Celebrated singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer Louis Baker has won over listeners around the globe with his signature offering: slow-cooked modern soul for the people. A critically acclaimed stylist of richly emotive songcraft, he reinterprets longstanding American and British musical
traditions through a laidback coastal lens.
Since the early 2010’s, he has established himself as a captivating guitarist and powerhouse vocalist with an ear for head-nod grooves from Wellington, the capital city of Aotearoa (New Zealand). Along the way, everyone from India.Arie (“Louis Baker, you sing my soul”) to BBC 6 Music, Rolling Stone, Clash
Magazine, and Earmilk has shown love for who he is and has become.
In 2026, he returns with Trouble, his long-awaited second full-length album. Written and produced by Baker, the record explores themes of love, loss, gratitude, social consciousness and human connection. Across nine tracks, Trouble draws on the traditions of soul, R&B, Motown and funk, combining warm
analogue textures and groove-driven rhythms with modern production. Anchored by Baker’s vocals and songwriting, the album has a sound that is unmistakably his own.
The album follows Medicine, Baker’s self-produced five-track EP released in 2024. Exploring music as a source of healing, reflection and connection, the EP has amassed more than 5 million streams and led to Berlin-based label Best Works releasing a collection of remixes of its standout track, Keep On. In support of the release, Baker toured throughout New Zealand before joining Fat Freddy’s Drop as the opening act on their 35-date Slo Mo tour across the UK, Europe and Australia. Having also contributed vocals to the band’s track Slo Mo, the tour further expanded his international audience and marked
another milestone in an already extensive touring career.
Growing up in the working-class suburb of Newtown, Wellington, Baker developed his passion for music at an early age, listening to his parents’ diverse record collection, which featured the likes of Miles Davis, Marvin Gaye, and Joni Mitchell.
Picking up his singer-songwriter mother’s Yamaha acoustic guitar as an 11-year-old, he was shown a few chords before learning to play the instrument by ear. This obsession led him from a metal phase into the world of rhythm and blues through guitar players such as Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughn. The former inspired the then 15-year-old Baker to pick up a wah-wah pedal in an attempt to conjure the spirit of the late great Voodoo Child. Following high school, Baker enrolled at Jazz School through the New Zealand School of Music, supplementing his studies with live gigs around the city.
Baker’s first official release came in 2011 with the song Even In The Darkness. The track won him the most votes on The Audience, a New Zealand government-funded website dedicated to new, unreleased music. In 2013, Baker was chosen out of 4000 applicants to take one of 60 coveted places at the prestigious Red Bull Music Academy in New York. The programme included guest lectures from Brian Eno, Questlove (The Roots) and Q-Tip (A Tribe Called Quest). While he was there, Baker took part in a studio session with the legendary hip-hop producer Just Blaze.
Following the Academy, Baker spent the summer in London recording his debut self-titled EP with the UK producer Andy Lovegrove (Supergrass, Breaks Co-Op). Released in 2014, it debuted at #3 on the New Zealand Top 40 Albums Chart. In a testament to his songwriting skills, the fourth track on the EP, Back On My Feet, was named a finalist in the prestigious APRA Silver Scrolls Awards that year. Baker quickly followed up by teaming up with New Zealand-born, UK-based Ninja Tune signee Jordan Rakei on the track, Just Want to Thank You.
Throughout 2016 and 2017, Baker released four stand-alone singles, Rainbow, Fade, Gave It All Away and Addict. Long-time New Zealand music critic and author Grant Smithies described Rainbow as, “A glorious song this – sad and sparse, wise and true, with a restraint to the vocal that suits the vulnerability of the love-lorn lyric.” Baker’s next release Fade was co-written and produced by Brad Ellis (Wilkinson, James Arthur, Sam Smith) of London-based duo The Nextmen. Gave it All Away arrived in two distinctly different forms, a strikingly raw acoustic version and an electronic version produced by Fat Freddy’s Drop’s Mu. Finally, Addict saw Baker team up with two-time Ivor Novello winner and Grammy-nominated
songwriter and producer Sacha Skarbek, fellow New Zealanders producer Josh Fountain (Leisure) and Theia. The four tracks accumulated Baker over 7.5 million streams within the space of a year. In 2017 and 2018, he was named a top 20 APRA Silver Scroll Award finalist for Rainbow and Black Crow respectively.
Baker released his critically acclaimed debut album Open in 2019, which received a prestigious Taite Music Prize nomination and Aotearoa Music Awards nominations for Best Soul Artist and Best Māori Artist. Written and produced in London, Los Angeles, Sydney and New Zealand, the album saw him reflecting on being open to opportunity, change and acceptance. Across Open’s nine songs, he worked with Grammy-nominated Engineer and Producer Steve Rusch (Kendrick Lamar, Solange, Cody Chesnutt), multi-platinum-selling songwriter Lindy Robbins (Andra Day, Chromeo), and the Avondale rapper Melodownz.
In 2021, Baker released a 7-track EP, Love Levitates, co-produced with producer, Devin Abrams (Dallas Tamaira, Drax Project, Pacific Heights). Rolling Stone Magazine described Love Levitates as “luxurious funk-soul.”
Over the years, Baker has toured New Zealand, Australia, the UK, and Europe multiple times. He has also played at key international festivals, including Field Days in London, Sonar Festival in Barcelona, Sziget Festival in Hungary, and Splendour In The Grass in Australia, as well as Rhythm and Vines and Homegrown in his home country of New Zealand. He has also performed with the likes of Jordan Rakei, Allen Stone, Jamie Liddel, Gladys Knight, Cody Chestnutt, and Fat Freddy’s Drop.
In a testament to his ubiquity, in recent years, Louis’ voice has also been heard on an array of well-loved dance, hip-hop and alternative pop records by Stan Walker, Maisey Rika, Ta-Ku and Team Dynamite.
More than a decade after first emerging, Louis Baker continues to follow his own path, combining exceptional musicianship, soulful songwriting and an unwavering commitment to authenticity. With Trouble, he delivers his most personal and assured work yet.
