Will Johnson is a Baltimore native artist and musician who performs under the moniker – Low.bō. He recently released his debut project, “circa.”, a soulful-yet-playful R&B album, reminiscent of the sometimes-funky, sometimes-pop-y sounds of The Weeknd, Bruno Mars, or Anderson Paak. Low.bō returned to Baltimore to perform his homecoming show at The Crown along with his band mates from New Jersey, forming the group NDIGO. He sat down with me to talk about his beginnings, his inspirations, and his aspirations as an artist, as well as his relationship with hometown.
JT
What does Baltimore mean to you? And how does Baltimore make you feel as a person who has had to move away?
Low.bō
It’s home to me, because of course I grew up there and stuff like that, but I never really felt like, if I’m being transparent, I don’t really feel like I belonged there. Even when I was a kid, you can even ask, my mom I always said, “when I hit a certain age, I’m moving somewhere else,” because I didn’t want to just get stuck in a “the-only-thing-is-Baltimore” type of mindset, you know, that I couldn’t move anywhere else. I just feel like you can’t grow as a person if you just stay at home your entire life. So, that was the synopsis of it.
Low.bō
I mean, I want to come back to see my family, you know, just to be home. But I don’t know if it’s where I would settle down. I really don’t know where I want to be at. Honestly, I think I just really want to explore and find out if I really belong anywhere. But no matter where I go, I always say, “I’m from Baltimore.” That’s home. We have a lot of ups-and-downs here, but it makes real people. People who care about you, people who will tell you if you’re acting up or doing the wrong things. We know how to sniff our inconsistency and fakeness. I don’t know if it’s just a collective Baltimore experience that we all have or something, but I feel that everywhere I go.
JT
How did you know you wanted to pursue music beyond the hobby?
Low.bō
I was doing choirs stuff from since I was a kid and stuff like that. But I think what made me actually start trying it, outside of doing it for fun, was the feeling that I didn’t really have much of an outlet. I’ve lost a lot of friends, especially after I moved to Jersey. I didn’t really know people in Jersey, I was alone a lot of time. It gave me an outlet to get whatever feelings I had out. Sporadic song ideas and stuff like that. Sometimes, I just heard something in my mind and that was the first thing that came out of my mouth, then I would go back and fine-tune it. It was an outlet for my emotions, really. I hadn’t started going to therapy yet. At the time, I felt like I couldn’t talk to my parents, or talk to my friends because I didn’t really have any. I just had to figure it out on my own.
JT
Who and what are your greatest influences? And what parts of them do you enjoy and draw inspiration from?
Low.bō
I Low.bō say – I get huge inspiration from my homies. I always wanted to play guitar, but I never really had the resources to learn how. Then, one day, my friend Kenny reached out to me on Instagram because he saw me playing. And, of course, I wasn’t that good because I just started. But he was like, “Yo, you play?” and I told him I was learning so he invited me to his studio at the time and we would just practice together. From then on, he introduced me to our friend Nook. And then later on, we met Tomteahouse and we formed our group, NDIGO. I just was very inspired by my friends, because they were the ones that showed me how to do things, whether it was directly or indirectly, you know? Whether I make good music or bad music – I wouldn’t have had the skills to make any type of music if I wasn’t in front of people I was surrounded by. I don’t want to attribute anything, skill wise, that I have now, to any person I’ve never met before.
Low.bō
I would say that my focus is definitely parachuted from my mom. She is like, a no-nonsense type of person. If she knows that there’s stuff that needs to get done, she’ll tell me to handle my business first, pleasure later. There are times where I don’t want to record, I might want to lay down and be on my phone for hours at a time after I get off work – or whatever the case may be – but I’m just very hands-on. I can’t afford to be distracted by things that aren’t going to contribute to what I need to get done.
JT
How do you manage to focus on recording while balancing a full-time job? Does the stress get to you?
Low.bō
My situation is very circumstantial because if I don’t work eight to five, five days a week. I feel like it would be a different type of mental strain if I only had two days to do anything. At my current job I work 12-hour shifts, but I only work three or four days out of the week. If I work three days, I have four days to do whatever I want, and vice versa. So, fo me, it’s really just about not having excuses. That’s not to say that I can handle everything and anything all at once. There are definitely times where I don’t feel confident in myself or my voice or my writing, but I feel like we need to embrace that sometimes. It’s okay to feel like you can’t do something right this moment but try not to let it cripple you. When I start feeling like that, I write down my thoughts because I feel like it hits harder when you put it from pen to paper, I’m starting to write those thoughts down instead of letting them fester. It gives you an outlet. Even if it’s not something that I record, it’s just giving me a way to let those thoughts out.
Low.bō
The way it is for musicians now is so much different than it was for the people we look up to. Now, you’ve got create content every single day. This weird, forced feeding of myself into the world. If you’re not that type of person, it’s not easy. There are some people that are built to do that, there are some people that just don’t have any desire to do that at all and just want to focus on making. It can definitely just be a detriment to your mental health. So, I think that people should definitely get those feelings out in any way shape, or form. And if it’s not writing, go read a book, go outside, do something that satisfies you. Be honest with yourself – there’s no right or wrong to this. It’s just you at the end of the day.
JT
What is your outlook on the future of your music and where do you want to take it? What are your loftier goals?
Low.bō
So far, I’m definitely just taking strides so I’m proud of myself for putting my EP, “circa”, out there because I did work so long on it. But I want to push myself. My mindset right now is, “I want to make the realest thing I could ever make for myself.” I want this next project to feel like I’m putting all of it on there, whatever thoughts I have, whatever feelings I got, I don’t want to hold back myself, vocally, production-wise, whatever. I want this to be a full expression of myself and the rawest form that I can. That’s how I feel right now.
Low.bō The main goal for me, is to have the freedom to do whatever I want. I don’t have the desire to be a superstar. I feel like that’s the wrong mindset to have – I just want to make the best art that I can. I want to have the freedom to be able to, without having to worry about waking up and going to a job, worrying about things that aren’t what I want to do for myself. I would be more than happy to wake up at 4am to shoot a music video, than to wake up at 4am to go work in a factory. I want to do stuff that I want to do, whether it’s personal, whether it’s for my career, whether it’s my family, friends, an adventure, I want to just wake up and just have the ability to just say I can do whatever I want to do today. And of course, financial freedom, but I think that’s what everybody wants.
At the end of the day, I just want my art to just not just resonate with me but resonate with whoever listens to it. And whatever blessings come with it I’ll definitely be more than open for so let them come through! But yeah, man, I just want to make my people proud. And myself proud.