Best You Had: Don Toliver
Everything about Don Toliver is considered. In an era of shooting stars, he’s fixed his sights on a specific point. In the chess game that is the music industry, the Houston rapper is making sure that every move he makes is the right one.
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Don Toliver is talking about his third album with the kind of careful, methodical word choice usually reserved for an actor doing press around a superhero movie or Game of Thrones season premiere.
“On this particular album, I really locked in on the actual story and the theme of the album and basically the tracklist is going in sequence, in motion of the actual story, of what it will be,” he explains.
Does he care to share exactly what that narrative will be? “Right now, I’m not really disclosing the full story,” he says.
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‘Lovesick’, his third LP, does not have a release date or a lead single, but it’s among hip-hop’s most anticipated projects nonetheless. If it comes out in 2022, it’ll be Toliver’s third album in as many years, following 2020’s ‘Heaven Or Hell’and 2021’s ‘Life Of A Don’, both of which debuted in the Top 10 of the U.S. Billboard 200. Toliver became a name to know in 2018 following the release of his ‘Bobby Womack’ mixtape, and a turn in the limelight on Scott’s album-cum-theme-park Astroworld. He signed to Scott’s label Cactus Jack that same year, and became a fixture in the streaming world, racking up billions of plays and becoming a mainstay on the industry’s most coveted playlists.
Toliver, the Houston-born singer and rapper who has emerged as the most successful acolyte of Travis Scott, takes after his mentor in a myriad of ways. Both have been eager to make a mark in fashion, with Toliver co-designing a line for the Pharrell-fronted Billionaire Boys Club. Like Scott, Toliver has achieved ubiquity as a hook man on other people’s songs, chiefly Internet Money’s ‘Lemonade’ and Kanye West’s ‘Moon’. And they can each feel frustratingly enigmatic, with steely public personas that don’t showcase much humour and a tendency to tell-not-show in their lyrics. (As Pitchfork put it in blunt terms, “Don Toliver graduated cum laude from the Travis Scott school of how to make nothing sound like something.”)
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Reaching Scott’s level of ubiquity obviously has its upsides, but there are some real drawbacks, too. Toliver is private about his relationship with singer Kali Uchis, and reaching superstardom would open him up to the kind of scrutiny his mentor faces. When asked whether he wants to reach that level of notoriety, Toliver’s answer is characteristically measured.
“I’ll go wherever my career takes me. If it gets that big, it gets that big,” he says. “I’m just working to put out great music and give fans content from me, try to give fans my ideas.”
Where he differs is in his voice. With Scott, the actual vocals are rarely the most interesting component of his musical package, a serving of vegetables to justify the delicious dessert of his massive beats, catchy hooks, and well-curated features. Toliver’s voice is striking. On tracks like ‘XSCAPE’, it can be alluring and lingering like catching a whiff of an ex’s perfume, while on other songs like ‘After Party’, it’s raucous, announcing his arrival at the function with winning frivolity. (Along with Post Malone, he’s also a key progenitor of the woozy vibrato Lil Yachty turned into an inescapable meme with ‘Poland’.)
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He recognises the value of his instrument, and is particularly careful with it. In a departure from many of his peers, Toliver rarely records while he’s touring. Some of that is so he can channel his energy either entirely into performing or entirely into recording, but a large part is about maintaining his health in an era when it can feel like artists are constantly announcing nodules and vocal surgeries.
“If there’s an emergency or something that needs to be done recording-wise, we’ll manage to get it done, but in a perfect world, it’s really kind of hard for me to possibly even just focus on music when I’m on the road,” he says. “I really need to preserve my voice as much as possible. I give the studio a lot of energy and sometimes you need to save that energy for those moments on that stage when you’re on tour.”
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Toliver’s speech is peppered with athlete-isms like “at the end of the day” and references to his goal of longevity. It speaks to the place of musicians like Toliver within modern pop culture, less maverick creatives than star players constantly under the microscope. Nowadays, artists like Toliver are a cottage industry unto themselves; comfortably in his late 20s, Toliver’s ascent has felt more traditional than many of his contemporaries, beginning with local success, parlayed into national attention through a career-changing co-sign. (He has musical roots in the family, too. His father, Bongo, also sang, performing on a few records by the influential Houston rap label Swishahouse.)
“I feel like when you’re young and you have an overnight success situation, sometimes it can screw it up so by the time you’re 25 or 26, you’re really in a very bad situation,” he says. “Or you can gradually work your way up until you’re 26, 27, 28, you can be well established and know how to move business-wise and move in a creative, artistic direction as well.”
Toliver has become a sought-out collaborator for rap’s elder statesmen, a kind of bridge between millennials and Gen Z. In the last couple years, he’s appeared on songs with Pusha T, Eminem, and Nas. He’s featured twice on Kid Cudi’s 2022 album ‘Entergalactic’, and was slated to tour with him before pulling out because he didn’t feel he could put together a satisfactory on-stage product. (“I wanted to give my fans something very special and the way the production and everything was set up, I wasn’t really able to do that and it really, really, really hurt me.”)
One of the common criticisms of Scott’s features is that he turns every collaboration into a Travis Scott song, but Toliver has a rare elasticity. He sounds as at home on Pharrell’s burbling ‘Scrape It Off’ beat as he does on Masego’s alluring, guitar-flecked ‘Mystery Lady’ or Drakeo the Ruler’s West Coast club track ‘Dawn Toliver’. His explanation for what makes him such a sought-after guest vocalist affirms that idea.
“I think, honestly, people gravitate towards me because I just have a certain type of truth and honesty and a vibe that I feel like fits well in music,” he says. “They’re really kinda into the same things that I’m into and we meet in the middle.”
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In the era of toxic R&B, which once felt like earnest music made by deeply flawed men and now scans as more of a clever marketing tactic, Toliver’s approach to love songs stands out. His intoxicating duet with Kali Uchis, ‘Drugs n Hella Melodies’, is one of his best tracks. It’s woozy and seductive, a true duet that centres both of their passions. Here, Uchis is the icy cool one, while Toliver’s autotune warble creates the effect of yearning. Toliver has a penchant for exquisite R&B vocals, and songs like ‘Drugs’ and ‘His & Hers’ with Internet Money showcase his ability to croon about romance with confidence. Tracks like ‘Company’ and ‘You’ are charmingly weird, with Toliver breaking into his upper register and showing layers of vulnerability that imbues even vague lyrics with a sense of real yearning.
“I can sit here and sing ballads all day long, ‘til my head spins, but I want to add an extra piece of excitement for the fans and an extra piece of excitement for the culture, and still give you those vocals that you want,” he says.
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Toliver describes his sound as a “mix of soul, rap, and R&B,” and is eager to explore many different musical avenues, making the most of his singular sound. “If you have soul, rhythm, blues, I feel like there’s nothing wrong with you coming different and being different and stepping out of the box than the norm,” he says.
As of press time, we don’t know the name of a single track on ‘Lovesick’, but a little internet sleuthing will turn up a cavalcade of rumoured songs, including collaborations with heavy hitters like The Kid Laroi and 6LACK. Leak culture is far from a new problem, but young fans have brought an unprecedented fervour to it, a clear disruption of Toliver’s album-oriented approach. He’s characteristically diplomatic about the issue, though he cops to some frustration over an unfinished record entering the world before its time.
“They know these crazy songs that I’ve recorded and probably would never put out and it’s just so crazy, they probably know these songs word-for-word,” he says. “Sometimes you really want to give the fans something fresh and new, [so] it’s annoying sometimes, but at the same time, I make music and I’ll never stop making music and I’ll always figure out a solution to whatever I’m doing. So I let it rock.”
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By keeping the details around ‘Lovesick’ so close to the chest, Toliver knows he’s ratcheting up expectations. But it’s in service of more than just elevating the hype around his upcoming record. While he often talks like a Toliver likens himself to a chef, cognizant of how the flavours and quantity of small plates will affect your appetite for the entree.
“People will take [a quote] and say whatever they want to say, but at the end of the day, when it comes to your creativity, it’s art and I just can’t give everybody the juice before they’re able to eat the plate,” he says.
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Words: Grant Rindner
Photography: Josh Aronson
Fashion: Zoe Costello
Creative Direction: Rob Meyers
