By Jake Ross

Studying by day, making music by night? It may be a hard tune to balance, but
for Quincy Isaiah, a musician—and a fourth-year Toronto Metropolitan University student in the graphic communications management program, it’s a regular weekday.

Isaiah says he manages it by balancing his school schedule with music-making time. He has classes three days a week, then practices and records on the other two.

“I usually just go to school till five and then go to the studio, or rehearsals,” he said. “It’s nice because like a lot of my friends at school know about my music, so I go to school and get to talk about ideas with them in between classes.”

The past couple weeks have been particularly busy for Isaiah. He has a new album dropping titled Summer’s Over and a gig at Toronto’s Adelaide Hall coming up to celebrate it.

“Honestly, I kind of just work on the stuff during class and then do my homework at four a.m. or something,” he said.

Born in Burlington, Ont., Isaiah started singing covers in Grade 3. “I just started memorizing songs and performing them for my family and stuff,” he said. When he got to Grade 6, he joined his school’s glee club, which allowed him to perform in front of larger audiences, including singing the national anthem at events.

At 14, through a scholarship from the glee club, Isaiah got the chance of a lifetime and went to Los Angeles to attend a summer camp at a conservatory. There, he learned from professionals and record in a real studio.

When he returned, he saved up money and bought the equipment needed to build a home studio.

Growing up, Isaiah listened to a variety of genres, listing the likes of Adele, Bruno Mars, Coldplay, Maroon 5 as his early creative influences.

“I was listening to basically whatever was around me on the radio and in my house,” he said. “That’s when I really started getting into music, like seeing their performances and dancing and stuff.”

As he got older, he started getting more into R&B and hip-hop, listening to J. Cole, Bryson Tiller and Brent Faiyaz—and of course, Toronto’s homegrown talent like Drake and The Weeknd.

Isaiah started seriously recording music in high school, releasing some of the tracks on YouTube and Spotify. He got approached by producer Lincoln Blaché and was signed to his production company, Maison Blaché. For his first few songs, he would record in his bedroom and friends’ basements before taking the tracks to get mixed in the studio.

His previous album, The Freshman, came out in June. He said it’s meant to capture a transitional period in life, moving from childhood to adulthood.

“For that album, it was more so just growing up, and I felt like the freshman, that whole idea and concept really captured the idea of it,” he said. “It was a collection of four years of music just put into one.”

Isaiah describes his newest album, Summer’s Over, as a continuation of his musical growth. It’s about his experiences spending a summer living in Toronto and his musical progression. He adds that it’s more intentional than his first album.

“I just switched it up completely with this project,” he said. In contrast to the often light, playful energy of The Freshman, Isaiah said Summer’s Over feels more mature, with a darker R&B vibe. The six-track album moves between atmospheric melodies and driving, rhythmic vocals, with introspective lyrics to match.

For other aspiring young musicians, Isaiah said “they should meet as many industry people as they can, post as much as you can and share your music widely.”

He advised aspiring musicians to study artists they wish to emulate and encouraged them to, “be intentional with how you want to do it, and study what you want to be like.”

Summer’s Over will be released on Oct. 1 and can be found on all major streaming platforms.