Earlier this week, the jazz- and soul-informed hip-hop duo of Brasstracks and Nigerian-Canadian rapper TOBi unleashed the powerful collaborative track “Good Luck for Real” which combined what each respective player does best, with the emcee’s cool verses proving as perfect a complement to Ivan Jackson and Conor Rayne’s funky instrumental as one would imagine. The new track preceded both a joint tour between the two artists, kicking off September 30 in Chicago, as well as a two-track collaborative EP sharing the name of that first single, Good Luck for Real, which officially drops today.
“TOBi and I had our first session together in 2018,” Brasstracks’ Ivan Jackson shares of the longevity of their working relationship. “I remember the process being pretty effortless. The songs we made that day didn’t come out, but we left the studio knowing we’d work again. Fast forward three years later, we’re going on tour together after live music has been virtually non-existent for 15 months. The minute we locked that in, we knew it was time to get some music together. We went through a few ideas, but ‘Good Luck for Real’ and ‘Give It to You Right Back’ was what really stuck. Two records that are wildly different, that show different sides of us, that we are very proud of.”
“I’ve wanted to finish some songs with Brasstracks since we first linked up in 2018,” TOBi affirms, noting how the collaboration may have benefited from the time it took these songs to come to light. “Now we’re going on tour together and we’ve both matured sound-wise since then. ‘Good Luck for Real’ is one of my favorite songs I’ve done in a while, and soon as they sent the record over I was connected to it. The mix of live sounds and that soulful hip-hop is what I want to put out to the world, so I’m glad we achieved that with this EP. ‘Give It to You Right Back’ is a special one, too—we wrote many songs over Zoom and they turned out crazy! We just chose our two favorites to put out and work into our sets to give people the best show possible.”
Stream the EP in full below, and keep scrolling for the artists’ tour dates.
Brasstracks and TOBi joint tour dates:
September 30—Chicago, IL—Bottom Lounge
October 1—Minneapolis, MN—Fine Line Music Cafe
October 2—Kansas City, MO—Record Bar
October 5—Denver, CO—Ogden Theatre
October 6—Boulder, CO—Fox Theatre
October 7—Salt Lake City, UT—Metro Music Hall
October 9—Portland, OR—Wonder Ballroom
October 10—Seattle, WA—El Corazon
October 12—San Francisco, CA—Regency Ballroom
October 13—Santa Cruz, CA—The Catalyst Atrium
October 15—Los Angeles, CA—The Fonda Theatre
October 16—Anaheim, CA—House of Blues Anaheim
October 17—San Diego, CA—Music Box
October 27—Washington, DC—Union Stage
October 28—Philadelphia, PA—The Foundry at The Fillmore
October 29—New York, NY—Irving Plaza
October 30—Boston, MA—Paradise Rock Club
