After an injury ended his baseball career, Chicago-raised tobi lou used ‘competitive’ mindset to propel his music career

tobi lou remembers the exact moment his baseball career was over.

“By my last year, I had figured out things that I had never known about the sport. Something finally clicked and the spring training I was having was unlike anything else. For the first time I was able to hit balls out of the park in batting practice consistently,” he told the Tribune of his time in Alamogordo, N.M., in 2012 playing in the independent Pecos League.

“I was finally finding ways to test my arm strength and my hitting. My last ever at-bat was a home run. That game I pulled my hammy on my first at-bat beating out an infield single.”

Due to the small number of roster spots and the possible weeks it would take him to heal, lou says he knew he would be cut after the team found out about the injury so he stayed in the game for his last at-bat.

“I was down 0-2 and the pitcher hung a slider. I was out on my front and I hit it out of the park. I knew I was done. I was tired. I was getting paid $600 a month. I just kept thinking about how improbable it was that my last at-bat was a home run,” lou continued.

The Nigerian-born, Chicago-area-raised rapper played baseball at Homewood-Flossmoor for three years before spending his senior year at Hinsdale Central. A 5-foot-9, 200-pound outfielder, lou (born Tobi Adeyemi) played at SUNY Albany for a year and a half before transferring to Florida A&M. During his junior season, he recorded five hits in a game against Jackson State. In his last season at FAMU, he hit .379 with 4 home runs and 29 RBI.

After graduation, lou went on to play for the Joliet Slammers who won the Frontier League championship in his first season with the team. In his second year, because he wasn’t getting much playing time, lou found himself in New Mexico where he took his last swing at the game.

“Baseball became something that I appreciated being able to take as far as I could because I grew to really love different aspects of it and the figuring out of it. You’re always working on your swing. You’re always trying to figure out and tweak stuff. I feel as if I took it as far as I could,” lou said.

But when baseball ended for lou in 2012, it wasn’t the end. It was a moment that allowed him to pivot to another of his deep interests, music. Though sports had been in the front seat for as long as he could remember, lou embraced the opportunity to dive deeper into his artistry. He wanted to pursue music in the same way he went after baseball. He wanted to immerse himself in it — to wake up and dedicate himself to his craft.

“I love music. I remember sometimes during summer league in college I’d be staying up all night just to figure out music stuff in my bedroom. That had to be a gift that God gave me because I don’t know if you ever pulled a hammy but I put my head down in the outfield like ‘this is it.’ I was kind of almost crying, not on my face but just inside,” lou said. “Everyone just wants to play and they hang on to their dreams. You’ve been given this ability to go out and play and it’s been something meaningful for almost your whole life and all of a sudden it’s no longer going to be meaningful. So I just took that as a sign to take control over my destiny.”

lou’s transition from athlete to artist was almost immediate. He credits his mentality from years of sports training for the ease he felt in committing to music.

“Being an athlete, your job is to train. And your training often affects the energy you have throughout the day. You pour hours into your day, into your craft, hoping that day got you a little bit closer to getting better. And for once I finally knew I was no longer being judged on my athletic ability,” he said.

Since he wasn’t in school and wasn’t playing baseball, lou was living with his parents. He spent as many hours as he possibly could working out and working on his music. Sleeping and eating became secondary to working at his craft. He felt more free. There weren’t coaches or trainers telling him what to do, he was on his own.

“Tobi has always been in love with music. I have a recording that Tobi did for me with his siblings. But sports was his love. Tobi was a good basketball player, baseball player and football player. He did track and he did soccer,” his mother Ronke Champion-Adeyemi said. “He’s blessed athletically, so I’m not surprised that when you see him even on the stage, he performs like an athlete. That’s still in him. And he still brings a lot of that through to his performance.”

In 2019, lou’s song “Buff Baby” went viral with a TikTok dance challenge. In 2021, actor John C. Reilly, a fan of lou’s, introduced him via video at Lollapalooza. An independent artist, he’s toured all over the world with songs like “I Was Sad Last Night I’m OK Now.”

“All our problems can be of different size proportions, but we’re all kind of experiencing the same emotions. We all end up … tears all can come to our eyes, smiles can come to our faces. We all somehow, no matter what we’re feeling, are affected in a way where we end up in the same type of emotions, no matter how drastic the differences are,” lou said.

His manager, Derrick “Lottery” Hardy, says lou’s messages are what connects him to his audience. He is reaching people who relate to the feelings he’s expressing through his music.

“That’s from personal experience. Like I’m coming home you know, dejected from sports or something like that and he’s thinking the world’s over, but then when he goes to sleep, he wakes up and sees ‘Oh, OK. I’m still here, still on this earth.’ And then he’ll preach that message to other people,” Hardy said. “And you’d be surprised how many people are like, ‘Wow, I never looked at it that way. I never thought of it that way.’ But the message wasn’t really a message, it was tobi speaking his truth.”

When he’s not working on his music, lou still trains like he’s preparing for a baseball season. He rides his bike 20-25 miles a day and works out. Keeping his body in shape for touring also keeps his mind healthy.

“Everything is competitive,” he said.

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In October, lou returned to Chicago for a stop on his tour at Metro with grouptherapy. His athleticism on full display, lou uses his entire body to perform. He took pauses between songs to talk to the audience about their mental and emotional health. He reminded them it’s OK to not be OK sometimes — a message the crowd takes with relatable enthusiasm. There are tears from some as he tells a story about one fan who told him she came with her dad because she had no friends. “I’m your friend,” lou tells her.

But his fans weren’t the only ones emotional, lou was as well. The reception from the home crowd was one he’d been nervously anticipating. They embraced lou as not only one of their own but someone whose message they wanted to take part in.

lou left Chicago with a baseball dream years ago, but he returned with a new one for them to share. And he’s still hitting home runs.