Teon Gibbs is Rewriting the Rap Playbook

New Album The Calm Before signals a shift in sound and mindset for the rising west coast hip-hop artist.

by Adriel Smiley

Photos by Cody Briggs

Published on September 13, 2024

There is a refreshing, secure energy around BC-based musician Teon Gibbs. Although he’s released countless singles over the past five years, there’s a newly discovered sense of musical sophistication that has come over his work as of late.

In the present, he is aware. Aware that he has been categorized as a rapper first and foremost, and cognizant of those expectations. His latest work, assembled on The Calm Before, his first full-length project since 2019, opposes the notion of what consumers might come to expect from a rapper’s album. He isn’t a newcomer, but this feels like a new beginning.

“I’m manifesting everything I’ve been working towards,” he says. “This project represents the moment in time I captured all that essence. Everything after this, I’m going to be leapfrogging everything I’ve done. This is the beginning of everything surging into the stratosphere.”

The heightened vulnerability of this project is new, and Gibbs’ introspection is welcome and enlightening in an industry and genre where vulnerability has sometimes become a synonym for softness. He rejects that.

Despite the West Coast being home, Gibbs’ musical upbringing occurred in the UK. The nation’s underground radio scene and music culture was the backdrop for some of his earliest memories. Like any curious kid, he tried to imitate what he heard on the radio.

“I had a small microphone I could plug into my brother’s boombox, and we would plug it in, and we could record audio that way,” he says. “It was really low latency audio. But I remember, that’s where it all kind of started.“

He spent a couple of years attending high school in Botswana, where he started to take music more seriously. He became familiar with Fruity Loops, the vaunted digital audio workstation used by many notable hip-hop producers. This is also when he started playing the guitar and bass, building a musical foundation for the future.

“That’s the inception of trying to make it come together cohesively. Botswana was like the piece that kind of brought things together,” Gibbs says.

In the years that followed, he prioritized independence. His time at Kelowna’s CATO (Center for Arts & Technology) sharpened his engineering skills and increased his understanding of the music industry. Prior to this, Gibbs thought he would quickly become a household name. He chuckles as he reflects on his more naive, younger self.

“I think in my mind, not understanding the music business, it was like, ‘I’ll record my album, and then I’ll put it out, and then six months later, I’m going to be touring the world, right?’”

As the amount of time it took to reach his lofty goals grew and grew, so did he – but despite his newly-discovered energy, there are still elements from those early days that have stuck. Before Gibbs came to Canada, his sound was already starting to evolve, as his time playing in bands fostered some self reflection. Other elements of The Calm Before predate his time at CATO as well – an early R&B demo he made with a couple friends in high school has its fingerprints all over this album.

The album starts with “Big Money,” a braggadocious record where Gibbs flexes not only his ability to spend, but also his lyrical dexterity. Midway through, the beat switches and his lyrics become more autobiographical, the second half becoming more of a teaser for the rest of the project. There are moments where Gibbs might have teetered on the edge of oversharing, but his commitment to artistic growth prevailed.

“I feel like half the project outside of ‘Big Money,’ I was like, I don’t know if I should be doing this,” he says. “I think vocally, it shows a lot more vulnerability. That kind of comes from a very hip-hop male-focused hyper-masculine culture, where you still want to be seen as the alpha male. And I think that’s very limiting artistically.”

Gibbs has seemingly fallen in love with his imperfections – he’ll be the first to tell you that he’s not a “perfect singer.” As his eyes light up and his lips curl into a smile, he speaks of intentionality when it came to showing the inadequacies in his voice.He mentions Mac Miller and Kanye West as inspirations, rappers that don’t shy away from their vocal shortcomings.

“If you’re just solely rapping, you really gotta get into the intricacies and the details of painting the picture,” he says. “But I think a melody can almost communicate 1000 words, like a picture’s 1000 words. I almost think a melody is the same thing – a melody’s worth 1000 words.”

Although Gibbs’ musical journey has made stops around the world, he’s planted his roots in British Columbia. When asked about appealing to the rest of the country, his response is empathic. The West Coast is home, and he has no plan on going anywhere.

“My core fan base is here, my core community is here. I’m focused on building that, and it’s just a matter of time.”