Not music critics.
Something better.
Two people who genuinely love music, know a lot about it, and can’t stop talking about it. Between them: a guitarist’s hands, a producer’s ear, gospel tradition, hip-hop history — and the kind of life experience that makes a lyric about grief actually hurt.
The ear of a producer.
Joe is a lifelong guitarist and the one who catches the doubler on the vocal, notices the hip-hop DNA under an indie-pop surface, or points out that the chord progression is doing something you’d normally only hear in jazz. He’s also the rabbit-hole guy — the one who starts with a B-side and comes back with the whole story of a band, a producer and a studio.
Off-mic, Joe is a speaker, facilitator and leadership coach, founder of Switch Innovation Lab, and the author of The Broken Mirror Project. He works with leaders and teams on the thing every Riffs episode eventually gets to: how to be honest about where you are, and hopeful about where you’re going.
The one who goes quiet when a lyric lands.
Toby was formed in church, has no interest in the theory and every interest in the feeling, and is willing to sit with a song through five listens until something cracks open. He’s the one who cried to a Bad Bunny salsa track in a Kohl’s parking lot — and the one who says the thing everyone else was thinking.
Off-mic, Toby is a motivational speaker and leadership expert, and the author of The Empowerment Chords. He speaks to organizations and communities about leading with conviction, and is at work on his next book.
The friendship is the show.
Joe and Toby have been in conversation since 2018 — which is to say they argue, they make each other laugh, they occasionally discover mid-episode that they hear the same song completely differently, and they always come back to the music. Listeners don’t just come for the analysis. They come to be in the room.
They speak together and separately, and they play. Here’s how to book them.