Peter Toh

At the intersection of bumping your favorite pop tune on your stereo, the late night you spent kicking game to that special someone at the club and the lonely train ride home thinking of all things you should have said just a few fleeting moments before, there’s a quiet kid with a tilted hat and enough music to capture it all with music and a voice that is his uniquely his own—but will soon belong to everyone.

That kid is Peter Toh, a genre-smashing 24 year old artist/producer from Brooklyn, New York who is poised to be a major force in popular music in the months and years to come.

The young maestro’s genre-spanning mix of uptempo rock, soulful r&b, outsider electronica and straight up snap your fingers pop is unlike anything you’re hearing on the radio or in the rock or dance clubs right now—and that’s just the way he likes it.

One listen to Toh’s inventive music reveals that although he’s forever working out new arrangements, melodies and beats in his musical laboratory in Brooklyn, he’s all about creating the rush that comes with hearing a great hook that all people—all people who know an amazing song when they hear one no matter who or where they are—can experience and relate to.

“I want to represent my generation as we actually exist today,” says Toh with the earnestness of a musician on a serious cultural mission. “From Top 40 radio hits that you play for your little sister to the dirty rock and roll that makes you want to pick up a guitar and start a band, I want to strip away the pretense and bring it all back to songwriting that people can genuinely relate to. What you hear is what get.”

What you hear when you listen to Toh’s music is a collision of classic pop songwriting and innovative hip-hop styled production that piles on dance floor-ready beats, sweeping keyboards and snyths and deep bass grooves that creates an uplifting soundtrack to his distinctive vocal stylings. And what you get is the feeling that you need to hear it again and again—first to relive the unstoppable hooks and many more times to take in all the music he’s so richly layering on each and every track.

Toh’s sound is both familiar and experimental. And oh yes—it’s also crazily flavorful. From the club banger “Shoes Of A Beast” and the hard-edged soul of “Criminal” to the dub-tinged, down low funk number “Ages” and the feel-good future club banger “More”, Toh is equally adept at channeling his love for confessional songwriters like Elvis Costello as his he is his appreciation for pure pop groups like New Edition and Jodeci.

“The craft of writing a great song with a verse, bridge and hook has been left to cornballs and American Idol singers, I want to bring it back to Motown and then push it forward to 2020,” he says. And if his self-released debut EP is any indication, taking back the airwaves will never sound as perfect and necessary as it does right now.