Powfu

Canadian rapper/songwriter/producer Powfu went viral with a style of melancholic, lo-fi songcraft that was sad, nostalgic, and sweet in equal parts. His song “Death Bed (Coffee for Your Head)” sampled British singer Beabadoobee’s lo-fi acoustic tune “Coffee” and met with unexpectedly massive success, being streamed hundreds of millions of times and reaching number 23 on the Billboard Hot 100. Its parent EP, Poems of the Past, bolstered by an appearance from blink-182, topped the publication’s Heatseekers chart. He continued releasing additional EPs and albums like 2022′s Surrounded by Hounds and Serpents.
Powfu was born Isaiah Faber in Vancouver, British Columbia, in 1999. He began sharing his songs online as early as 2018, tending toward lo-fi hip-hop beats and sad, piano-driven instrumentals as the backdrop for his singing and rapping about relationships, breakups, emotional struggles, and bittersweet memories. These tracks were often released as singles, and sometimes Powfu collected several songs at once in a series of EPs titled Some Boring, Love Stories. It was his song “Death Bed (Coffee for Your Head),” released in January 2020, that pushed his rising fame into full bloom, with its video streamed millions of times in a matter of months. The song grew exponentially when it was released as a commercial single with an upgraded video, and Powfu signed on with Columbia Records. “Death Bed” led off Poems of the Past, his first EP for Columbia, which also included a remix of the song featuring blink-182. He rounded out his banner year with a smattering of additional singles including “When the Hospital Was My Home” featuring Rxseboy, which appeared on Some Boring Love Stories, Pt. 5.
The EPs Drinking Under the Streetlights and Tell Me Your Feelings and I Won’t Tell You Mine appeared in 2021. Surrounded by Hounds and Serpents followed in 2022. ~ Fred Thomas