To be otherworldly requires mystique, transcendence, and distortion. In the 1920s, atop Mount Wilson, astronomer Edwin Hubble discovered the cosmos and cemented the fact that our universe is in a state of constant expansion. Around a century later, with 31 years earthside, Don Toliver sought to take his body of work to the next level and expand his reach. He returned to that same mountain not to study the stars, but to ensure his place as one, and build a world of his own.

The Houston-born artist drove through the winding roads of the San Gabriel Mountains and landed at the observatory that would become the nucleus of Octane, his fifth studio album—a project centered around architecting and encapsulating feeling.

“I really love the mystery,” Toliver says of astronomy. “I feel like that’s kind of like my music…people are like, ‘How [and] where does he do it? Where is he?’ Just like [how we wonder] ‘What’s out there in space?’ You don’t know.”

It’s a Tuesday afternoon in Los Angeles, the kind of early spring day marked by pollen and petals. Toliver has already lived a full day by the time we speak. He’s taken his son to see the Easter Bunny, gone to the studio, and recorded two new songs—one of them just 10 minutes before our call.

“I don’t know what I would do without my mic. It’s really therapeutic for me…it helps me with all that energy and anxiety I get,” he says. “I just try my best to articulate everything I’m thinking and say it in the song.”

The line between anxiety and excitement is thin, and Toliver admits he often tethers it but leans toward the latter, converting internal pressure into melody in real time. “Honestly, if I wanted to, I could drop another album right now… from when I dropped till now, it’s been a movie in itself.”

Long before arena tours and chart debuts, Don (born Caleb Zackery Toliver), was moving through his hometown and other big cities across the states with an insatiable hunger and hustle that still serves as his fuel today. In his early 20s, the artist planted his music wherever he could, chasing proximity and ears. “When I first planned to be an artist, I just wanted to be heard,” he says.

That desire and persistence were met by rapper Travis Scott in 2018 who attended one of his underground shows after Toliver’s manager at the time got ahold of one of Scott’s close friends. Scott later included him on his project ASTROWORLD and signed him to Cactus Jack in partnership with Atlantic Records who had also brought him on just a few months prior. Eight years later, that trust remains.

“Looking back at where it started to where we’re at now, it’s beautiful,” Toliver says. “And to see Travis still here supporting and locked in when it really means the most is really important to me.”

Ultimately, Scott would help shape not only his sound but his process. When Don reflects on what advice he’s carried from the fellow Texan, he spews one he’s gleaned from simply observing and sharing space: “Utilize the room.”

“If you got people in there—you got friends, you got family, you got artists, producers—you got to utilize the room,” he expands. “[Scott] really gets in the studio and makes it his home.”

The birth of Toliver’s penultimate album Hardstone Psycho coincided with that of his first child with his partner, genre-fluid peer and it-girl Kali Uchis. That new adventure opened the artist up to new ways of being. He was spending more time off the grid, fishing with his son, and getting lost in the quiet. At the same time, he was diving deeper into his long-standing obsession with cars and Group B rally racing—and imagining what it might look like to live among them differently.

“I was looking at a lot of imagery of people taking cars like Ferrari F40s and Porsche 911s and going camping,” Toliver recalls. “I thought that was just so incredible and [wondered] what it would be like to live with them in the wild.”

What followed was part research, part instinct. Toliver and his team were on a search for a focal point that could hold the dichotomy of it all: nature and machinery, solitude and scale.

“I was doing things like helping him find this specific Audi Quattro 1984 car on Facebook Marketplace in Virginia,” Raf Porter, VP of creative of Atlantic Records, tells me, smiling as he recalls the genesis of the creative process. “The first time I met him at his own personal studio and garage, [Toliver] had a green carpet with all of these different toys on it [like] cars and a half pipe and things, and [said] ‘This is what I want it to feel like.’”

They then went through a process of refining, exploring and capturing. The observatory—both scientific and cinematic—felt like a convergence point for everything he’d been circling. From there, the mystique was intentional. Not everything needed to be explained—only felt.

In addition to that functional studio, a myriad of other collaborators worked together with Don at different iconic studios, including Conway Recording Studios in LA, Castle Creek in Carmel-by-the-Sea, and Miami.

“Don is an extremely creative person,” says Porter. “We really just focused on storytelling and figuring out what to show and what to have restraint about.”

Mystique lures us in but transcendence is what truly elevates the average from the great. Mastering that art requires both community, and an assuredness of self.

On this project, Don was exploring a new side of himself, both personally and professionally. Leaning into the technical side of things, he took on the challenge and joy of producing two records—“ATM” and “Call Back.” Both have become fan favorites.

“My whole career, I kind of struggled with my confidence, with just being an artist, you know…looking at all those million artists, like, ‘Damn, how am I gonna...?’” he says, trailing off into thought. “But realized just being me is everything—and that really just set me free.” That freedom solidified a newfound level of self-trust.

“I had a lot going up against me when I was making this album… a lot of different opinions on my music, a lot of mental shit that I was going through,” he shares. But “the pain sounds so beautiful… the struggle I went through, sounds so beautiful…I just stuck to my plan. I knew what I wanted to do, and I let nothing stop me from doing that.”

That confidence made collaboration seamless as he created with other producers like 206DEREK, Scott, and Aaron Paris, and worked on visuals with other confidants like Porter, Shadrinsky, Maxime Quoilin and more.

Octane—a futuristic project that is somehow also steeped in nostalgia—ultimately debuted at No. 1, becoming Toliver’s first solo chart topper and garnering global chart performance and streaming dominance.

“He’s very hands on with everything,” says Teezo Touchdown, who appears on the album’s “All The Signs.” “I’m never going to question [him] again,” Touchdown laughs, admitting that’s likely not true but acknowledging that, “every time we collaborate, it’s a learning lesson for me.”

At a studio in Dallas, Touchdown recalls being struck not just by Toliver’s output, but by his clarity and professionalism. With three released songs together under their belt—the respect is mutual, as Don calls him “an insane creative.”

The same can be said for his other counterparts. Earlier this year, innovative directing duo Shadrinsky was brought in for the task. “Don knows exactly what he wants, but he’s open to our ideas and willing to experiment with something fun and daring,” the duo (Yulya and Marita) tell me via the interwebs while on a project in Stockholm, Sweden.

NYRVA jacket. RICK OWENS pants. CHIMI sunglasses. 198

Tasked with directing the album’s livestream to coincide with the release, and later the “Excavator” visual, what followed was less of a shoot and more so a full immersion into the world Toliver had envisioned. Using surveillance cameras and live, uninterrupted takes, the stream blurred the line between performance and process—showing not just the final product, but the ecosystem that produced it.

“For hours, we all played along, fully immersing ourselves in the observatory world,” they explain. “This sense of ‘reality’ felt very natural and deepened our love for the project.”

The inescapable, necessary room for play throughout the project, though likely innate to Toliver, was amplified by his new and perhaps most important title of father.

“I think being a real dad is gangster,” Toliver beams, saying he loves “to be able to watch my kid be a kid, because it’s just me reliving my youth… I see a lot of me in him.”

“I like to post it too,” he continues, “because I want to encourage young fathers to interact as much as they can with their kids. I’m at the top of my game right now… but that don’t mean that I can’t spend time with my kid.”

Fatherhood isn’t separate from the work, it informs it.

“I just have a real drive,” he says. “I think about the future… my son, my family… that’s what really does it.”

While transcendence makes us rise above, grounding and distortion keeps us human and in connection with what’s already there.

Toliver has never been interested in clean definitions—especially when it comes to genre. “It’s rap, it’s R&B, it’s pop—it’s all of that… I don’t like to put myself in a box. I think being able to create melodies and sing melodies is an incredible thing. But how I categorize it? I’m still locked into that process.”

Ultimately, it’s that continued exploration and bending of form and expectation that makes Don the artist he is. And it’s his connection to those around him, God and himself, that both ground him in his humanity and keeps him reaching for something beyond it.

“The accolades, the number one shit… it’s dope,” he says. “But [to me] now it’s just more eyes and more ears, and that’s great. This is the peak right now of my career, of being heard. But it’s not the peak of the success.”

Photographed by Ian Buosi

Styled by Bailey Quinones

Written by Ecleen Luzmila Caraballo

Hair: Yazmin Adams

Grooming: Courtney Housner

Production: Jay Hines

Flaunt Film: Liam Shore

Styling Assistants: Sam Santos and Blair Quinones

Production Assistant: Sophie Saunders, Amiah Joy, Michael Washington