hamilton is a Los Angeles-based based artist who is inspired by the lo-fi R&B takeover of a new generation of music. With almost 60,000 monthly listeners, hamilton harnesses a wide audience of underground emo fans, as well as R&B, lo-fi, and underground hip-hop. His latest release, “Best Friends” is an album that came out on March 15 featuring three songs - “right from wrong”, “code or combination”, and “spring summer fall”.
He describes his sound as a mix of multiple inspirations, saying “I’d describe as moody but still upbeat.” Following in the footsteps of many successful lo-fi SoundCloud artists such as Corbin and Shrimp, hamilton combines textures from genres such as R&B, lo-fi and hip-hop to create a dark and moody energy within his music, all while providing meaningful messages within each track.
His diverse artistry is shown within this album, as well as throughout his previous work. He discusses his recent release “stay still” and the music video accompanying it. “The video for ‘stay still’ is just an example of what the song’s message is. We went and did the video with no real planning and got it to come out super sick, we didn’t stay still or waste time just got straight to it and worked out awesome.” The album is a perfect mix of upbeat and mellow lo-fi – some tracks such as “right from wrong” include almost drill-like beats, and others tone it down for a more relaxed, mellow-indie R&B feel.
He describes, “I think they connect to it because it’s still very much my sound” due to him mixing and mastering the track himself, and thus, he “made sure the song was exactly how I wanted.” The message of the track strays from his typical lyrics, and provides his audience with an uplifting message among the dark and grungy instrumentation.
“I hope my listeners can be inspired by this song to move towards goals and away from feeling stuck. You can’t stay still or else you’ll be stuck forever.”
hamilton has high hopes for the future,and sees potential collaborating with some of his inspirations such as Corbin, Shrimp, drain gang, and Yung Lean in his future. Though hamilton has gained millions of listeners within the past five years, he remains rooted in his relationships with his longtime friends and collaborators, such as yardsale, jomie, love jai, and spookybands.
hamilton combines textures such as lo-fi indie beats with moody lyrics to create a new genre of emo. Inspired by many underground SoundCloud artists before him such as Corbin, Shrimp, and Spooky Black, hamilton uses their dark undertones and emotional lyrics to draw his audience in to an impassioned journey through his many thoughts and feelings.