If you were to try to label Tobe Nwigwe, you might just say he is rapper without giving it a second thought. That would be your first mistake.
You would be failing yourself to not indulge in at least one of Nwigwe’s many talents, whether it be as a director, a choreographer, a recording artist, entrepreneur and, if you ask his wife, Fat, or peeped any of his latest music videos, a really, really great husband.
Nwigwe, who recently turned 31 years old this year, is a former linebacker at the University of North Texas. His career as a student athlete culminated into a 2008 All-Sunbelt Conference second team selection. But he was forced to refocus that top tier talent after his athletic career was cut short the following year when he suffered a foot injury.
Shortly after, the Nigerian artist went on to develop a nonprofit organization called TeamGINI with two of his best friends. The name of the organization is derived from “Gini Bu Nkpa Gi” — which is Igbo for, “What’s your purpose?”
“Our whole focus was making purpose positive towards entertainment, which means we use all forms of artistic expression with the underlying message of purpose,” Nwigwe said in reference to the nonprofit. “We would go to school to do community dance. We had it at different venues all around the city.”
And with that, “long story short,” as Nwigwe puts it, he and his friends were able to connect with Eric Thomas, a Chi Town motivational speaker also known as “the Hip-Hop Preacher.”
“He saw me freestyling with my family during thanksgiving and he was like you should do music for the company,” Nwigwe said.
“He explained to me the importance in the music and how music is the most influential tool in the world and you [should] just tap into your gifts,” Nwigwe recalled of his encounter with Thomas, who went on to tell the then-prospective artist that his untapped musical abilities would be “enough resources to do whatever it is that your vision and your mission is for your organization.”
“So, I just listened to him and within the first two months, I put together like 20 songs,” Nwigwe said.
Listen to him tell it, his bars weren’t “really sweet” like that back then, yet over time he was able to harness his athletic discipline and attention to detail to better his musical craft and overall lyricism.
He met Fat, his wife now, around that time in 2011 in a church on the southwest side of Houston, Texas.
“We was friends, first,” Nwigwe said. “Then we started dating after a year knowing each oth—”
“We met in 2011. Two to three years later we started dating,” Fat interjected like Rev Run to Tobe’s D.M.C. “Then we ended up breaking up a few months after we got together and went through a transition separately.”
“We got back together around the time of the "So Gone" challenge,” Nwigwe said, in reference to the viral challenge that flooded timelines in 2016, where rappers freestyled and shared their own verses over the instrumental of Monica’s popular 2003 hit, “So Gone.”
“She is the reason why we started Get Twisted Sundays — it was her idea to do the "So Gone" challenge,” Nwigwe said. “She was like, ‘Well, you can do it every week.’”
Nwigwe gives all credit to Fat, who he ascribed to changing the trajectory of his life vision in his song “I CHOOSE YOU,” for the idea to do his own version of the challenge, which parlayed into what would later become the fans’ favorite #GetTwistedSundays initiative, the hashtag effort in which he releases a new track with a corresponding creative visual, weekly.
“She decided to retwist my hair every week, whatever the case,” Nwigwe said, adding that he was able to use Fat’s idea to build a platform that would allow him to spit bars in a wildly unique way.
Nwigwe said his wife has since been “a part of every ounce” of his life. There is “nothing I do apart from her,” he continued.
And having come to that realization early on in their relationship, Nwigwe said he popped the question six months later.
“I know it seemed it moved that fast, but it didn’t,” he spoke through a laugh. He and Fat were going to get hitched this year later, but Nwigwe saw little reason for waiting. So, they got married in December 2017 instead. (You can check out their insane proposal video here.)
Together, the two spin a narrative of black love that you typically don't see in hip-hop. One might look at Nwigwe and see just a rapper or mistakenly take Fat for a silent partner. That would be your second mistake. He makes clear that he and Fat are a team.
“When it comes to things within the vision as far as choreography or something specific, I might shoot some ideas,” Nwigwe said, “Or me, Fat and Nell (his producer, LaNellGrant) might come up with some choreography.”
“Or she’ll have input on everything, from production to location …” Nwigwe said. The love and admiration is evident as he details some of her various contributions, yet he swears with a chuckle that he doesn’t want to “gas her though.”
“I definitely value and respect her opinion on everything,” he continued.
And it shows.
Fat is often featured both visually and vocally in a chunk of her husband’s videos, alongside Nell, a statement that socially seems to strikingly contrast much of rap’s contemporary visuals, which is a defining point of the team’s self-aware genius.
The couple’s often out-of-the-box thinking approach to music and collaboration has captured the attention of hundreds of thousands on social media, including several cultural heavyweight fans like Erykah Badu and Dave Chappelle.
Side note: Fat’s actually a super-fan of Badu’s whole catalog. “Not just the main songs everybody else knows,” Tobe and Fat make sure to indicate.
So, for Badu to show love, according to the couple, it was “extremely crazy.”
“To have Dave Chappelle be the one who put Erykah Badu on,” Tobe said, it's just “the type of stuff you can't plan for.”
“You cannot plan the funniest man in the world is going to hear your music and say oh man I really fool with it,” Nwigwe said. “You can't plan that.”
But don't sleep, though. Tobe Nwigwe has caused many top tier names in hip-hop to head nod along to his art. Chance The Rapper might be one of the biggest thus far, and he will likely be on the tip of everyone's' tongues by the end of the year.
In the present, Nwigwe is planning on showering the masses with his first solo show of the year at The White Oak Music Hall, which has been christened by some to be the best live music venue in Houston. His show sold out in a matter of days.
“It’s crazy,” said Nwigwe, who, when first starting out as an artist several years ago, sought just to create music for the “people who came from where I came from” on the southwest side of Houston.
“That’s like who I been making music for,” Nwigwe said. “The stories and stuff be about people, and the raps about my life.”
“All the stuff that I experienced,” Nwigwe continued, "is for the people. I'm trying to give the people as much game as I possibly can.”
Nwigwe said when he was growing up, there were few rappers he listened to that he felt were “real” or genuine.
“I didn’t have a huge good selection, to be real,” Nwigwe said. “I wasn’t a person that would necessarily cuss in their raps.”
Tobe runs off a short list of top artists he bumped to growing up, peppered with some of the regulars on many hip hop Top Five lists, including Andre 3000, the Notorious B.I.G. and Lauryn Hill, who he adamantly added was “the best rapper, period.”
But the Houston native was sure to list several other rappers from his home state that he said were some of his favorite MC’s to listen to growing up.
“I grew up listening to everything in Houston,” Nwigwe said. “So everything from Lil' Flip to Big Hawk — Big Hawk’s my favorite Houston rapper — to Chamillionaire. I’m talking about before he did 'Ridin’ Dirty.’”
Growing up in a Nigerian household, the artist also added that he listened to a lot of African music.
“I heard a lot of Fela Kuti growing up,” Nwigwe said with a laugh, taking a moment to reflect on the AfroBeat icon, whose socio-political lyrics and hard hitting James Brown-inspired rhythms once shook Nigeria to the core.
“My mom would have the CD jamming for a long period of time. It would be everything Nigerian we listened to, and at Nigerian parties that would last to 6 a.m. in the morning.”
But when asked about the current state of hip-hop, Nwigwe said he believed the culture has far evolved from his childhood days.
“I think hip-hop has different genres now,” Nwigwe said. “I feel like everything shouldn’t be considered one type.”
“Now, do I think some of it is trash?” the artist continued, “I don’t knock it, just because I’m saying one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.”
“People like what they like,” Nwigwe said, adding: “Some people think I’m tight, some people think I’m trash.”
Either way “it’s cool,” he added.
