Yoshi Flower got his first guitar — a one-of-one custom Taylor, which he still keeps beside him in bed most nights — from a client of his father, who provided pro bono legal work for musicians in the Detroit scene throughout the ‘90s. Twenty years later, Yoshi is hammering in the final nails on the coffin housing the music industry’s idea of “normal.” The singer–songwriter–producer now resides in Topanga, CA and is blending the many influences of his life into a new sound.
"It's impossible to not have threads from really drastically different boxes that are tying your knots together," Yoshi told Billboard. Those boxes include growing up with interests in sports and art, having some friends who were wealthy and some who had it tough, and practicing meditation and aspiring to one day own a Lamborghini. The goal, he said, is “being enlightened, but also being fucking iced out in diamonds." These seemingly opposing qualities that make up Yoshi’s background bleed into his musical inspirations as well. With such artists as Bloc Party, Panic! At The Disco, A$AP Rocky, Danny Brown, and Diplo influencing his electro–hip-hop–rock sound, Yoshi is creating a genre all his own.
After releasing his first single “Movies,” Fader called Yoshi’s sound, “effectively early Lana Del Rey except if her partying involved EDM.” But listen to “Panic Attacks,” the collaboration with Yoshi’s friend (and roommate) Elohim, and you’ll be treated to raw and emotional lyrics sung over only a piano. His latest offering, “Brown Paper Bag,” was released via GRDN (his own imprint on Interscope) on Thursday, August 9, 2018. "I'm just trying to be myself for better or worse,” he told Billboard. “If I'm hated for it or if I can connect with people for it, that's dope.”
