The perpetually “uncool” genre of spoken word seems like a better home for Hobo Johnson and the Lovemakers’s music, as well as a slightly more surprising and largely dormant subgenre: anti-folk, the irreverent and straightforwardly simplistic style of music popularized by artists like the Moldy Peaches and Regina Spektor at a time when Lopes was barely a baby Hobo. Despite the raplike cadence that Lopes frequently adopts, the jury’s out as to whether he considers himself a rapper although he riffed “My mom’s pretty sure I’m going to be a somewhat successful rapper” on The Rise of Hobo Johnson’s “Demarcus Cousins and Ashley,” on “Peach Scone” he states plainly, “People like to say I’m a rapper/ I’m actually not.” The music itself straddles a few genre lines, from vibey concoctions to the shaggy West Coast beach bum–isms of Sublime and the Internet’s subtly funky, full-band R&B. The lyrical content is mostly about women, peppered with non sequiturs and brief personal divergences above all, Lopes’s physicality acts as the conductor’s baton to this potentially irritating symphony, his shoulders jerking to and fro with expressive hand gestures reflected by the wavering cadence in his voice.Īs with so much postmillennial popular music these days, it’s hard to define what type of music Hobo Johnson and the Lovemakers actually make. There’s Lopes’s strident spoken-word vocals, a spare and airy groove not unlike what fellow Californian Toro y Moi has been known to cook up, and the occasional shout-along from the rest of the band at key points. More so than any of Hobo Johnson’s recorded output - which resembles a slightly woozy and less aggressive take on Tyler, the Creator’s early confessional material - the “Peach Scone” video is representative of the Hobo Johnson experience, for better and worse. The clip’s viral prominence marked a boiling-over career point for the half-Portuguese, quarter-Mexican, and quarter–Native American Lopes, who was living out of his car just five years ago since its circulation, The Rise of Hobo Johnson has popped up in the upper tier of Billboard’s Heatseekers chart, and he’s found himself embroiled in cultural-appropriation accusations from the Sacramento chapter of Black Lives Matter.
#HOBO JOHNSON SERIES#
Far beyond negativity and derision, too: After two solo records - the currently out-of-print 2015 debut Hobo Johnsons 94 Corolla and the Reprise-released The Rise of … - Lopes and his band the Lovemakers became viral sensations through their audition video for NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert web series earlier this year.Ī performance of their latest single “Peach Scone,” in a messy, urbane backyard setting, has logged a whopping 11 million YouTube views and counting for comparison’s sake, Hobo Johnson and the Lovemakers’s eventual Tiny Desk appearance has logged 2 million views, and the audition tape’s metrics even eclipses the tally of Tiny Desk appearances by more established artists like late rapper Mac Miller (9 million) and Chance the Rapper (5.7 million).
#HOBO JOHNSON PC#
Similar to the auspicious beginnings of Odd Future, Lana Del Rey, PC Music, and countless other buzz-building artists in the 2010s, Loomis, California-based musician Frank Lopes Jr., who records as Hobo Johnson, elicits strong feelings in people.
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