For the past few years, the young singer, rapper and producer 2hollis has been one of the brightest spots in future-thinking pop. He released his major-label debut, “Star,” last year, a continuation of his experiments at the intersection of hyperpop, hip-hop and electro. In short order, he’s cultivated a fervent following online, and in real life, with the sorts of hyperactive concerts that inspire mosh pits, in-character dressing and rapturous TikTok recaps.
He is also the topic of relentless online speculation about his upbringing, and whether his breakthrough success has been the result of industry nepotism — born Hollis Frazier-Herndon, 2hollis is the son of a successful music publicist, Kathryn Frazier, and a stalwart of indie music, John Herndon, the drummer of the foundational Chicago post-rock band Tortoise.
Herndon, like his son, is an experimentalist by nature. In Tortoise — which recently released “Touch,” its first album of new music in a decade — and in his solo recordings as A Grape Dope, he flirts with dub, jazz, techno, trip-hop and myriad other texturally dense sounds.
On Popcast, The New York Times’s pop culture interview show, 2hollis, 22, and Herndon, 59, sat for their first joint interview to discuss their careers, their approaches to creating music, how literal and cultural nepotism aren’t the same thing and the way that influence flows both directions between parent and child.
The interview can be watched in full here or listened to below. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.
JOE COSCARELLI There’s a lot of talk among creatives about telling their children to do literally anything else — “Go to law school, go to medical school!” John, did you have reservations when you realized that Hollis was pursuing this path?
JOHN HERNDON When Hollis wanted to focus on music coming up into his later years in high school, it seemed like, OK, he’s being real serious about doing this. He’s self-releasing all this material and wants to have a go at this. And I was like, go to music school, learn how to compose.
2HOLLIS You and mom were like, “Go to school.”
HERNDON Learn how to arrange for an orchestra or, I don’t know, just have these tools in your belt that I never had. I graduated high school and my folks were just like, if you want to go to college, you’re going to pay for it. So I got a Mohawk and moved to Chicago.
Just seeing friends that did [go to music school] and the amount of work that is available to them based on the skills they have, from learning how to arrange or how to read music real well — I know how long a career can be, and the ups and downs.
And so he did. He went to school, got into Evergreen and was there for less than a month and then called up and was like, “I’m coming home on Wednesday. I bought myself a ticket home.”
2HOLLIS I think music school works for certain folks, but where I was at, I was like, bro, no, I need to go. In the 10 days I was there, I made basically three core songs of mine: “Forfeit,” “Poster Boy,” “Plaster,” a bunch of the “2” album, and then I was like, I’m going too hard right now. What am I doing?
And then my friend FaceTimed me one night, I think he was at Notch’s house, the inventor of Minecraft, and they were playing my song “Safety.” And it was a room of like 500 people dancing to it. I was like, this is where I’m supposed to be. It was a Wednesday and I copped the ticket for Friday, and dipped.
COSCARELLI John, in Tortoise, you were using techniques that were not native to the rock scene that you might’ve come out of. The band did a remix album in 1995. Tortoise was once described as “music of multiple options, of too many records to listen to.” Do you hear the 2hollis ethos in that?
HERNDON I was definitely into sample-based music. I grew up listening to Public Enemy, the Bomb Squad, thinking how cool it would be to figure out how to do my own version of that. We were also super into dub techniques, King Tubby and Scientist and Adrian Sherwood from On-U Sound. And then we went to London to play some shows and some friends were like, have you ever heard of drum-and-bass? They put on a pirate radio station in London and my mind was blown by the editing techniques, shoving all this crazy music together in a real D.I.Y. punk-rock kind of style.
I grew up in a rock world with people who primarily played guitar and bass and drums. But we were like, how can we incorporate some of these other things that we’re interested in? That’s really what Tortoise was about.
2HOLLIS I think I get the wide range of music influences and like, just meshing everything together from you. Growing up, the more I’m thinking about it, you played everything. So much of my taste and influences is this man right here. I remember that silver iPod, the O.G. one, and in the car on the way to school would be like Sir Mix-a-Lot and then Iron Maiden, then it would be like Osborne, the Detroit D.J., and then …
HERNDON Like, Thelonious Monk.
2HOLLIS Music was always in my DNA, but it wasn’t really my thing until later. My first thing was sports, and then it was skating. I remember you got me Ableton for my birthday. I wasn’t that crazy about it at first. I would just make a beat here and there. And then it became a for-real thing around 16.
HERNDON You found Chief Keef.
COSCARELLI What did you think when you first heard the music coming out of his bedroom?
HERNDON The first time I heard Hollis’s beats, I was like, oh damn. As soon as I saw the chain mail and the broadsword and the trap beats, I knew right away. I was like, Oh, OK, he’s got something going on here. And it was just beats. And then, I don’t know if you remember this, but I was like, why don’t you try some vocals?
I was telling all my friends like, Oh my God, man. Hollis is doing this thing! And then he put out the video for “Green Spore Valley.” It made me cry. I was just like, this kid is headed for other worlds.
CARAMANICA The world-building of 2hollis has grown exponentially in the last couple of years. I wonder about the potential emotional tension between losing the grounding of family, and also literally losing your home in the Los Angeles fires last year, while disappearing more into the character.
2HOLLIS No one is built to become famous. It’s a very bizarre experience and it’s only understood if you experience it — it’s something that no one can really prepare you for. When you go through the experience of rising to fame, anyone will lose themselves and I think there was a period where the lines got blurred of what’s real and what matters and what doesn’t.
I don’t look at the internet anymore.
COSCARELLI Did you have an internet rock-bottom?
2HOLLIS I had such a rock-bottom. It hasn’t been that long. People are gonna maybe flame me. But I’m telling you, the last six weeks, my life has changed. The internet is a plague for me and for anyone, but it’s not natural to see what people say about you. My fans and people online, they just go so in on my life and details, pick apart things and try to summarize my upbringing or what I look like today. Reading that is like — it’s internet psychosis, you’re just not supposed to see that. And removing myself from that — I literally had my managers set a timer. I have 60 seconds of Instagram a day.
Even six weeks is like a year, you know? I’m making the best music I’ve made. This next project, it’s a whole new feeling. I feel a second wind of inspiration and clarity. And I love not knowing what’s going on.
COSCARELLI One of the recurring conversations about you online is the “nepo baby” topic. Not only is your dad an accomplished musician, but your mom [the publicist Kathryn Frazier of Biz3] is, in the conspiracy theories of Reddit and X and Instagram comments, responsible for your career. How has your thinking on that subject evolved as it’s been bandied about for the last few years?
2HOLLIS I don’t want to argue — I think the music speaks for itself. I’m so proud of my mother and what she’s accomplished for herself. And I know my truth, which is yes, I am very fortunate and blessed to be born into a house where I was shown incredible music at an early age and I was introduced to artists all my life, I was going to shows. Yes, I was meeting influential artists early on. However, I, my own career, 2hollis, from the [expletive] beginning to the end, it was my mission.
I was always so focused on “I wanna do this my way.” It’s actually funny, when I was younger, the early days, I blocked my mom on Instagram and I was like, do not show my music to anyone. And she’d be like, can I please show it to whoever, her friend that works at whatever — I’d be like, no, I wanna do this myself.
My argument to some of the people who try to knock me down with that argument is like, well, what do you want me to do? Let’s say you’re an incredible soccer player and you have a son and he starts showing interest in soccer. Are you gonna tell him, nah, sorry, you can’t play?
HERNDON There’s all these kids that are skateboarder pros now that are children of older skateboarder pros. And they wouldn’t be winning contests if they didn’t have the skills to win a contest. If people didn’t love Hollis’s music, it wouldn’t matter if me or his mom put him up there or got him whatever.
2HOLLIS My mom has never worked me. She’s never pushed me. I’ve never been represented by her. No one’s ever put me anywhere. Everything I have, it’s been me, the internet.
CARAMANICA The fan energy and devotion, you can’t invent that. I’ve never seen so much sweat as in photos from your shows.
2HOLLIS I’m sorry, but you can’t plant that. Labels are trying, people are trying. It doesn’t work. This is organic, my fans know. And the ones that have been there for the whole ride, you know this is not manufactured. This is incredible, it’s real — it’s as real as it gets, actually. It’s physical. It’s real life. The relationship I have with my supporters, it’s honestly more than music in a lot of ways. There’s a connection there that’s just special. You can’t make that up.
HERNDON Hollis figured out how to get stuff up on SoundCloud, how to get stuff on the streaming services, how to edit his own movies, how to do everything himself. People saw it and liked it and loved it. Ken Carson saw it and was like, come on tour with me. That was all because of what Hollis had done for himself.
2HOLLIS I’m an artist — it’s in my blood. It’s from you, from my mom. Music is my therapy, my outlet. Why would this not be my life?
Additional cinematography by Gus Aronson.
Jon Caramanica is a pop music critic who hosts “Popcast,” The Times’s music podcast.
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