Toosii American Rapper Born 2000 in Syracuse

Early life

Toosii was born Nau'Jour Lazier Grainger on 9 January 2000 in Syracuse, New York. When he was thirteen the family moved to Raleigh, North Carolina, and it was there that he began to take music seriously. He started recording at sixteen while he was still playing high school football. His stage name grew out of a childhood nickname, "Toota", which his football teammates once teased him with; he respelled it with two i's, saying that two eyes are needed to see the vision. He has said that both his brother and his father inspired him to try music.

Career

Toosii began releasing music in 2017, putting out several mixtapes, among them Label Me Diverse, Hell on Earth and Why Not Now. His breakthrough came in 2019 with the track "Red Lights", which gathered millions of streams. That year he signed with the label South Coast Music Group and released the mixtape Who Dat on 30 April. He followed it with My Shit Now, a six-track collection of remixes, on 3 January 2020, and with the thirteen-track Platinum Heart on 7 February 2020, which reached number one on the Billboard Heatseekers Albums chart and was later reissued in a twenty-track deluxe form.

On 18 September 2020 he released Poetic Pain, his first project with Capitol Records. It entered the Billboard 200 at number 17 and includes "Love Cycle", a collaboration with Summer Walker that was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America in January 2021. He was credited that year with 50,000 adjusted sales in the United States and more than 250 million streams worldwide.

In 2021 Audiomack named him an "Up Now" artist ahead of the mixtape Thank You for Believing, which came out on 7 May and includes guest appearances from Mulatto, Key Glock and DaBaby. He was also part of the XXL Freshman Class that year. In December 2021 he released the three-track EP Pretty Girls Love Toosii with Jacquees as a guest, and on 7 October 2022 he followed with the EP Boys Don't Cry, which contains "Love Is..." and "Heartaches". A deluxe edition, Boys Don't Cry: Men Do, appeared in November 2022.

His commercial peak arrived in 2023. After the single "Magic Potion" in January, he released "Favorite Song" as a Valentine's Day track. It first charted on the Billboard Hot 100 at number 51, then climbed after remixes with Khalid and Future in May, reaching number five in the week ending 3 June 2023. It also reached number 25 on the Billboard Global 200 and was certified double platinum by August. The song led his self-titled second studio album, Naujour, which peaked at number 19 on the Billboard 200. In November 2023 he released "Suffice", the lead single from the mixtape Jaded, which features the band LANY.

In August 2025 Toosii announced that he was pausing his music career in order to play college football. In December 2025 he accepted an offer to play at Syracuse University, and in March 2026 he joined the football team at Louisiana State University.

Personal life

Toosii has described rapping as a way out of difficult circumstances in his youth. He is an American rapper and singer, and he draws on hip-hop in his recordings.