing You.
What are your initial thoughts on this brand new track, “Losing You,” by Tobi Lou and FARADA? Is this the best song from the EP? Do you think these two should continue to work together in the future? We want to hear what you have to say about all of this. So, be sure to leave all of your thoughts and opinions in the comments section below. Additionally, always keep it locked in with HNHH for all of the hottest new song releases and all of the latest breaking news around the music world.
Quotable Lyrics:
Oh, I pity the fool (Pity the) Who keep f****n’ with my mood? I don’t understand these rules They can’t be made for me and you It’s too late for me and you
Multi-talented artist tobi lou and producer FARADA went back to the studio for their third collaboration. This time, it is in the form of an EP called Caturday. Before this the duo put out two shorter albums this year, ‘Decent and Baggy Weather (Mini Version). The chemistry is here once again for four tracks at around the 15-minute mark.
The beats fit tobi lou’s laid-back and playful style. Lou is also displaying his singing voice and rapping abilities across each track. Some of the songs have a somber tone adding more emotional weight. It makes for an easy-breezy listen that fans are sure to be excited about.
Tobi Lou might be one of the most intriguing artists in rap. He was born in Nigeria and lived there for just a short amount of time. He and his family then relocated to Chicago still as a youngster. The influences behind Lou’s music were inspired by the musical superstars that the city is so well known for. The biggest artists that Lou has brought up are Kanye West and Common, who are both great models to look up to. Since his popularity has grown, he has gone on to work with the likes of Polo G, Damian Lillard (Dame D.O.L.L.A), Chief Keef, and Saba. All of these big names appear on his 2023 album ‘Decent, which is also a team effort with FARADA.
What are your initial thoughts on this brand new EP from tobi lou and FARADA called Caturday? Do you enjoy it when these two collaborate on a project together? Which song is their best work? We want to hear what you have to say, so be sure to leave all of your thoughts and opinions in the comments section below. Additionally, always keep it locked in with HNHH for all of the hottest project releases and for all of the latest breaking news around the music world.
It’s really rare that you meet a rapper’s mom before you meet the rapper himself. But that’s what happened for me with Tobi Lou, the effervescent Chicago rapper who is building an audience by being something like the antithesis of what rappers have always been. Okay, so technically, it was his girlfriend’s mom, but the point stands: The way I met Tobi is as counterintuitive as his approach to hip-hop – and if anything, his approach to music is even more successful.
To invest in Tobi Lou fanship is to embrace a thousand little quirky artifacts of the quasi fantasy world he’s building for himself. For instance, in 2018, Tobi was joined by St. Louis rapper Smino in his video for “Troop,” a dreamy ode to the cartoons of Tobi’s youth. The video features cameos from characters like the Rugrats and Kanye West’s Takashi Murakami-designed Dropout Bear mascot, spotlighting the colorful oeuvre he’s built over the past few years.
Tobi expanded that saturated fantasyland through singles such as the Adventure Time-inspired TikTok favorite “Buff Baby” and with projects like 2019’s Live On Ice. With each new release, a fervent fan base also grew around Tobi’s equally vibrant personality. Both kicked into overdrive with the recent release of his album Non-Perishable in March, which is part of a three-project suite that grew out of his original plan for a project called Parrish Blue. If his previous projects expanded the canon, Non-Perishable turned it on its head, drawing it into the realm of hyperreal live-action marked by the same cartoonish zany energy.
It also stretched the boundaries of his content, allowing him to delve more into the inner workings of his mind beyond candy-coated hooks and saccharine sing-alongs. “I think Live On Ice was a big show and tell,” he says via a mid-afternoon Zoom call to discuss Non-Perishable and its upcoming related projects. “Parrish Blue is an overwhelming defiant sadness like a really gigantic whole. It’s a lot of devastation and it’s just a lot of emotions and it’s really heavy. And then making Parrish Blue, I realized through the help of my sister that I need to just stop trying to fit all my toys into one box. And then I separated them for the first time. And now I had like three boxes of 10 to 12 tracks.”
Those three boxes are Non-Perishable, April Showers, which is set to release later this week, and Parrish Blue, each describing a different stage of the process of rebuilding and healing from the soul-shattering wounds of the past few years. “The second project, that’s just chaos at its height,” he explains. “That’s the heat of the battle. And then Parrish Blue is like the aftereffect of the battle, just the feeling of sorrow, the feeling of loss and just dealing with that. And the piece of it, knowing this is who I am and not being afraid to be that. And I think Non-Perishable just offered me the chance to get energy off and break out of this sad box that I kind of put myself into while making Parrish Blue.”
In true Tobi Lou fashion, his route into making music professionally was also roundabout and unconventional. Born in Nigeria and raised in Chicago, he originally pursued a career in baseball, even making it to the minor leagues before suffering a career-ending injury. From then on, he focused everything on making and releasing music independently – an arrangement that takes the same sort of commitment, energy, time, and money, but is every bit as rewarding.
Being independent affords him a level of control and freedom that is often out of reach for his contemporaries on major labels. For one thing, he’s shot 11 videos for Non-Perishable and released eight so far, all with the assistance of his longtime collaborator Glassface, who has been a critical component of the Tobi Lou experience so far. If Tobi’s striking visual presentation is the hook, Glassface is probably as integral to his success as anyone, designing Tobi’s cover art and shooting his videos, as well as contributing musically behind the scenes.
“There is beauty in independence,” Tobi says of his situation. “There’s definitely more for freedom, but at the end of the day, it’s a business. Everything’s a business. Whether you’re independent, or you’re with a major label, everything’s a business. You just get more authority over your art, as an independent…. I don’t really feel like anyone’s holding me back. If I’m not dropping, it’s because I don’t want to drop.”
Of course, competing in such a crowded marketplace without the assistance of a massive corporate machine means risking getting overshadowed and lost in the near-constant rush of new music. Fortunately for him, his natural personality and sense of humor provide the best tools to solve this potential problem. Days after the release of Non-Perishable, he joked that he would remove the album from DSPs after a week and that listeners should download it to ensure they wouldn’t lose access. Fans took that as a challenge, running up the album’s sales until it reached Apple Music’s number-one spot.
“I didn’t mean to hold the album hostage,” he laughs. “I think I woke up the day after it dropped and I was like, ‘You know what? I’m going to say they got seven days.’ Because first-week [sales] matters so much to us, for artists – that’s what we’re judged by. I’m always trolling. And I didn’t really think much of it past that, until the day it started unfolding, and people were getting worried like, ‘Wait, is he serious?’ And I was just like, ‘Wait a minute. I’m actually causing a little disturbance here. People are getting worried.’ And what if things operated like that? We got to see the power of this fan base, and I think we could do some really crazy things down the line.”
For now, he hopes he doesn’t need to hold his albums hostage in the future, but he sees the value in seeking new outlets and avenues and approaches to promoting his art. For instance, outside of music, he’s spent the past year designing his own sneakers and is already working on a second pair. He’s excited to launch them because of all the artists who sell various merch like hoodies, shirts, bags, and so on, he may very well be the first to put out his own shoes independently.
Which sums up his whole approach, really. “I like the fact that people are starting to think in that language,” he says. “It’s really cool to start thinking, yo don’t wait for Nike, you are Nike. We can be Adidas. We can be all these things, and we can just start somewhere. So it’s been cool to see.” The only limit is imagination, and as Tobi’s work so far has shown, his imagination is limitless.
A big part of being a music fan is keeping up with the music of the moment; There’s a reason popular artists have gotten to where they are, after all. Another equally important aspect of being an informed consumer of music, though, is maintaining an awareness of the up-and-coming artists who are primed to shape the industry in their own ways.
That’s what Uproxx’s new Next Up series is all about.
Over the course of ten feature profiles, you’ll learn about artists currently laying the foundation for some major things to come, things that will both establish themselves as forces and influence those who come after them. Before those features start rolling in, keep reading for a rundown of who we decided needs to be a part of this conversation.
Dove Cameron
Getty Image
The pipeline from Disney Channel star to music icon has been fruitful over the years, as folks like Miley Cyrus, Selena Gomez, and Ariana Grande have started on the network and gone on to tremendous musical success (also Olivia Rodrigo if you count her High School Musical series on Disney+). Now it’s looking like Dove Cameron, whose lengthy acting resume includes the lead role in the Disney Channel series Liv And Maddie, could very well be next. Her debut EP, Bloodshot / Waste, arrived in 2019 and she just recently had her biggest hit yet in February with the dramatic single “Boyfriend,” which was her first, and likely not last, song to grace the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
Saya Gray
Jennifer Cheng
With her recent signing to Dirty Hit, Canadian-Japanese singer-songwriter Saya Gray finds herself in great company: The label’s esteemed artists include The 1975, Beabadoobee, Wolf Alice, and Rina Sawayama. Her first album for the label, 19 Masters, is on the way in June and based on songs like the recent single “If There’s No Seat In The Sky (Will You Forgive Me???),” it’s easy to see why Dirty Hit brought the innovative young artist on board, who’s adept at switching genres not just between songs, but sometimes right in the middle of them.
PinkPantheress
Getty Image / Brent McKeever
TikTok has become a real proving ground for up-and-coming artists as the young generation gets exposed to a lot of new music on the platform. PinkPantheress managed to stand out above all the noise and earn herself a record deal with Parlophone. Her music definitely embraces the fast-paced nature of TikTok: Most of the songs on her 2021 debut mixtape To Hell With It are shorter than two minutes. That didn’t stop the multi-genre project from performing particularly well, as it landed in the top 20 of the charts in PinkPantheress’ native UK.
Kali
YouTube
Speaking of TikTok, Atlanta rapper Kali also found success on the platform and now she’s breaking new ground beyond it. As Uproxx’s Aaron Williams notes, she’s moving into a space traditionally dominated by male rappers, one that is “marked by passive aggression, avoidant attachment, and audio gaslighting, with rappers and singers delighting in keeping their significant others guessing in the narratives of their songs.” Kali parlayed her breakout single “Mmm Mmm” into a debut EP, Toxic Chocolate. The Yung Bleu-featuring “UonU” is a highlight, on which she turns the tables and asserts dominance, rapping, “It’s a two-way street, we in the same lane / Play you ‘fore you play me, that’s just my mind-frame / But you still mine, babe.”
Tobi Lou
Empire
Odds are you’ve already heard Tobi Lou working with one of your favorites, as the Chicago-via-Nigeria rapper has collaborated with some of his biggest hometown peers, like Chance The Rapper, Dreezy, and Saba. He was on the ballot for the 2020 XXL Freshmen list and while he didn’t make the cut, he’s on to bigger and better things, like his recently released new album Non-Perishable, which mostly features Lou shining on his own but also alongside guests like T-Pain and Chika. All the name-drops are to illustrate that Lou has support from folks in high places, co-signs that show Lou is worth consideration.
Omah Lay
Uproxx
A lot of things have been going right for the 24-year-old Nigerian afrobeats star lately. Since landing a record deal a couple years ago, Omah Lay’s ascent has been quick, as he had a social media hit with “Bad Influence,” dropped some EPs that landed on Apple Music’s charts in Nigeria, and caught the attention of Justin Bieber, with whom he recently released the collaborative single “Attention.” Furthermore, Lay’s status as an afrobeats favorite was cemented with the launch of Billboard’s new US Afrobeats Songs chart in March. On the inaugural ranks, he had two songs in the top 30, including “Attention,” which graced the top five. Basically, Lay’s on an upward trend, so if you haven’t been paying attention so far, now’s a good time to start.
Bakar
Epic
Like many artists before him, Bakar got his start uploading songs on SoundCloud. That’s really one of the few ways the experimental UK indie rocker is like other artists, though. He gradually worked on his craft, forged a distinct aesthetic identity, and had himself a bit of a hit in 2019 with “Hell N Back,” which popped up on multiple rock and alternative Billboard charts, including a No. 1 placement on Adult Alternative Airplay. Things have only gotten better since then, as he had a feature on one of 2020’s most esteemed indie/pop albums in Benee’s Hey U X and released his debut album, Nobody’s Home, in February. He got some hometown love for that one, as it was a top-40 album in the UK. Now it feels like just a matter of time before the rest of the world catches up.
Horsegirl
Cheryl Dunn
Chicago trio Horsegirl formed in 2019, when its members were all teens. While many teenage endeavors are best left forgotten, Horsegirl has built on their start in a major way. They’ve since signed to Matador Records and so far released two singles for the label: 2021’s “Billy” and this year’s “Anti-Glory.” As for the sound, the group falls somewhere between post-punk and shoegaze, a zone that has clearly worked for them given the aforementioned examples of their success. It’s the kind of music that begs to be heard live, so there’s good news there, as one of the year’s buzziest bands has a slew of tour dates set for this summer.
Caracara
Maria Daniela Lynn
The 2019 EP Better was big for Caracara, as the rocking effort landed them on many people’s radars. That includes renowned producer Will Yip, who has worked with everybody from Lauryn Hill to Keane to The Wonder Years. He also linked up with Caracara on their recently released album New Preoccupations (As The Gods Descend), which is highlighted by the single “Colorglut,” which features Circa Survive’s Anthony Green. The company a band keeps can say a lot about them, and so far, a lot of top-tier folks have found their way to Caracara’s corner. Now that the new album is out and music fans have something fresh to sink their teeth into, the Caracara corner is about to get even more crowded.
Zack Fox
YouTube
As social media has become a primary method of fan interaction for celebrities, a lot of musicians have emerged as legitimately hilarious social media personalities. Then there’s Zack Fox, who’s approaching things from the opposite direction: He was a comedian first, but in recent years, he’s found some solid footing in hip-hop: His debut album, Shut The F*ck Up Talking To Me, came out last year and he’s touring with Freddie Gibbs this year. On top of all that, he’s still acting and has a recurring role in one of the most acclaimed comedies of the moment, Abbott Elementary. He’s even an accomplished visual artist, as he illustrated the album sleeve of Thundercat’s Drunk. Basically, Fox has done something you’d probably enjoy in just about every artistic medium, which is something very few people can say.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
