![]() ![]() His videos and performance are inseparable from his music. When he speaks about his work, Cash often refers to it as his product, which is an accurate if overly prosaic way to look at it. He released his first album, Euroz Dollaz Yeniz, in 2014 and rapidly gained fame in underground Baltic and Eastern European circles-and then internationally, too, thanks to the viral success of his self-produced 2016 music video for the single “Winaloto.” He left school at 17, briefly attended art college, then left that too to focus on his interest in performance. A childhood hip-hop class sparked an interest in making his own beats. He grew up in a predominantly Russian neighborhood in Tallinn, Estonia, and was into dance before he was into music. Tommy Cash was born Tomas Tammemets in 1991 to a Russian father and a Ukrainian mother. But then,” he adds, more seriously, “for me, very light things can be spooky.” “I thought it was more emotional and less dark than the previous ones. “But I went easy on this one!” he says (previous videos, in comparison, have featured disabled dancers sporting blades instead of prosthetics others sport Cash’s face superimposed onto every character). I tell him I thought it was spooky, which he finds kind of amusing. Before I know it, he’s asking me questions about my reaction to his latest music video for the Danny L Harle–produced track "X-Ray," one that depicts Cash as a techno cult leader of sorts. When I call Cash in late November, he’s at the airport in Paris, having just finished work on his new studio album, ¥€$. Of course, any (or all) of these people could be lying, but it's easier to entertain the idea of Cash casting a web in the night, the only common denominator among perfect strangers. “Oh, Tommy,” he said, “I got high with him once.” The barman has never been to Estonia in his life. Then I got to talking with a barman in a central London chain pub. ![]() I thought that was weird but not impossible-Estonia, after all, is a country of only 1.37 million. When I started talking about interviewing him a couple of years ago, every Estonian I met would tell me a story about running into the rapper at a party. Everyone in Europe seems to know Tommy Cash, within a few degrees of separation. ![]()
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