Don Toliver: The Prince of R&B As Crowned By SXSW
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Don Toliver at Billboard THE STAGE @ SXSW — Day 1 on March 13, 2026 in Austin, Texas. Dusana Risovic
SXSW comes to Austin every March, bringing movers and shakers, dreamers, and legends to town along with it. The people who put on this incredible showcase have their fingers on the pulse of everything on the rise in film, music, and tech well before attendees.
It’s how they know exactly which conference panelists to book, activations to greenlight, and artists to invite to perform at one of their many stages across the city.
So when they sent an email announcing that Don Toliver would headline Billboard’s THE STAGE back in December, it should have been a sign that the artist’s January 30th album release of Octane was going to be a major hit.
Don Toliver got his start in 2017 the way many artists in the rap industry do: hustling for features, dropping singles, and making mixtapes. Since then, he’s gone on to drop 5 albums, be invited to open for The Weeknd on his After Hours til Dawn tour, and produce chart-topping tracks with artists ranging from Eminem to DJ Khaled to Justin Bieber.
And I’m far from his only fan after all that.
He’s generated nearly 18 billion Spotify streams over the years — not including songs where he’s the secondary artist like “Too Many Nights” on the culture-defining album Heroes and Villains from Metro Boomin.
That number is set to rise with the artist currently boasting over 46 million active monthly listeners on that platform alone.
Before even hearing the new album, I just knew I had to be there on March 13th when the artist kicked off his Octane tour. Before taking the stage, in an interview with Billboard Don Toliver stated, “Tonight y’all will understand why I been here doing what I been doing and why they say the things about me.” He was right, and so was SXSW when they decided they had to host the premiere tour event.
The evening coincided with the 6-year anniversary of Toliver’s first debut studio album, Heaven or Hell, with a few songs off that album entering the tracklist for the evening.
The event might even be best described that way.
Before the headliner took the stage, and through no fault of the festival itself, the crowd was in chaos. Within 20 minutes of each other, a fight broke out on the ground and a separate group of concertgoers passed back a wallet full of cash until it found its rightful owner.
I was deep in the action when Toliver kicked off his performance with the most popular song off the new album, “E85”, lyrics barely audible over an excited crowd and a slightly off autotuned mic.
The energy in the crowd was palpable, and though it was (barely) standing room only close to the stage, it didn’t stop attendees from dancing and singing every lyric by heart while managing to keep their phones up right to capture every second.
If you look at crowd footage from the event, you’ll see this wasn’t a "Not a cell phone in sight, just people living in the moment" kind of evening. Every phone came out to record the artists' retro, 2000s MTV style visuals, lyrics emphasizing classic rap motifs of love, struggle, and luxury, and songs pulling directly from classics like Justin Timberlake’s “Rock Your Body” and Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama”.
I’ve been lucky enough to see artists like SZA, Future, Metro Boomin, Travis Scott, Tyler the Creator, and Kendrick Lamar live. This performance rivaled each of those acts from visuals to performance to crowd devotion.
Long story short, and if you’ve read this far you know I’m joking because I didn’t keep this brief at all, this headliner spot at one of the hottest-ticket events in town was well deserved.
While he’s just getting started promoting this album, and I’m no producer or record label manager, I already have an idea of what his next move should be: a joint album à la Future and Metro Boomin with Toliver’s close friend Travis Scott.
Creator: | Credit: Getty Images | 2024 Scott Dudelson
Travis Scott co-produced the two most popular songs on Octane: “E85” and “Body”. He also featured on the track “Rosary” in the album. I couldn’t help but also notice that the four openers leading up to Toliver’s performance relied heavily on Scott’s discography to excite the crowd — or forget that Don Toliver is signed to Scott’s Cactus Jack Records.
Travis Scott is still on a bit of a downturn since the infamous Astroworld disaster while Don Toliver has a ways to go before he can be considered to be top of the rap game. A joint album between the two of them has the potential to break records and would be worthy of not just a SXSW headline spot, but one at a festival like Coachella.
Regardless of what his next album is, I’ll keep streaming Don Toliver all day and keep an eye on the artists SXSW chooses to spotlight — they’ve got good taste.