Tillo

Rapper and Songwriter, Francisco Castillo, known by his stage name Tillo, was born on 13/02/1998. He is from McAllen, Texas.

Tillo is not signed to any label yet. His genre of music is rap. His first official song “Neverland” was released on February 1st, 2018 under his stage name “Tillo”. He likes to describe his music as “sad boy in the feels type”. He said sometimes he tries to venture into upbeat and chill music however he likes how the “feels” music makes a person feel vulnerable and absorb every word.

Tillo started making music and writing songs 4 years ago, Tillo says, “I wasn’t very good at that time”. He dropped a couple of songs under his old stage name “Frankie” but at that time even those songs did not satisfy him. Later, Tillo decided to make a fresh start and then picked a new stage name “Tillo” for himself. He, then, dropped his first song under his new stage name “Tillo”.

Discussing his journey, Tillo told us an interesting story about how he came up with his stage name. He said he wanted something unique as a stage name instead of a basic one. Then, Tillo said that he heard this line from the song “Me You” by Russ which said, “No rap name to hide behind, this the real me”, this line stuck with him and he decided to have some part of his name as his stage name. He analyzed his name and then came across “Tillo” from “Castillo”, his last name.

Tillo’s creative process includes sometimes only him, or him and his brother along with his group of friends just sitting in the studio, playing random beats, and observing what hits and comes naturally. Once they find the beat, they keep writing and erasing over and over again till the song is complete.

Tillo opened up to us about his come-up story and said his family wasn’t financially sound when he was younger. Tillo is the second to the youngest out of 7 kids and his mother raised them all on her own. He said he recalls all 7 of them living in a small house but his mother got them through somehow even on that small salary. He said, “My mother always taught me to ‘get a job to support your dream until you can make your dream job your job’, and those are the words I have been working on.” Tillo listened to country music till high school but then he got into rap and hip-hop. To him, rap and hip-hop were like “poetry with rhythm”, Tillo said he thought that he was good at rhyming, so, in senior year, he decided to give it a try. He faced some hurdles as not everyone believed he could do it. But after high school, he decided to just go for it and not care about what anybody said. Since then, Tillo has been making music, his friends have been supporting him throughout this journey and he loves what he does. Whenever he falters or makes some mistakes, his friends encourage him and he gets back with more determination. Now, when he and his friends see his songs streaming, they all feel proud. He said he enjoys making music and if he could make it his career, then it would be incredible.

We asked Tillo to tell us about his musical inspiration. He said, “My inspiration came from just using songwriting and rapping as an escape and a release. Basically, a journal and then seeing it come together in a song was just something amazing.” He furthermore added that artist-wise his inspiration came from Russ. He related to Russ’ lyrics and his come-up story of doing it all himself. Tillo said that he wants to be able to follow through and achieve the same success as Russ had.

Tillo said that we can expect more songs and activity from him and that he has been posting more on Twitter and Instagram to be in touch with his fans and get opinions on his unreleased music. He said he will never stop making music as it brings him joy and is like a journal for him, a part of his life.