Don Toliver hails from Southwest Alief, Texas — aka SWAT — but has created a sound that's rooted deep into the energetic soul of late R&B/soul icon Bobby Womack. Now, the 24-year-old Houston-area native's music has garnered attention from the city's brightest star: Travis Scott.
Travis — who's highly anticipated third studio album Astroworld has been in the works for quite some — enlisted Toliver during the high-powered Dark Fantasy-style Astroworld studio sessions in Hawaii.
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Today, Toliver shares his debut mixtape Donny Womack and premieres the music video for "Diamonds" from the project via The FADER. Read a brief Q&A with Toliver below and watch the video above.
Stream Donny Womack below.
Thumbnail image courtesy of LUDATHESHOOTER.
Tell me about your background
I came from Houston, Texas. Southwest Alief, Texas — also called SWAT. I'm 24 years old.
What first got you into music?
Shit...I was at the barbershop one day and I heard Musiq Soulchild playing in the barbershop. After I heard that Soulchild, it pushed me to really want to go crazy. Learn melodies, sounds...Everything. I just pushed forward after that.
How'd you initially link up with Travis Scott?
Basically it was just me working in the city, and him catching hold of what I was doing. He really liked what I was doing, me being one of the only people just really coming with that vibe. We just clicked.
Tell me about the experience of working with Travis in Hawaii.
It was always a vibe. Travis Scott really has an ear for this music shit though. He know what's hot, and what's not. Me and him we just catch a vibe listening to music, whether that's my music, his music, or somebody else's music. It was definitely a great experience.
Take me through the creative direction for your upcoming mixtape.
It's called Donny Womack, it's basically a spin off of Bobby Womack. I went with Donny Womack because Bobby had like a tendency of making records that have a lot of soul, a lot of feeling and emotion, but he always comes on the track hot. That's what I do most of the time, on this whole mixtape you'll hear me coming in hot, with a lot of emotions, vibe, and a lot of soul. I basically just wanna take people into my world in a sense with what I got going musically and how I do what I do.
