Hollis Parker Frazier-Herndon is a son of art. His father, John Herndon, is known as the drummer and founding member of Tortoise, an institution on the post-rock circuit. The mother, Kathryn Frazier, is among other things co-founder of the Owsla record label, therefore another insider. Hollis was born in Chicago in 2004, and after the first steps taken with the pseudonym Drippysoup, taken by the fascination for medieval fantasy he entered the “medieval trap” trend with the band Open Swords Of Ten. In the post-pandemic period he decided to transform his name into 2hollys, attracting attention with the publication of the first album, the self-produced “White Tiger” (August 2022), and even more so with a song, “Poster Boy”, which it was included in the soundtrack of the EA Sports FC 24 video game, effectively becoming the first hit of the American producer and singer. Then came an avalanche of singles (among the most popular “Crush” and “Jeans”), a dense series of EPs and mixtapes, and above all two albums: “2” (May 2023) and “Boy” (June 2024), which dramatically increased his popularity.
At that point Interscope intercepted the hype, when it was still in its embryonic stage, and proved to be the quickest to put the Chicago artist under contract. In April 2025, “Star” thus became 2hollis's first album to be published by a label, and the boy, driven by much more defined promotional work, definitively established himself on an international level, becoming a permanent presence at the main music festivals and creating a sold out after another in every corner of the globe, from the United States to Australia. All this thanks to writing capable of capturing the Generation Z audience, the result of a stylistic mix that fuses Justin Bieber's pop (“Flash”, “Nice”) with Travis Scott's trap (“Burn”, “Girl”), hip-hop (Ego”), PC music (songs like “You”, “Destroy Me” and “Dream Rain Sports” make him a sort of male version of Charli XCX) and EDM (the second part of “Tell Me”). His songs contain overwhelming drops and decisive melodic hooks, overpowering bass and introspective ballads (“Cope”), ennobled by lyrics that speak to the author's peers, underlining the difficulties of a vulnerable boy who has come one step away from mass success, constantly balanced between the need to be recognized and the need to maintain the inviolability of his privacy.
A rapper-non-rapper idolized by fans, who has left aside the techno-feudal esotericisms of his early days to embrace a futuristic sound, perfect to be played in large arenas, where 2hollys finds his natural habitat, occupying any space with his athletic physicality, while almost always performing in perfect solitude, accompanied by instrumental backing tracks and a light design with very high emotional involvement. “Star” goes by, liberating but full of palpable tension, built with a string of songs destined to remain in its best ofand towards the end, when the certainty of finding himself in the presence of an electropop disk is consolidated, the boy extracts the unexpected track from the hat, a grunge-like acoustic ballad, “Eldest Child”, sung with the image of Cobain in his head and heart, suddenly overturning the meaning of the album and sending Holly into the Olympus of the great young promises of American pop music. Thinking of something more “playful” could be the right key to staying, avoiding turning into yet another meteor burned too quickly.
01/07/2026
Daniel D`Amico for SANREMO.FM
