16 March 30–april 5, 2023 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents Off Topic The rapper you knew as So-So Topic is now Tommy Raps. BY BRYSON “BOOM” PAUL Y asiin Bey came to be known as Mos Def, Common Sense be- came simply “Common,” and P. Diddy arrived at his name after earning fame as “Puff Daddy,” “Puffy” and, to a few, “Brother Love.” Recording artists changing their stage name is a common, valid and even lu- crative thing in hip-hop. For Dallas’ own Tommy Raps, a popular artist formerly known as So-So Topic, his former name makes him easier to find. “I got a homie [the recording artist] named Kimbra, and basically, she was try- ing to show me to her friends on the inter- net, and she was saying, ‘You’re kind of hard to find,’” the rapper says via Zoom. “She wasn’t able to give it to them before her friends had to leave. And basically, she deals with other Grammy-winning people, so it’s like, ‘Damn, I should probably work on that.’” Along with a new name, artists must fig- ure out their new artistic identity, and for Raps, the new name means he’s trying to be the best he can be. “Who is Tommy Raps? A human vessel trying to be good and do well in the best way possible in any hopes that you can tell,” he says. Raps says his new name symbolizes a feel-good connection to his past. “In life, you get a bunch of options,” he says. “Originally when I was So-So Topic, I was going by this [motto] called, ‘Be good and do well.’ Sometimes you can be in- credibly good and still not do that well, so we had to renovate that. Every day, I’m go- ing to do my best, and I hope you can see it. With every video I’ve uploaded, I’ve done literally six jobs every morning, from recording it to mixing it to all that good stuff, editing, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, shooting it. “I’m doing my best. I hope you can tell,” he continues. “And I’m going to just keep giving it my all. I’m going to keep applying pressure. And by the end of it you’ll be like, ‘Damn, Tommy really does rap. If I don’t know nothing else, I know that boy will rap.’” In January, he debuted the new name at a live show at Three Links in Deep Ellum. The songwriter, producer and actor came up with the Tommy Raps moniker during a brainstorming session that included the pos- sibility of simply performing under his real name, Tommy Simpson. He’d long been well-known as So-So Topic, a name with which he debuted in 2011, and he had con- stantly questioned whether rebranding would affect his career after the accolades began accumulating. “I’ve always wondered how the name [So-So Topic] would be affected in the fu- ture,” he says. “Say I do some cool stuff. Is it going to be tight, or would it stand out? Will it really matter? I did the Spike Lee thing, that wasn’t a big deal. But I don’t know, it just felt like a good time to rebrand, a good time to kind of redo stuff, just change it up a bit.” As So-So Topic, the wordsmith at- tracted the attention of filmmaker Spike Lee, who put Raps’ song “Expl0de!” in the Netflix series She’s Gotta Have It. Topic generated buzz with a progressive rap style and a strong social media presence. His daily Black history posts have gone vi- ral on occasion. After spending 12 years making music as So-So Topic, he received a push from Kimbra to emerge as Tommy Raps. And he was ready for his transfor- mation. “I’d already been ‘me’ for 12 years, so it’s like I was about to hit a corner as far as sty- listically,” says Raps. “I don’t know. You just get kind of ... You want to switch it up after 12 years. I just wanted to try something dif- ferent. Yeah, something not so typical.” The metamorphosis into Tommy Raps allowed him to reintroduce himself with a new rap style. He’s not quite as serious in his subjects, and he allows himself to be more lighthearted and lead with charisma. “As So-So Topic, I felt like I was being su- per serious,” he says. “I wanted to be a super serious rapper and all this other good stuff. And as far as me being Tommy Raps, it’s kind of me having more fun. I’m still going to be the super rapper guy, whatever, but I’m just going to have a bit more fun with it. I don’t know. Try not to be so rigid. I felt like I was getting kind of rigid.” What makes Tommy Raps and So-So Topic so different, he says, is in the type of goofiness he taps into as one or the other. “So-So Topic is kind of your goofy home- boy that could always rap,” he says. “Tommy Raps is kind of your more refined, goofy homeboy that can still rap and also has a re- purposed set of goals.” But his new persona isn’t completely shredding his serious approach to songwrit- ing. He’s just finding a balance for it in his new content. “The new thing is finding balance be- tween my humorous stuff and my very seri- ous stuff and just trying to draw that hard line in the sand like, ‘This is not meant to be funny. If you approach it with a sense of hu- mor, you’re probably going to be disap- pointed by my reaction,’” he says. “So, I don’t know. Sometimes you got to let people know it’s comedy. Sometimes you got to let people know this is PSA, some real stuff that’s happening.” His social media followers get to know Tommy at his funniest with the steady re- lease of his true stories segment, known as True Tales with Tommy Raps, in which he shares unbelievable life events, including events and stardust memories with hip-hop icons icons such as Mos Def, Slick Rick and Erykah Badu. In the multi-part stories, he retells various anecdotes, such as sneaking into the House of Blues and SXSW, getting hit by a car and landing on his feet, and so much more. “I started this True Tales with Tommy Raps thing just because I had all of these stories like Erykah Badu getting us a log cabin, these couple times we got in some weird car wrecks or almost got in some car wrecks, weird times we snuck backstage at South by Southwest, and it ended up work- ing out,” he says. “So another aspect is just telling these stories and letting you know sometimes the risk is actually worth it. I’m just using that platform just because it’s a platform. There’s a lot of artists trying to get themselves out and around, so it’s like, why not use some of these titans to help you get your stuff off the ground? At least until you can get your own right.” History has proven that a name change might require an artist to activate various marketing campaigns to reestablish public interest. Diddy shredded the name Puff Daddy by running a marathon and involving himself with various charities. But So-So Topic’s popularity on social media also helped his rebranding as Tommy Raps tran- sition smoothly. While that transition was mostly smooth for him, Tommy says a name change can be stressful when it comes to uniting his now fragmented musical history. “It’s complicated. It’s stressful,” he says. “You got to re-sync your entire life to do simple things. If you can nail [your name] on the first try, man, just brain- storm for a year and just think about your name. Don’t do this. This is foolish. I’m now two people on the internet, and peo- ple keep going to So-So Topic. It’s a chal- lenge. It’s a challenge.” Set to accompany the rebrand is a star- studded debut project, currently in develop- ment, set for late 2023. “Idea is to have the new Tommy Raps EP done by winter 2023,” he says. “God willing, I have a couple of Grammy winners on it. My collection done expanded. Trying to get a couple of nice names on this one. Still try- ing to get Erykah Badu to call me back.” The new music will address Tommy’s re- surfacing issues, like being an awkward in- trovert. “After the pandemic, my introverted qualities rose up to the surface fero- ciously,” he says. “I don’t like being around people for too long. I don’t like people breathing near me and stuff like that. But there was just one person I really like, and it was like, out of all the days of the week, I think you could have a Thurs- day. It was like, every other day, I’m doing some other stuff. I’m doing something weird. I’m introverted. I’m not trying to talk. But I feel like Thursday is a premium day of the week , and you can have that. So it’s addressing new ways. I show my love and appreciation for things.” After relocating to New York in 2020, Raps submerged himself into acting, a me- dium he got into under sad circumstances following a meeting with acclaimed film di- rector Boaz Yakin (Remember The Titans). Tommy had recommended his friend and fellow Dallas native James Cody for a role, but Cody died suddenly in an accident, so Raps stepped in and played the role. The up- coming movie wraps this week. Raps had previously created an unreleased sitcom, Going Nowhere Fast in 2019, and starred in the short film The Devil vs. Tommy Simpson. “Bear with me,” he says. “I’m still out here doing everything solo, and somehow these Hollywood people don’t put me in movies. I don’t know what it is, but it’s work- ing. Bear with me. We finna get this orga- nized and structured, and then it’s going to be a thing.” And though he’s working on a new EP, film placements and acting, Tommy Raps is on a mission to reconnect with Jonathan Majors, the Creed 3 star and fellow Dallas native who got him into rapping in the first place. “It’s crazy. He’s the reason I rap,” he says. “Me and him went to middle school to- gether. We used to freestyle in biology class. We also had theater class together, go figure. But I want to buy him dinner and say, ‘Thank you, bro.’ Because of him, because of some Texas boys, we out here doing some very tight New York movie Hollywood stuff. When I meet him, I’m going to say a rhyme he said at a very young age and see if he still remembers it.” ▼ Music Roderick Pullum Tommy Raps, formerly So-So Topic, is still waiting for Erykah Badu to call him back.
