Don Toliver on Working With Travis Scott, Life With Kali Uchis & Rock Hall Ambitions

Mere days ago, a winter storm turned the Big Apple into an arctic tundra — but on this frigid late-January afternoon, Don Toliver has made the trek anyway to Manhattan’s famed Electric Lady Studios. After all, his album OCTANE arrives in three days, and he’s putting the finishing touches on it.

It’s toasty inside the state-of-the-art Greenwich Village studio, but Toliver is still bundled up in all-black attire, rocking a bonnet over his braids, a ski jacket, Coreshot pants and boots, all courtesy of Chinese designer Dingyun Zhang. “This room, you can smell it — it’s super iconic to me,” he says of the studio where so many classic albums, from Patti Smith’s Horses to D’Angelo’s Voodoo, were recorded. The woodsy scent of a teakwood-and-tobacco candle wafts through the air as an engineer noodles on a synthesizer in the background.

Toliver’s own work for OCTANE is done, but he’s saving room for one last guest spot from Travis Scott, who signed Toliver to his label Cactus Jack, in partnership with Atlantic Records, in 2018. “Dude pop out like Batman, smoke screen,” Toliver jokes. La Flame ultimately beats the buzzer, turning in his vocals at the 11th hour to continue his streak of being on every Toliver album. (His woozy appearance on OCTANE’s “Rosary,” which will soon hit No. 36 on the Billboard Hot 100, has now drawn comparisons to his assist on SZA’s Grammy Award-­nominated “Love Galore.”) “He’s the illest,” Scott later tells Billboard of Toliver.

Don Toliver will headline Billboard’s THE STAGE at SXSW at Moody Amphitheater at Waterloo Park in Austin on March 13. Get your tickets here.

In just a few days, OCTANE will help the 31-year-old born Caleb Zackery Toliver make the quantum leap to rap’s A-list. But today, the Houston native is even-keeled and humble. So far, Toliver’s career has been a steady labor of love: OCTANE is his fifth album in nearly six years — on top of his work on a pair of Cactus Jack Jackboys compilations — and like each of his albums so far, it will end up reaching the top 10 of the Billboard 200. Unlike his previous solo projects, it hits No. 1.

“It’s been great watching someone master their craft and grow at the same time,” says Sickamore, Cactus Jack A&R executive and Toliver’s co-­manager, in the Electric Lady lounge area. “It’s like watching a baby dinosaur turn into a T. rex.” Later, Toliver’s right-hand engineer and producer, 206Derek, echoes the sentiment: “He’s like the Apple stock.”

At its core, OCTANE is fueled by Toliver’s love of cars, but it goes much deeper than that. A couple of weeks before his New York trip, he pulls up to his Billboard photo shoot in a custom all-terrain Porsche Dakar — just one of the vehicles in his exotic collection. “All of my favorite things collide on this album. It’s an extension of me being a motorhead and loving all of that s–t. I love cars, boats, jets, all of it,” he says. “It’s me fleshing out my passions and things I grew up loving and giving it to the world through my eyes.”

OCTANE’s seeds were planted in early 2025 during a trip Toliver made to Miami with 206Derek. As they blended punchy 808s and bionic synths with elements of moody R&B and melodic rap to build out Toliver’s atmospheric sonic canvas, Derek nudged Toliver to get his hands dirty as a producer. “I’ve always told Toliver his instincts are the craziest instincts I’ve ever seen with anyone I’ve worked with,” Derek says. “He’s always down to push the line and just, like, do some risky s–t creatively.”

Toliver’s always been heavily involved in executive-producing his projects and particular about the arrangements on them, but this was his first time producing for himself, and he ended up with production credits on OCTANE tracks including “Rendezvous” with YEAT, “Call Back” and “ATM.” “[Producing] makes me feel like I’m getting closer to being able to compute whatever I’m thinking in my brain and put it directly into the music,” Toliver explains. “It just gives me more freedom to do what I want without having to rely on somebody else.”

Months after the Miami trip and thousands of miles across the country, OCTANE turned another corner when Toliver organized a writing camp a couple of hours south of San Francisco on the Monterey Peninsula in Carmel-by-the-Sea, which, fittingly enough, hosts its own classic car week every August. Collaborators like Jaasu, 206Derek, FnZ and Jahaan Sweet pulled up to the rented Airbnb — a cliffside glass mansion overlooking the Pacific Ocean — that Toliver nicknamed Castle Creek. When they weren’t in the studio, the crew bonded over joyrides along the California coast.

The camp was the first time Toliver’s creative director at Atlantic Records, Raf Porter, had seen him in his element. “Watching him record or produce is like seeing someone pull electricity from the air to power a room with light,” Porter says. “My brain is moving a million miles per hour sometimes, bro,” Toliver tells me. “I think I’m a visual learner and a visual thinker too.”

At Electric Lady, as he walked around the studio, he mused, “One of my biggest questions is: What’s out there?” Enter Mount Wilson Observatory. Over the summer, Toliver found solace in the San Gabriel Mountains outside of Pasadena, Calif. It was atop the range’s Mount Wilson, in 1925, that Edwin Hubble, a pioneer of modern astronomy, discovered that galaxies existed beyond the Milky Way using the observatory’s massive telescopes. For Toliver, the observatory became a creative anchor for the world-building of OCTANE.

“It’s cool these guys sit for hours and hours to see planets. I thought that was a crazy juxtaposition of how the studio is,” Toliver explains. “I record all night long, and I might not get that song that I want, or hear that melody that I want till five in the morning, and then it clicks.”

Like the passion that fuels the astronomers of Mount Wilson as they pursue scientific breakthroughs, Toliver is fueled by his drive to push hip-hop’s sonic envelope, where he’s already blazed trails in psychedelic trap. “I’ve never seen an artist just want to stay in the studio so much,” Sickamore says, “and I think that’s his superpower.”

OCTANE boasts something for every type of Toliver fan, whether it’s the electronic-trap mashup of the Justin Timberlake-sampling, top 20 Hot 100 hit “Body”; the mosh pit-inducing chaos of “Opposite”; or the soothing, late-night drive energy of album closer “Sweet Home,” which, despite its calm nature, explores his hedonistic escapades.

With features from Rema, YEAT, SahBabii and Teezo Touchdown, the album scored Toliver his first solo Billboard 200 chart-topper (he previously peaked at No. 2 with 2021’s Life of a Don), with 162,000 equivalent album units earned in the United States for the week ending Feb. 5, according to Luminate. The set netted Toliver 139 million on-demand official streams, and all 18 of its tracks landed on the Hot 100, bringing Toliver’s total number of entries on the chart to 54.

“What’s been most impressive is watching him fully step into his creative identity and refine a sound that’s instantly recognizable,” Cactus Jack GM David Stromberg says. “He’s not riding any wave — he created his own.”

Concurrently with his recorded music’s success, Toliver has established himself as one of the premier live performers of his generation in hip-hop. His OCTANE tour kicks off in May with his first headlining set at Rolling Loud 2026 in Orlando, Fla. — and includes his first date headlining New York’s Madison Square Garden, where he’s headed to watch the Knicks after we meet at Electric Lady. “I just want to set the standard and be one of the top performing artists there is in 2026,” he declares. “I just want to be among the top performers in the world, bro.”

Music is in Toliver’s bloodline. Born during the 1994 NBA title run of his hometown Houston Rockets, he was raised in the working-class Alief neighborhood by his mother, Carla, and father, Bongo, who was an aspiring singer and affiliate of Swishahouse, an independent Houston record label that became a cultural force in the 2000s. Bongo grew up with former Swishahouse CEO G-Dash, which meant the chopped-and-screwed essence the label brought to the mainstream was baked into Toliver’s DNA.

Toliver was inspired by Sade, Dom Kennedy, Teddy Pendergrass and, later, fellow Houstonian Travis Scott — but he also wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps. As the Swishahouse boom rocked 2000s hip-hop, Toliver says two of its anthems in particular rewired his brain musically: Paul Wall and Big Pokey’s “Sittin’ Sidewayz” and Mike Jones’ “Back Then.”

The former song “really opened up my love for beats and musicality. That beat was so hard, it made me realize I like cool s–t,” Toliver says while he sings the Salih Williams beat. “That sample was so iconic, and the way it was chopped up, and the way Paul Wall was rapping on that joint made me stand 10 toes on everything the city had going on.”

He then raps “281-330-8004,” the famed phone number from Mike Jones’ 2005 anthem “Back Then.” “That was like peak for real. I ain’t never seen nobody do it again,” Toliver adds, clearing his throat and taking a sip of water. “That was peak artistry. I grew up around it.”

Toliver’s rich musical upbringing, not to mention his versatile vibrato, paved the way for him to fully dive into music. He exhausted every option at his disposal to turn his dreams into reality. Toliver and his close friend and collaborator Young Josh 93 would fly Spirit Airlines from Houston to New York with hopes of getting their music in the right hands. Circa 2017, they’d sleep in cars outside the offices of WWPR (Power 105.1) and Complex to meet The Breakfast Club hosts Charlamagne Tha God and Angela Yee, or Joe Budden and DJ Akademiks, who at the time co-hosted the debate show Everyday Struggle, to give them their CDs, looking for their big break.

“All these people took our CDs and gave us words of encouragement, and that s–t did numbers for me,” Toliver says. “That s–t made me feel like I can sit here and touch it. I can sit here and get right by it. It’s not impossible to do what I want to do. They just go in there and play it if they like it, so at the end of the day, what’s stopping us?

“That’s the energy that [time] gave me,” he continues. “But it was beautiful. Just everything about that whole era, man. It’s iconic to look back at and be like, ‘Damn, this is what we was working with, and we made it work.’ ”

Toliver’s demo eventually got into Travis Scott’s hands, and the Cactus Jack boss changed Toliver’s life when he invited him to the Hawaiian sessions for his 2018 album, Astroworld. He took full advantage of the opportunity, lending his floating vocal melodies to Scott’s “Can’t Say,” which became a top 40 Hot 100 hit, while also crafting songs like the Scott-­assisted “After Party” and “Cardigan,” which would appear on Toliver’s own 2020 album, Heaven or Hell.

“We’d be in the room, like, ‘Do you hear what this guy got going on?!’ He was like the new kid on the block,” recalls Sickamore, who met Scott as a couch-surfing aspiring rapper in the early 2010s. “I said to myself, ‘He’s so talented, he has to be protected.’ I made a decision that I’m going to help this guy get to where he’s got to go.”

Both Scott’s and Toliver’s careers have exploded since then, but their creative relationship hasn’t changed much. “The way I feel like [Scott] received [OCTANE] was the way I feel like when I first used to just send him unreleased music when I was just fresh off of ‘Can’t Say,’ ” he says. “I was just sending him hella music. I would always hear from people, like, ‘Trav’s been playing the s–t,’ and it used to just give me hope. I feel in that same era right now. He really right there with me.

“I’ll pull up [to Scott] with a full buffet, like, ‘What do you think about all of this?’ ” he continues. “Sometimes, he might have input right there at the moment. Sometimes he’s like, ‘Yo, send it to me and I’m going to get back to you.’ He’ll get back to me with a full breakdown of how he feels about it.”

Before blossoming as a superstar in his own right, Toliver became one of his generation’s most in-demand feature artists. As the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the globe, Toliver released his debut, Heaven or Hell, in March 2020, which landed in the top 10 of the Billboard 200 and spawned three Hot 100 entries. Later in 2020, Toliver earned his first top 10 Hot 100 hit when helming the syrupy chorus of Internet Money’s “Lemonade” alongside Gunna and NAV. Collaborations with titans including Ye, Justin Bieber, SZA, Future and Nas followed.

Of all of those guest turns, Eminem recruiting him for “No Regrets,” off 2020’s Music To Be Murdered By, is the one Toliver still can’t wrap his head around. “I really didn’t believe it because it was just so random,” he says. “I mean, I can believe Eminem would want to work with me and everything, but it was just random at the time. It was insane.”

But Toliver still has his sights set on collaborating with two of rap’s goliaths — Jay-Z and André 3000 — and he’d even be interested in laying a hook for a pop star like Sabrina Carpenter or Tate McRae. “What I like about pop these days is it’s mad clever. When we were growing up, it didn’t have to be articulated. It’s great, say something.”

He quickly shifts back to OCTANE while munching on a burger. “That’s another thing with this album: I can say a billion things about the sky, black hole, nebula and the Milky Way and Hubble, but it ain’t about that,” he says. “It’s about the feeling. Whatever you’re saying, you want it to resonate with someone. Sometimes I hear some of them [pop] songs and I get caught in riddles. I think it’s all dope, but sometimes s–t’s like a puzzle.”

But it’s not the plaques or chart accolades that ultimately bring Toliver the most happiness — it’s the financial freedom he now has. “To provide for my family the way I’ve done is the greatest reward,” he says. “My grandma called me the other day and asked me, ‘Yo, my refrigerator is broken. I need a new fridge.’ We brought her a fridge with a touch screen, just because she wanted it. At the end of the day, bro, that s–t warms my heart.

“An award is cool, but I know for a fact I’m going to make that bread,” Toliver continues. “Just like being able to sit here and say, ‘I can chill out and really just focus on my family and work on music whenever I really feel like I’m in a good mood or in a vibe to do so,’ makes me happy.”

Two years before his death in 1970, rock icon Jimi Hendrix — who Toliver calls one of his “all-time favorite people” — commissioned Electric Lady Studios. But as Toliver hunkers down in Electric Lady’s subterranean lair, being thousands of miles from his son is what’s most on his mind.

He and his partner, the Grammy-winning R&B and Latin artist Kali Uchis, began dating in 2020 and welcomed their first child in early 2024. Toliver is at his most serious when discussing fatherhood — he’s put his dad duties first. “I’m just at a place where I just want to be a present father and spend as much time with my kid, as young as he is,” he says.

Toliver gushes about his son knowing some of his music and how smart he is at 2 years old. “My son is a sponge,” he raves. “He’s talking, running and doing everything. He’s so smart and it blows everybody’s mind. I’m just so proud of him. I just want to amplify that energy. I feel like he got it. I feel like if I was to implement as much time as I possibly could, he might just take off at a young age.”

Uchis is a superstar in her own right, and their hectic schedules make parenting, well, different from the typical situation; last year, they brought their son on the road with them for Uchis’ tour.

And while they shine in different musical lanes, the couple shares feedback with one another, and Toliver often solicits Uchis’ advice. “Sometimes she’ll hear some things and give me input,” he says. “Or sometimes she’ll hear some things and just think about something that I might not even thought about, like a chord. She’s very innovative and very particular about her production. So it really helps when I’m just trying to brainstorm.”

Looking far into the future, Toliver does have one grand ambition, one that would put him in the same orbit as his Electric Lady hero: “I got to go to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame,” he proclaims with calm conviction.

But at least for the coming year, he’s set goals a bit closer to the center of his own little universe. “I just want to be locked in me and my son just sitting back watching Winnie the Pooh,” he says. “Man, practicing whatever he wants to practice [and I’m] cooking up, sketching designs and setting up something even crazier one day.”

This story appears in the March 7, 2026, issue of Billboard.