A young Icarus, driven by a desire to soar beyond the limits of his existence, chases the sun with the reckless hope of freedom. But his wings, crafted with care and ambition, melt under the heat of his dreams, and as he reaches, he falls, plunging from what he once believed was his destiny. In his tragic flight, Icarus becomes a symbol of the delicate balance between aspiration and overreach, a reminder that even the most daring flights of passion can end in heartbreak.

For producer and artist, 2hollis, the fall isn’t something to avoid but perhaps a rite of passage. And what emerges from this hero’s journey isn’t an end, but an understanding that real ascent often requires surviving the ebbs. What he brings back isn’t resolution—it’s context as he creates his own sound that feels like it’s been submerged, then resurfaced, carrying the weight of where it’s been.

Before the rise, before the fall, the inclusion of the 2 and all else, Hollis Frazier-Herndon was drippysoup—an early project released into the messy sprawl of SoundCloud from 2018 to 2020. Then came his highly lored chainmail and tenflower epoch—a medieval-coded, armor-laced stretch of music and visuals, created alongside other underground artists. It was theatrical, strange, and full of its own canon packed into the 2021 and 2022 mixtapes, The Jarl and Finally Lost, respectively. Crafting a mythical world that felt equal parts cosplay and emotional allegory, fragile melodies wrapped in armor and lyrics that drift between fantasy and raw confession lay atop shards of orchestral samples and glitch textures, conjuring dragons and distant places like “Green Spore Valley.” This gilded period wasn’t a gimmick or -core, but a way to disappear into character, staging his vulnerability behind the gleam of a blade. And while most of it has been deleted, traces still exist in reposts and in memory.

And that instinct, to perform, to break down the space between fiction and feeling, still runs through Hollis. In fact, the Hollis in front of me sees “2hollis” as a wholly different entity. Throughout much of the interview, we talk about him in the third person. It might be confusing if there wasn’t such a stark difference between the person and the character, but I must ask: why create another being? Isn’t one dull ache of consciousness enough? He shares, “You can fall into the moment a lot easier, I find, being a character, playing it as a character. Creating, especially on stage with little to no…not embarrassment—’cause I’m never embarrassed—but restraint. ‘Cause you’re just fully that thing, and you’re like, this is what it is. You’re not thinking, ‘Damn, I wouldn’t say that or I wouldn’t do that.’ It’s not you, it’s the character, you know?”

And, sure, that makes sense; this separation gives the music its charge, allowing him to lean into volatility. His songs unfold with sharp turns, clipped vocals, and moments of clarity buried under distortion. It’s less about telling a story and more about channeling a state—where the chaos becomes the structure, and falling starts to feel like control.

In 2022, 2hollis trades in his sword for his debut album White Tiger, this time drawing from trap, industrial noise, and the fractured textures of hyperpop—delivered with clipped vocals, blown-out drums, and a sense of controlled freefall. It spread the old way: through Discord servers, SoundCloud comment sections, and the private recommendation from the worlds of Drain Gang, Haunted Mound, Sematary, and other shadowy corners of internet music. Tracks like “king of the darkness,” “raise,” and the poetically titled “the light upon the surface that beckoned deep into the moment and the tiger stepped forth” pulled listeners into his world—dense, cinematic, just slightly out of reach. Here, synths shimmer and scrape, embracing feedback, static, and sudden drops as he blurs the line between singing and spoken word.

And a hero’s journey is continuous, purposefully carving new contours into the shape of who you become. After White Tiger, 2hollis quickly released 2 in 2023—a turbulent, emotionally saturated album that marked his first real moment of clarity. Self-produced and structurally chaotic, 2 leaned harder into noise, tension, and release: a collection of songs that felt like they were constantly on the verge of collapse. By the time his junior album, boy arrived in mid-2024, the sound had morphed again, becoming cleaner, brighter, but still jagged. This was teased with his earlier, “crush,” that pulsed with jittery, emotional sincerity—its upbeat electropop beat and clipped percussion frame 2hollis’s vulnerable, giddy anxiety of a fresh infatuation—its repetition of “I got a crush on you” looping like an obsessive heartbeat.

Where 2 felt like a document of disorder, boy played more like a fragmented pop opera: full of rave textures, synth stabs, and theatrical shifts in tone. Songs like “you once said my name for the first time” and “promise” channel grief and nostalgia into club-ready forms, while the vocal delivery—sometimes whispered, sometimes screamed—kept it raw and grounded. boy felt like a statement of intent: not just survival, but arrival. In 2023, he released his breakout single, “jeans,” which was featured in Billboard’s Dance charts and The New York Times’ Best Songs of 2024 list, and, in late 2024, Ken Carson asked him to open for his Chaos Tour, catapulting the young star to unprecedented heights.

For 2hollis, music is a way of staying honest as both the world and his inner life keep changing shape. This year, he released his major label debut with star under Interscope Records. His fourth studio album leans into clarity without losing chaos. Sonically, star feels expansive and cinematic, pulling from pop, electronic, and trap influences to build something that glows and flickers like its title. Tracks like “flash,” a swelling, synth-driven anthem, balance ego and existentialism, reflecting on fame’s fragile weight. “I like to leave [things] up to interpretation for a lot of my work,” Hollis says. “But I think 2hollis could be the hero. He also could not be, you know? But I think you just gotta listen.” In his music, the hero’s journey isn’t about winning or arriving—it’s about transformation, surviving the fall, and carrying back what’s been learned.

And fame, for 2hollis, isn’t a destination—it’s a distortion. He calls star his “most pop album,” but even in its polished moments, there’s a thread of dread pulling through the seams. After drowning in a wave of new listeners, with what he calls his “Coachella bangers” album (which he did in fact, bang out at Coachella this year), curious outsiders have been pulled into his world by the sheer gravity of his sound, and are just now sorting through the lore like they’ve just arrived at the middle of a story already in motion.

But the internet doesn’t necessarily just crown you. He admits on “tell me,” “Uh, I’m scared of press ’cause then I read more”—a quiet confession tucked inside a line that feels almost thrown away, but isn’t. Online forums are littered with both fierce devotion and relentless scrutiny. “Oh my God. That’s the ultimate dungeon,” he says of his subreddit and Discord, admitting to having read it early on. “It’s a lot of loyal people, and a lot of people with big opinions. But we love that ‘cause it shows people are invested. I think it’s all good,” he assures. “I think the worst is no press, you know? So it’s like if no one’s talking about you, that sucks.”

If what goes up must come down, then how does one survive the gravity of it all? And why not forever live in the world you made for yourself? “It would fuck everything up because I have a real life, you know. I have friends, I have family,” he confesses. “And it’s an ego thing, you know—2hollis being a character like that—it’s all ego. So it’s like the ego would eat you alive if you’re constantly doing it. And like people can do it, but I have too many real-life things going on to fully do that.”

But it’s the restraint—the moments when he pulls back, when he holds something in—that gives his work the depth and nuance that makes it stick. It’s in knowing when to release and when to pause, when to take the risk but also when to settle into the quiet. He continues, “I feel like what I was saying was like, constantly being 2hollis, I couldn’t find love, I couldn’t find connection. Because it would just be like I’m not real, you know. But I think connection, love, those kinds of things, it brings you back down.”

In a time when digital lives bleed into reality, this sense of ephemerality fuels much of his music, capturing the raw, complicated emotions of young love and transient connection. He shares, “I actually find it heartbreaking because we live in such a temporary era. Everything we consume is so fast and a bit mindless—like when you pick up TikTok and you scroll, nothing you watch on there is really gonna stick with you.”

This constant clash between immediacy and longing—between what’s shown and what’s hidden—underpins much of 2hollis’s perspective on love and connection. He jokes about wanting to exist prior to the mirror selfie, saying, “There’s power in mystery,” pointing to the way distance can deepen feelings—how seeing someone sporadically makes those moments more charged. But in an era where every moment is shared and scrolled through, the rawness of real connection risks getting lost in the noise. “I think in my personal experience, I’ve had a lot of fleeting relationships or moments, and I think that’s a big inspiration. Fleeting connection…” he says, “Yeah, that is young romance. But it’s the best thing ever in a way, in like a fucked up way, I think. Young love is such a weird, fleeting, up and down, coming and going, type of thing—that makes for a great song.”

So, is 2hollis afraid of the fall? “You have to remove the fear of heartbreak and the fear of hurting. I think those who feel the most love also feel the most pain, and it can be scary. Your heart has a shield and, when you remove the shield, it’s open to receive anything—good or bad. But I think always having your heart open as an artist is very important because you need to feel everything,” he admits. “I think hiding your emotions, guarding your heart, guarding your emotions, is destructive because shit builds up. You need to let emotions come out, as well as come in. It’s a cycle. But I think just don’t be afraid of being hurt or heartbreak—because you’re going to feel it—but that’s a part of love, you know. I think when you sign up for being in love, you also sign up for heartbreak and all the rest of it.”

And so, if Icarus fell chasing light, 2hollis walks the precipice of that same heat—knowing now that the fall isn’t failure, but form. At the end of this journey, we’re reminded that soaring requires falling—and that true brilliance isn’t found at the peak but in the space between ascent and descent, where every note trembles with the possibility of both. Perhaps that’s why, against all odds, his music keeps glowing. Not as a warning, like Icarus, but as a reminder: some stars don’t burn out after the descent. They endure.

Photographed by Noah Dillon 

Styled by Zaira Galindo

Written and Flaunt Film by Bree Castillo

Hair: Miles Jeffries at The Wall Group

Makeup: Sourbesos

Producer: Ben Tan

Styling Assistant: Josie Gonzalez

Production Assistant: Melanie Perez

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