Since the start of summer, there have been a handful of infectiously-toned pop, R&B and hip-hop songs that have dominated TikTok — the youth’s favorite app for media consumption as of late. Just to name a few, songs like Joji‘s “Glimpse of Us,” Steve Lacy‘s “Bad Habit,” Yeat‘s “Rich Minion,” Gunna‘s “Top Off” and Doja Cat‘s “Vegas” have all been inescapable, mostly because of the accompanying dances or skits that have been associated with them.
However, unlike those aforementioned tracks whose artists all have significant star-power, Lawsy‘s “Hotel,” released in late May, has been as equally as organic and meteoric as his rise to the forefront of the new wave.
Lawsy is a high school aged vocalist — although he insisted to us he is 27 years old — from Raleigh, North Carolina. Growing up on 90s and 2000s R&B jams from icons like Charlie Wilson and Tyrese, Lawsy’s success on TikTok by way of his elegantly sing-rapped “Hotel” was a shock to the young emcee.
“I didn’t know it was gonna go up like that,” he said. “It blew up a month after it dropped, it only had about 100,000 streams before it went up… It just kept going and at some point, it stopped feeling real. Everywhere I was going I would hear that sh*t.”
Although he had already crept onto the scene with collaborations on SoundCloud with KanKan and Slump6s in 2021, the numbers he has racked up with “Hotel” are unlike anything he’s seen before. Currently sitting at over 4.5 million Spotify streams — and its sped-up version having nearly 2.5 million — “Hotel” has allowed Lawsy to eclipse 1 million Spotify monthly listeners.
Thanks to this, he was able to link up with music video visionary DotCom Nirvan, who has essentially become a checkpoint on the road to new wave stardom. The Nirvan visuals for “Hotel” dropped on July 27, exactly two months after the song’s release.
Building on these recent achievements, Lawsy now looks to make a splash with his upcoming album, tentatively titled Sexxnb. Adopting the phrase from an Instagram comment he received, Lawsy is on a divine mission of sorts to establish his own genre — blending 90s R&B instrumentation with new wave pluggnb tendencies. “(Sexxnb) is basically just rapping and singing on old R&B beats, but with the new style of rapping,” he explained.
Although he has yet to nail down a feature roster, release date or cover art, Sexxnb‘s track list is slowly rounding into form. However, the youngster is comfortable taking his time, knowing that he needs to experience life in order to write compelling bars. “I don’t write, I just punch in,” he said. “I think about what’s happened [in my life] and I just put it down in the music.”
While it’s just the beginning for Lawsy, he’s confident in his ability to be a prosperous artist for many years to come. On this road to sustained excellence, Lawsy welcomed OGM host Hakeem Rowe to his hometown of Raleigh, North Carolina to chop it up for our latest Our Generation Music interview. Lawsy and Hakeem speak on his upbringing, his recent trip to the jewelry store, his favorite producers, how he got his artist name, which artists have reached out for collaborations and much more.
Check out Lawsy’s OGM exclusive below!
