Richmond artist, producer, and songwriter smokeysunday builds worlds where live‑instrument soul, internet‑age chaos, and late‑night hedonism all blur together. Drawing from Prince, D’Angelo, Lil Uzi Vert, Future, The Weeknd, Chief Keef, Jeff Buckley, Stevie Nicks, and Erykah Badu, his music balances bright, restless energy with a slow, hazy warmth—equal parts melodic instincts, heavy low‑end, and a feel for space and atmosphere.

Before the smokeysunday era, he recorded and produced as HeyyDaTroy, running through projects like Have a Nice Dae, ANTiHERO, and Have a Nice Dae 2, while quietly becoming a backbone producer for his circle. Between roughly 2022 and 2024, that sound shows up on cuts like BjayXo’s “clout” and “split it,” Gray Kyd’s “einstein,” his own “2 man,” and KawaiiBoyDamani’s “broke computer”—a run defined by glowing, jittery melodies, drums that never fully sit still, and basslines that move like leads. You can hear Uzi and Future in the forward‑leaning low end and vocal pockets, Chief Keef in the hypnotic repetition, and a more soulful streak—D’Angelo, Badu, Buckley—in the way chords are allowed to hang, turning even aggressive records a little sensual or bittersweet. That approach reaches a first peak on KawaiiBoyDamani’s The Rich, which smoke produced and executive produced: a tape that feels like the inside of a broken arcade, kept in a single emotional temperature while being tailored to Damani’s high‑octane delivery.

In mid‑2024, smoke stepped back from rapping publicly to refine his work as a producer and engineer, re‑emerging under the smokeysunday name with a sound that’s more focused and cinematic. Where the HeyyDaTroy era felt like being dropped into a crowded, blinking room, the smokeysunday material feels like driving past that chaos with the windows up: the same bright leads and heavy low end, but wrapped in a softer haze, with more air between each element. The Prince / Weeknd influence shows in the slow‑burn builds and stacked melodies, while Stevie Nicks and Badu can be heard in the drifting, mystical mood of his more subdued cuts.

As smokeysunday, he’s returned to the mic with a run that includes “woke up (rashad mccants),” “piercings,” “good fabric,” “90s fine,” “phone jumpin,” and “45 min drive” (the latter co‑produced with Fooliedude). These tracks stretch his palette from stripped‑down, intimate confessions to bright, chant‑driven anthems, but all share the same core instincts: a guitarist’s ear for melody, a producer’s fixation on layering and negative space, and lyrics that fold cartoons, sports, fashion, and streaming culture into something that sounds off‑the‑cuff until the patterns show. From early HeyyDaTroy placements to executive‑producing The Rich to his current late‑night glow as smokeysunday, smoke has been steadily assembling a coherent world that ties Richmond soil, internet culture, and decades of black pop and rock history into a sound that feels unmistakably his.