Yoshi Flower got his first guitar — a one-of-one custom Taylor, which he still keeps beside him
in bed most nights — from a client of his father, who provided pro bono legal work for musicians
in the Detroit scene throughout the ‘90s. Twenty years later, Yoshi, otherwise known as Joshua
Reed Smith, is hammering in the final nails on the coffin housing the music industry’s idea of
“normal.”

The singer–songwriter–producer now resides in Topanga, Calif., and is blending the many
influences of his life into a new sound.

"It's impossible to not have threads from really drastically different boxes that are tying your
knots together," Yoshi told Billboard in March. Those boxes include growing up with interests in
sports and art, having some friends who were wealthy and some who had it tough, and
practicing meditation and aspiring to one day own a Lamborghini. The goal, he said, is “being
enlightened, but also being fucking iced out in diamonds."

These seemingly opposing qualities that make up Yoshi’s background bleed into his musical
inspirations as well. With such artists as Bloc Party, Panic! At The Disco, A$AP Rocky, Danny
Brown, and Diplo influencing his electro–hip-hop–rock sound, Yoshi is creating a genre all his
own.

After releasing his first single “Movies,” Fader called Yoshi’s sound, “effectively early Lana Del
Rey except if her partying involved EDM.” But listen to “Panic Attacks,” the collaboration with
Yoshi’s friend (and roommate) Elohim, and you’ll be treated to raw and emotional lyrics sung
over only a piano.

"I'm just trying to be myself for better or worse,” he told Billboard. “If I'm hated for it or if I can
connect with people for it, that's dope.”