Missed By A Rung: Theophilus London's Missed Moment

by Howard Cressi-Stallworth

Straddling the late ‘00s era of mixtapes and the nascent resurgence of ‘70s era album RnB, Theophilus London emerged utilizing every trick, sound, and look in the book.  Then popular hipster chic?  Check.  Smooth vocals over stock ready for radio sounds?  Check.  A suspiciously “about to break” roster of who to work with?  Check.  As soon as he came he went, a perfect example of an artist who was pushed too hard to all the right people at just the right time, yet it never took hold.  He smelled of it too.  Theophilus London should’ve at least had a single or a mixtape to hang his oversized hat on, but never amounted more to a footnote who popped up every few years on a mid-sized stars’ album.

Theophilus had been hopping around in the mid to late ‘00s world of RnB and hip-hop, one dominated by critical favorites such as Lupe Fiasco, Kanye West, and The Dream and more commercial stars like Lil Wayne and T.I.  However, a group of younger listeners were online,away from market trends and advertising, and conversation brewed about Kanye neophyte Kid Cudi and Main Attrakionz.  There was a disconnect occurring between what was getting on television and the radio and what was being touted online.  While hipster chic may have been growing out of Brooklyn in the latter '00s, mainstream Rap and RnB was still running the game with old heads growing older by the minute; there was a rupture between old and new media, and people were starting to get antsy.

In this context Theophilus thought he had it all figured out.  He made it look like he knew all the right references and up and coming artists to work with.  This includes dropping famous song titles and artwork, and working with rising stars who were getting their first big credits while collaborating with it’s biggest names.  Theophilus even had his PR get his roots into failing media in MTV and well as those reaching their peak of influence such as Pitchfork.  He was the kind of artist whose Pro Tools tracks should’ve just been labeled “Vampire Weekend guitar hook” and “The-Dream snare hits”.  It’s also not a good note when the single mix of your one big song that was pushed has Solange’s vocals pushed WAY up front as if to say “LOOK this person really wants to work with him and also...look we know he isn’t working but hey at least SHE’S here so if you like her you might like this guy”.  He seemed almost too primed for success, he happened to suddenly appear everywhere in 2011 even though he was a known name by 2010 with Flying Overseas appearing everywhere and within the speakers of Urban Outfitters. 

 

I remember hearing Theophilus’ music, specifically “Flying Overseas” quite well.  It was clearly a bid at reaching a younger audience more familiar and comfortable with the textures and feel of the mid 80s and the bid for increasingly digital sounds.  However his songwriting technique was as much of a grab of cred than any of his other moves.  Theophilus’s way of artistic approach went beyond copping album titles and album artwork, it encroached into the music.  On Flying Overseas the keyboard track comes from Don Henley’s Dirty Laundry keyboard rhythm, the drums are from the verse in Nine Inch Nails’s Closer, and the guitar part is from The Stone Roses I Wanna Be Adored.  Theophilus thought he was smart in pillaging specific eras and mixing them to his own but certain people caught on to what he was doing.

By 2011 when his debut was released it came and went.  “Timez Are Weird These Days” had the art cover direction of an artist who knew if they dressed a certain way and recalled a certain era of the artist they could capture a fan  on sight.  In the era when a certain listener wanted to be praised for liking music that  hadn’t yet been critically or culturally revived, Theophilus was making the right move but at the wrong time.  He never broke in, passe vanguards of the artists he nodded too like  Rolling Stone and Spin picked up on it,  while still on top places like Pitchfork and various blogs seemed indifferent to his cred, harping on the too-smooth-for-school beats, and calculated aesthetic moves potent only to media outlets desperate for an in to the zeitgeist. .  Whereas just a few short years later these same institutions would cherish these types of artists, they were still within their own snarky rights to not get behind this middling shell of an artist.

Theophilus continued on, releasing a record every three years and planting himself wherever he felt fit.  The moment described in the aforementioned paragraph had crashed, and old world media and the online cred based sites continued on a downward trajectory, their fans abandoning them for smaller fan run sites.  Blogs were growing long in the tooth, owing themselves to an older Web 2.0 era, Pitchfork was falling to their own microcosm, and Rolling Stone was too out of touch.  His entire platform of media and fans were growing up and growing out of whatever it was he wanted to do.  His collaborators seemed to be indifferent to him in their reaches for success while he languished in model posing hell.  It was true that Theophilus was too suspicious from the start, he arrived wearing the right things and playing the right music.  But, it was just a little too on the nose and just a little too mainstream for his crowd yet not mainstream enough to break him.  Mainstream RnB and hip hop was facing a dead zone and was in major limbo and couldn’t take him in, fluctuating between hyped blog artists with mixtapes and old mill media pushed artists still around doing high press releases.  The train left and Theophilus couldn’t catch it.

So why do I remember him?  Theophilus might be one of the biggest examples of someone who hung around for too long within different groups trying so hard to make it.  He is like that one comedian who opened for David Cross in the early 90s and you just keep seeing him in indie movies every five years.  It’s a shame because he was cunning enough to realize on that early mixtape, he had the ability to hone in on a sound and style that would be mined heavily within the RnB and Hip-Hop worlds for a long time:the smoother, darker, sensual without sexuality and reference heavy music.  He could’ve been a shadow producer or someone who had lots of credits, but instead he opted for lonely stardom without any reward, potentially because he lacked the pure musicality beyond some cool synth sounds.  He was early on a lot of styles and sounds but just couldn’t keep it working.

It’s worth noting that this entire piece I’ve been discussing his relevance in these scenes and his place within them but not of the musical context.  That’s because outside of a handful of singles linked above, he didn’t show anything past smoothed over early 2010s RnB with slight modern etchings.  Theophilus was a kid who wanted to play in the last realm of big money media and he got to do so.  Off of some slight goodwill and a few connections, he got to use cred in the most shallow way to rise up to the middle and attempt to dig his heels in and hold on as the trains left the station.  When all the media worlds scattered he seemed to be stuck in artist limbo, an alsoran before he could even start running.  However upon revisitation outside of those early singles and some other ones here and there, Theophilus was best left as a reminder of of what those early connections can do for you and just how far they can be taken before you fade away..  Just as a final aside, the first time I saw Kevin Parker and realized the two had worked together in some capacity, I realized that I wasn’t crazy for thinking that they dressed alike and had a similar affectation for making flat sounding sexless aimless RnB influenced music.  

Theophilus London is best left a reminder of how someone can appear vicious and smart and LA too much for their own good, and what the ultimate outcome can be.  Theophilus London is a perfect example of that strange period of time when old world media was trying to glom onto new internet media and create new stars out of a burgeoning subculture that was more a moment in time than a true moment.  It’s suburban gateways were closing off just as new ones were splintering.  They figured they could break Theophilus within those gaps and he could get in with critics, artists, and fans.  It was just a little too late.