Towkio makes Australian debut performance next month
Subscribe
X

Subscribe to Forte Magazine

Towkio makes Australian debut performance next month

Despite becoming the first rapper to launch an album in outer space, Chicago’s Towkio was refused entry into Melbourne this past weekend. But never fear, when we caught up with the free-spirited thinker ahead of his Splendour In the Grass debut he said he’s determined not to be a stranger Down Under. “I’ve really been feeling the love and if it’s true and enough people love me in Australia I might just have to move.”
Calling in from his home away from home, Rick Rubin’s incomparable Shangri-La Studios in Malibu, Towkio (real name Preston Oshita) can see the legendary producer arriving. “I just saw Rick drive up the driveway. His car is a custom Tesla – he has all the best shit!”
Oshita, born to a Mexican mother and Japanese-American father, was the first rapper to be signed to Rubin’s label American Recordings in over 20 years. “It’s still got me busted!” he laughs. “I can’t believe I’m here.”
It was at Rubin’s iconic studio, once owned by Elvis Presley and Bob Dylan, where Oshita’s debut LP WWW. came to life. “It was an amazing experience. I had [Norwegian producer] Lido – Lido’s like my brother,” he adds, “and all my friends that I made music with in Chicago where with me; Knox Fortune, Peter Cottontale, Nico Segal, Carter Lang and Nate Fox.
“We all came out to Malibu and stayed for ten days, and everybody had their own little producer’s station with speakers, and I was just popping around to each station saying ‘Oh I like that! Or ‘Yeah, hold onto that’ It was magical,” he smiles.
In February this year, WWW. (the follow-up to his 2015 mixtape .Wav Theory) was released into the stratosphere quite literally when the intrepid hip-hop artist hold a solo listening party as he journeyed above the clouds in a hot air balloon. “It’s funny this album was with me in space and all the way to Australia, but it is the groundwork for everything to come,” he smiles.
Although heavily influenced by Lil Wayne, Oshita credits artists like the late Frankie Knuckles and Kanye West for shaping the Chicago music scene he grew up in. “Man, Kanye. My cousin put me onto him,” he recalls.
“His single ‘Welcome 2 Chicago’ – that was when Kanye was coming up, which is maybe a similar position to where I’m at now, you know? That was amazing! Everyone was like ‘Damn Chicago!’ I was like ‘That’s how we do it in Chicago’. That was my first memory of him.
“And when College Drop Out came out she put me onto that and I remember the ‘Through the Wire’ video and I was like, that Chaka Khan sample is dope!”
Oshita clearly has a strong connection to his home city but I sense he’s looking for greener pastures in the future. “I like to be in the sun – right now I’m in the sun and I wanna enjoy that Down Under, you know? And see some beautiful Aussie nature – I like nature. In Chicago you can’t see no mountains – all you see is concrete and skyscrapers. That’s where I spent my whole life. I’m trying not to be in there no more.”
When & Where: Howler, Melbourne – July 19 & Oxford Art Factory, Sydney – July 20. Towkio is also performing at Splendour in the Grass 2018.
Written by Natalie Rogers