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Tobi Lou has me hanging onto his every word during our interview. It’s 10 am in Los Angeles, where the vocalist and producer lives, and he’s passionate but calm as he reveals the universe’s deepest artistic secrets as vivid metaphors, casually sipping coffee between bursts of wisdom.
The Lagos-born, Chicago-raised artist, athlete and anime lover has been producing music in his bedroom for over two decades. Sure, he’s found himself working in lavish studios with revered labels and world-class producers, but most of the ideas for his four studio albums and viral hits — such as 2019’s Buff Baby — are conjured in one familiar place.
“It always comes back to me, locked in my room, just like when I started [making music] in eighth grade,” says Tobi. “I love the process of getting an idea and fleshing it out. It’s like I have to take this invisible thing and give it some physical properties so that it’s echoing off the walls in the room, rather than in my mind.”
Tobi likens the act of expanding these musical ideas to “raising a little bird.” His latest means of nurturing his songbirds is Splice’s Mobile App. “In terms of recording ideas, I’ve always lived in voice memo land, where I play a beat and record a freestyle over the top — but my phone turns into a bit of a graveyard of ideas”, he explains. “Splice’s app helps me keep in the flow. The second I get on the app, I’m working in an environment where I can take an idea as far as I need it to go.”
Specifically, Tobi is enjoying the Splice Mic feature, which is part of the Splice Mobile app and allows him to record any sound over a Stack of complementary samples. Instead of letting his ideas dwindle and lose energy, Splice Mobile helps him invigorate them. In a tap, he can effortlessly shuffle the genres, style, tempo and key of his Stack. Another swipe on his smartphone and he can transform his mellow neo-soul spark into a melodic lo-fi track or a country-style beat. Given that Tobi has mastered the art of creating music in myriad styles with a wide palette of instrumentation, this is a boon to his workflow.
“Rather than starting from this completely blank canvas, where you open a DAW and think, ‘What do I do now?’, it’s like, you go to Splice and instantly get the building blocks of what a song should be,” Tobi says. “I’m really appreciative of that right now.”
Since he started making music, Tobi has been obsessed with capturing his ideas as they happen, no matter what gear he had access to. His introduction to producing came when he bought a microphone for $10 from RadioShack — it’s a far cry from what he has access to now, but plugging that first mic into his old computer was enough to get him hooked.
“From there, I was obsessed with trying to get a clearer signal of my recordings on my own, without having to go to studios — I couldn’t really afford studio time,” he says. As he started putting his musical mind to work, he found that the barriers between him and his creativity became less about the gear he was using; it was a battle of confidence.
“It’s cute when you’re a kid and you’re like, ‘Mom, look what I made,’ he says. “And then once you start to be aware of judgment — that not everyone’s going to pat you on the back for what you did — you start to look around and compare like, ‘How do I sound?’”. If I had a really good song idea that maybe my family and friends really like, it felt like, ‘Okay, I got one, good job’. But I would always think, ‘Damn, is that my last good idea?’”
Thankfully, he quickly assures me, it’s never anyone’s last good idea.
“After making thousands and thousands of songs, I realised, ‘Okay, I’m never going to run out of ideas.’ I actually don’t have enough time to record all the ideas I have. No matter if I live another 50 or 100 years, I will still have way more ideas than I ever got time to put on wax. So then it all just became about getting better at executing each idea.”
It’s tools like Splice Mobile that help Tobi materialise his creativity. He’s able to take a galaxy’s worth of sketches, build on them in the app, and export them as stems to his DAW with functions such as AirDrop and Export to Project. The app even lets Tobi text his ideas to friends and producers, who will add to the idea and send it back to him.
Tobi is comfortable when he’s working solo, but has also become an adept collaborator. He’s worked with the likes of T-Pain, Chief Keef, and Warren Hue, and a wealth of esteemed producers throughout his career.
“I’ll send a producer a sample, they’ll send me back what they did on it, then I’ll get the stems and do something with it, maybe organise it a different way, then I might send it to another producer. We’re just experimenting. I love taking the ideas of three or four producers and putting them in one big sandwich.”
Being able to easily collaborate and expand on his projects quickly with Splice Mobile is helping Tobi make more music and is becoming a natural part of his workflow. The artist once looked to fellow LA-based songwriter Steve Lacy, who famously created music using just his iPhone, and thought “that’s too crazy”, he recalls, shaking his head. How could his smartphone be such a catalyst for his sonic inventions?
“Since I started using Splice Mobile, I realised, ‘Wow, you can actually do this,’ he explains. “And being able to switch up genres on my iPhone — I’m doing different styles but it’s still Tobi Lou. It’s like I’m accessing a different side of who I am within the music.”
It’s not all about crafting serious and meticulous performances, though. Tobi’s found that music is how he channels what he calls “playing as an adult.” He’s happy to freestyle wacky and spontaneous songs, and record whatever comes to mind, just in case it proves to be useful later on.
“That’s what some of the best ideas are,” he says, beaming. “Like, what you thinking about right now? You’re thinking about bananas and pineapples? Great. Go with it. Show me your song about bananas and pineapples.”
“That’s what I think you can get out of using Splice Mobile — even though you’re working, it’s still a form of play.”
Tobi Lou has managed to turn his version of play into a profession, and also likens it to his form of therapy. But he’s, of course, still learning, experimenting and building, every day; he’s just trying to create as much music as he can.
And, naturally, Tobi leaves me on the edge of my seat for one more vivid metaphor.
“When you start a music career, you’re really building a house. So if I started building a house right now, I may get 20 songs in and have a roof over my head, but you want to make this house as comfortable and as dreamy as you can. So rather than thinking, ‘I’m going to drop this one song and it’s going to be a mansion.’ Like, no, — you’re laying the foundation. And the foundation isn’t laid down with one song, it’s repeating, and repeating, and repeating that. That’s the best advice I can give — it’s all really just on you, and what you can do.”
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The post How Tobi Lou is turning countless voice notes into masterpieces: “I’m never going to run out of ideas” appeared first on MusicTech.
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