TOBi

One Liner: Sing-song rap sort of thing from Toronto by way of Nigeria.

Wikipedia Genre: No Wikipedia, I'll say R&B and hip hop?
Home: From Nigeria to Toronto

Poster Position: 25

Weekend One Only.

Thoughts:  Another one where I had to do research just to figure out who I am supposed to be listening to.  Spotify has a Tobi, a TOBi, a Tobi Lou, a TobiMorrow, a Tobi Peo, a Pimp Tobi, a Happy Tobi, a Tobi Lee, a Zo Tobi, and a bunch of Tobiases.  Since the poster uses all caps, the first two look like they are the same thing.  But, the ACL website shows that the proper one is the guy with the weird punctuation.  And ACL provides no bio for the guy.  Also, tobi.com is an online shopping website for women's clothing.  FYI.

So, this guy sounds like I've heard him before - like he sings a hook on someone's rap album.  Or maybe he just sounds like Anderson.Paak?  He also flirts with both sides, sometimes a rapper, other songs just singing.  It must be the Anderson.Paak thing, because I can't find any evidence of him singing a hook on something I've heard before.

He moved from Nigeria to Toronto with his family when he was about ten, living with six family members jammed into a two-bedroom home.  His family was super into education and made sure that he finished his undergrad degree (in Biology, of all things), and then allowed him to try out the music thing for real.  He's got a good enough voice to stick with it.

One album, 2019's STILL, and one song with more than 2 million streams.  This is "City Blues," with just under 2.1 million streams.

Kind of a Gary Clark Jr without a guitar vibe as well, but for sure I hear Paak.  Pretty great tune.  Overall, this guy's tunes are good.  Nothing is so amazing that it makes me freak out or anything, but I've definitely listened longer than I needed to because its good enough to keep me here.  

His second most streamed from this new album is called "Sweet Poison," with 874k streams.  More of an R&B vibe, more of the Drake sort of thing with him singing the hook and then kind of sing/rapping the verse.

Less good than the top single, but I still dig the vibe.  I don't know, I normally would stay away from this sing/song rap stuff, but this one works for me.  He's pretty solid.

Not sure about going to see this one live.  We'll see how the schedule shakes out.