Apple Music Up Next artist Omar Apollo is the Chicano bedroom-pop crooner par excellence. He is part of a wave of Gen Z (and almost exclusively Mexican American) artists like Cuco and Ambar Lucid that began reinventing soul-funk from the confines of their home studios in decidedly lo-fi fashion. Apollo’s story is, in many ways, the archetypal immigrant success story: the first-generation American son of hardworking Mexican parents, who turned a sporadic hobby into a way to sustain his family. Born in Indiana in 1997 and eventually relocating to sunny L.A., Apollo’s sadboi ballads, like 2017’s “Ugotme” and 2018’s “Heart,” channel the isolation and suburban gloom of his Midwest origins. The mostly self-taught musician got his start in his early teens, after receiving a guitar as a gift from his parents. He learned to play watching YouTube videos and covering Disney Channel songs, and eventually got a little help from a talented uncle who showed him the musical ropes. Thanks to streaming platforms like SoundCloud, Apollo swiftly turned his musical experiments into viral hits, like 2016’s "{}[]," an understated yet sensuous soul number that garnered him tens of thousands of streams and put the spotlight on him as one of the standout voices in bedroom lo-fi. Much like his contemporaries, Apollo channels a slick R&B that harkens back to the soul masters of yore, as in 2018’s “Hijo De Su Madre,” which plays off a riff from Archie Bell & The Drells’ ‘60s classic “Tighten Up,” while adding a more contemporary rap flavor. Though he’s often branded as a bedroom-pop artist, Apollo has shown impressive versatility, as with 2020’s “Dos Uno Nueve (219),” in which he melds a trap corrido (in the style of Apple Music Up Next artist Natanael Cano) with his characteristically soulful croon—a resounding testament from an artist who proudly flaunts his roots at every turn.
