Monday, December 9th 2024
The opening words to Toro y Moi’s Freelance could perhaps strike a chord with some of you. After all, Chaz Bear, who we know as Toro y Moi, confirmed who his audience was. “For the longest time, I thought I was talking to music lovers or even a specific age group. But now I feel like I’m talking to anyone who is creative.” At least this were the sentiments of Bear back when he was about to release his album Outer Peace in 2019.
"Toro y Moi is often recognized as one of the pioneers of the chillwave gere"
The playful but surely profound lyrics of Freelance seem to point at the struggle and the hustle of the creative freelancer. While the first verse of the song might refer to overworking under inconsiderate demands, as the song progresses we discover what seems to be the overarching theme: the artist’s reckoning of itself and its role in the changing tides of pop culture. In a conversation with Pitchfork he said that “[t]his record is a response to how disposable culture has become and how it affects creativity.” Toro y Moi knows he is not alone in the dichotomy of self-identity and trends, hence the nod to other creatives. And like many creatives out there, his work is multidimensional and multidisciplinary.
Toro y Moi is often recognized as one of the pioneers of the chillwave genre — a musical movement characterized by its lo-fi aesthetics, dreamy pop soundscapes and mellow vocals full of nostalgia. However, music making is not his only creative outlet. In 2009 he graduated from the University of South Carolina with a bachelor’s degree in graphic design. In 2014 he started his own design studio and it turned into an agency of sorts with the help of Toro y Moi’s notoriety. About the design studio he said the following: “I like to treat it as an agency, and treat almost anyone we’re collaborating with as our client — we’re providing a service to them to help them reach who they want to reach….” At the same time, Bear’s background as a performing artist has allowed him to closely understand the journey of emerging artists. “I also view our
Studio as an incubator of sorts, where we sort of guide the artist or the musician in the right direction … not in a managerial way, but just in a more DIY effective way.”
Chaz Bear wears many hats indeed. Outer Peace’s album cover is almost a manifesto of the multidisciplinary quality of his work: a candid picture of him in the midst of his creative workflow in what looks like the work-from-home setup of our dreams.
As with many other album covers, there is a thoughtful design behind it. A vibrant color palette, a carefully arranged composition, and props all come together to relay a message: an artist, a creator, a freelancer; working, focusing, and existing in the midst of it all. In a post-pandemic world the 2019 album cover’s message can seem quite prophetic. And in an unintentional way, it most definitely was. It reminds us of a time (not yet gone), in which many of us creatives, in isolation, were revamping, re-evaluating, restructuring, revisiting and repurposing our artistic practices. Outer Peace could very well have been the soundtrack to our own artistic and personal reckonings during the pandemic.
As we keep coming to terms and finding our own way within the liquid state of the artistic landscape, we can look towards artists like Toro y Moi who are embracing the multidimensionality of their creative self by honing in on their various crafts and/or by providing support and inspiration to fellow creatives.
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All images attached to this article are not property of Lorem Ipsum and were crafted by the artists mentioned above.
