Steve Lacy is hardly an overnight success. Even though he's been putting in work for nearly a decade, the ferocious pace at which his profile has blown up is a 2022 success story that nobody saw coming.
Many people will have first heard of Lacy this past year thanks to 'Bad Habit', his breakout hit that has now reached #4 in triple j's Hottest 100.
It might seem simple, or even low-key, in its delivery but there's a lot going on under the 'Bad Habit' hood.
An ode to missed romantic opportunity soundtracked by a sumptuous fusion of lo-fi indie rock, fluid RnB and neo-soul pop-funk, 'Bad Habit' scaled to the pointy end of charts, peaking at #1 in the US (following a nearly three month climb from its debut at #100) and #3 here in Australia.
Like so many contemporary hits, a large part of the song's success is due to its indomitable presence on TikTok. Lacy had experienced a boost on the app already – his track 'Dark Red' went viral in 2021, four years after its release. But 'Bad Habit' spread like wildfire, and has featured in over 710,000 videos to date (plus another 167K if you include the sped up version).
'Bad Habit' has all the qualities TikTok latches on to: instantly memorable hooks, earworm melodies, and a 'coulda, woulda, shoulda' lyrical sentiment that anybody unlucky in love can relate to.
Making 'Bad Habit'
In mid-2021, Steve had broken up with his boyfriend of seven months and felt like he was in a creative lull working on his music alone.
"I had a bunch of dope ideas, but my writing? I didn't know how I was going to approach this record," he told GQ last year. "But I feel like ['Bad Habit]' was the one that was like, 'Okay, this is what we're about to do'."
Working in a real studio for the first time, he opened himself up to outside writers and influences. He brought an early version of 'Bad Habit' to a session with emerging RnB act Fousheé. Together, they freestyled until landing upon the chorus melody (her vocals open the song) and writing the verses.
Lacy spent the next year tweaking and tinkering with the song, grafting in its distinctive transitions – from loping indie rock to lilting neo-soul to beatbox-abetted hip hop breakdown. He also made a small but significant adjustment to a key lyric on the advice of Tyler, The Creator.
"At first it was, 'I wish I knew you/ I wish I knew you wanted me'," Lacy explained to Billboard. "And then he was like, 'It'd actually be more memorable if you cut hat word ['you'- out', so shout out to Tyler."
Indeed. It's a minor tweak but a crucial one. Just imagine all those thousands of TikToks without the dramatic, elongated drawl 'I wish I kneeeeww'.
In fact, the song is full of these seemingly tiny details that end up worming their way into your brain.
There's the self-referencing 'You can't surprise a Gemini' that signals another musical shift; the mild sarcasm of 'It's biscuits, it's gravy, babe'; the way the line 'Let's fuck in the back of the mall, lose control' plays into his reputation for horny lyrics but also sounds like a desperate plea coming so late in the song.
The power of the polymath
In true zodiac spirit, the song possesses classic Gemini duality, from the shape-shifting music to the way that, lyrically, Lacy flip flops between oozing confidence and lamenting not seizing on the object of his attraction when he had the chance.
"It was writing to that feeling of being a shy person," he told The Guardian recently. "It's kind of a play on confidence – by the end, it flips and it's, like: 'Oh, you coming back to me now.' I'm kind of flexing, giving it back and being, like: 'You were too good for me,' and then in the end, I'm almost too good for [them] but I'm still down. To me, that was just a really fun story that I'm sure everybody has experienced before."
'I bite my tongue, it's a bad habit/ Kinda mad that I didn't take a stab it' perfectly encapsulates that feeling of failing to speak up and seize the moment of attraction. But despite the song's seemingly obvious appeal, it's still the genre-blurring product of a left-of-field artist who works in far more unexpected sonic spaces than most chart-topping stars.
Lacy is a half-black, half-Filipino artist from Compton, Los Angeles who identifies as bisexual who pens vibrant, gender-and-genre fluid jams characterised by his smooth vocals, intoxicating guitar, and idiosyncratic production.
'Bad Habit' is the second single from Lacy's second solo album Gemini Rights, which at times sounds like Stevie Wonder jamming with Mac DeMarco. He counts icons like Prince, Erykah Badu, and Pharrell as inspirations but also grew up playing Guitar Hero and equally reveres indie rock faves Weezer, Dirty Projectors, and Vampire Weekend (who he collaborated with on 2019's springy 'Sunflower').
The resulting cross-breed of styles effortlessly weaves its way into the 24-year-old's music and has certainly assisted in reaching a wider audience: 'Bad Habit' became the first song to simultaneously top Billboard's Hot R&B/Hip Hop and Hot Rock & Alternative Songs charts.
That eclectic fluidity has long been part of Steve Lacy's whole deal. He's been doing things his way ever since he was a teen producing tracks for big names like Kendrick Lamar and J. Cole on his phone. Literally.
Teen Prodigy
Back when he was a 15-year-old high-schooler, Lacy's talents caught the attention of Jameel Bruner (youngest brother of jazz bass virtuoso Stephen 'Thundercat' Bruner).
"He was [older] than me. I was a freshman and he was a senior but we became really good friends through music," Lacy told triple j in 2018. "He showed me a lot. I wouldn't be making beats if it wasn't for him."
Lacy began producing and performing his own music on an outdated iPhone around "the end of 10th grade… I think because I'm a control freak, so I like to engineer myself."
"I didn't have a laptop and it wasn't going to stop me."
Jameel invited Lacy to join his band, The Internet, an alt-RnB offshoot from Matt Martians and Syd, two orbital members of Odd Future – the 2010s blogosphere-era rap collective that spawned Frank Ocean, Tyler, the Creator and Earl Sweatshirt.
Lacy played bass, guitar, sang, and executive produced The Internet's Grammy-nominated 2015 album Ego Death while still in high school. They didn't win (the award went to The Weeknd) but the then-17-year-old attended the glitzy ceremony and went to school the day, with many of his classmates none the wiser.
His anonymity wouldn't last long. Lacy was tapped to produce tracks for tastemakers like Solange, Kali Uchis, Mac Miller, Denzel Curry, Tyler, the Creator – and most impressively – the track 'PRIDE.' on Kendrick Lamar's Hottest 100-dominating album DAMN.
Apollo XXI, Lacy's sexed-up, self-assured debut album, was made on a laptop and earned him a second Grammy nod for Best Urban Contemporary Album (but was beaten by Lizzo).
But it could be third time lucky: Lacy is up for four awards at the 2023 Grammys, including the coveted Record of the Year and Song of the Year where he happens to be squaring off against Harry Styles 'As It Was' – the song 'Bad Habit' dethroned after hovering at #2 for a month.
As proficient as he was with his DIY recordings, a younger Lacy was less confident about his voice, despite coming from a family of singers. His mother and sisters have provided backing vocals on his projects.
"We all sing, so I always had potential to do so and I just didn't want to," he told triple j in 2018. "Now, I'm loving it. I know I can sing but when I first started – it was literally me in my room on my phone with a mic stopper. Door closed, hiding from my mum and sister. I didn't want them to hear me sing."
The turning point? "[My song] 'Dark Red' is probably the one where I'm like, 'Okay, I'mma do this'."
A slinky yet heartbroken jam, 'Dark Red' was a stand-out from his 2017 debut project, Steve Lacy's Demo. Thanks to its 2021 viral moment on TikTok, 'Dark Red' has over 728 million plays on Spotify, making it a bigger song than 'Bad Habit'… for now at least.
It's not all biscuits and gravy…
The song has irrevocably transformed Steve Lacy's career, and nowhere is that clearer than on tour. He's had to adjust to playing sold out arenas, and the transition hasn't always been smooth.
Viral footage from his Gemini Rights tour showed fans failing to sing the words to 'Bad Habit' beyond the hook circulated on TikTok. Lacy later addressed the viral clip onstage in New York.
In October, Lacy smashed a fan's camera thrown onstage at him and abruptly ended the show. He later wrote on Instagram (a since-deleted post): "Maybe I could've reacted better? Sure. Always. I'm a student of life. But I'm a real person with real feelings and real reactions. I'm not a product or a robot. I am human."
The incident prompted online commentary wondering if TikTok has "ruined" the artist's career or if a younger, chronically online audience needed a refresher in crowd etiquette in a post-pandemic environment.
By the time he made his way Down Under, Steve Lacy's Australian tour was already the hottest ticket in town – with all three of his headline East Coast shows upgraded to bigger venues after selling out in minutes.
Fans were just as hyped as the feverish, content-hungry audiences at recent Australian tours from Tame Impala and Billie Eilish. If not more so. And in Melbourne, the frenzy was truly real.
Fans who had queued for hours outside the 10,000 capacity John Cain Arena rushed the venue when gates opened. Angry fans took to social media, calling it a "shit show", poorly organised, and dangerous. The stampede trigged an internal review from venue managers Melbourne And Olympic Parks over safety and planning concerns.
Playing to a sold out crowd in his biggest room yet, Lacy had to interrupt the show several times to wind down the hyped-up, tightly packed audience and creating space for security to get parts of the crowd – made up of young fans, many female – safely out.
However, the idea that people were only there for the one hit holds very little weight.
Throughout the concert, the adoring crowd did not miss singing back a single word, including but not limited to 'Bad Habit'. And the same can be said for his subsequent shows in Sydney and Brisbane.
Despite the increased attention and seemingly breakneck speed of his ascent, Lacy says his day-to-day life hasn't changed dramatically.
"It doesn't really feel that fast for me because I've been working since I was 16 or 17 years old. It feels like a natural progression," Lacy told The Guardian in December. "I guess the virality of it is a bit quicker, or just bigger than my other things. But it feels as if I've been waiting and observing for a while."
Steve Lacy is in it for the long game. Always has been. It obviously marks a massive turning point in his career, but its unlikely he'll be remembered solely for 'Bad Habit'.
Entertainment Nation, a new exhibition hosted at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in Washington DC, includes a cracked iPhone 6 from 2012 that Lacy used to make some of his earliest music.
It's now a canonised cultural artefact, which demonstrates just how far Lacy has come, and strangely, also suggests his longevity and the possibility his music will further shape the cultural landscape.