If there’s one performer at this year’s Dia De Los Deftones that’s going to make old-school Deftones fans feels positively ancient, it’ll be 2hollis. The 21-year-old rapper-singer-producer has crafted his own world of music since first releasing songs as a teenager — a world that includes self-aware and unabashed references to Minecraft, deadmau5, Berlin techno, black metal and mid-Aughts trap — all while looking like Final Fantasy villain Sephiroth if he’d retired and become a Balenciaga model.
Considering 2hollis’ next-gen vision, it makes sense that Deftones discovered him through the actual next generation. “My daughter was listening to 2hollis one day and I was like, ‘What the fuck is this?’” Chino Moreno recalls. “And I saw a clip of it, and it was just like nothing else.”
While 2hollis’ mix of influences are seemingly as scattershot as the most brain-rotted zoomer’s TikTok feed, what really sets him apart as an artist is how considered every choice is and how magically he manages to assemble those pieces into a fresh, fascinating vision. It doesn’t hurt that his musical foundation is clearly rock-solid — after all, his parents are John Herndon, drummer of Chicago post-rock mainstays Tortoise, and Kathryn Frazier, CEO of music PR firm Biz 3 and cofounder of Skrillex’s record label OWSLA.
2025’s star, 2hollis’ most recent album, is a perfect encapsulation of how he alchemizes far-ranging influences into a cohesive package. While it includes straight-ahead, extremely catchy tracks like “nice” — which he’s jokingly described as a “Coachella banger” — the record also finds him flirting with aggression and freneticism in unexpected ways. Blown-out drums and vocals spike the angsty “sidekick,” the record’s closest cousin to Playboi Carti’s rage rap, with samples ringing out like guitar chugs. “tell me” builds to what would be a typical EDM drop in the hands of a more conventional artist, but instead dissolves into something ethereal and dreamy.
Despite the surface-level mismatch, much like his hosts at Dia De Los Deftones, 2hollis draws beauty out of chaos.
“2hollis really adds to the dichotomy of what it is that Deftones do,” says Moreno. “So, I thought [booking him] was kind of important, especially for the youth.”