Toby Daintree is a British songwriter, record producer and multi-instrumentalist based in London, best known as the primary co-writer and production partner of Artemas. A jazz-trained guitarist out of the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, Daintree co-wrote and co-produced Artemas's breakthrough single “if u think i'm pretty” and its global smash follow-up “I Like the Way You Kiss Me,” work that led to a global publishing deal with Warner Chappell Music in 2024 and, by 2026, a co-writing and co-production credit on BTS's “Like Animals.”
Public biographical detail on Toby Daintree is thin by design: no source discloses his date of birth, hometown, or family background, a gap that stands out against the depth of reporting on Artemas's own upbringing. What is documented is his training: Daintree studied jazz guitar at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama in London, the same conservatoire whose Guildhall Studio Orchestra separately credits him as a guitarist. Music Week and Record of the Day both describe him as a “multi-instrumentalist and virtuosic guitar player,” a description that maps directly onto the role he plays in the studio: the chords-and-riff counterpart to a vocal-melody-first songwriting partner.
Before his professional breakthrough, Daintree worked as a barista, splitting his days between a coffee-shop shift running roughly 6:30am to 12:30pm and studio sessions with Artemas five or six times a week, a schedule he called “intense” in a Music Week interview. That routine, unglamorous and largely undocumented outside of that single interview, is the closest thing available to an origin story separate from the Artemas partnership itself.
Daintree's rise is inseparable from his partnership with Artemas. By his own account, the two met roughly two and a half years before “I Like the Way You Kiss Me,” placing their first meeting around 2021 to 2022, when Daintree, then studying jazz guitar at Guildhall, joined Artemas's band and the pair became friends. At the time Artemas was in what Daintree described as a post-mixtape limbo: he had already signed a publishing deal and released early tracks with modest traction, but nothing that had broken through.
The two initially planned to start a band together. When one of Artemas's own tracks began gaining traction on its own, they pivoted instead to co-writing under the Artemas project, the start of a full-time creative partnership that has run continuously since. Daintree supported himself with the barista work described above while spending afternoons and evenings in the studio with Artemas.
Daintree co-wrote and co-produced Artemas's viral breakthrough single “if u think i'm pretty,” released October 24, 2023, the track that pulled both of their careers into wider industry visibility. He continued as co-writer and co-producer across Artemas's debut mixtape Pretty, released February 9, 2024. Those two credits, arriving within months of each other, established the working pattern that has defined the rest of his career: full involvement across an Artemas project rather than a single guest placement.
The defining moment of Daintree's career arrived in February 2024, when he, Artemas, Kevin White and Jesse Fink convened in Los Angeles for a fast writing sprint. Over roughly three days the group wrote about two songs a day, with the eventual hit arriving on day three. Daintree called it “the best writing experience I've ever had, it was magical,” in an interview with Music Week.
He has described the track's mechanics in detail. The beat began in half time with an entirely different feel, until the team started referencing Eyedress and Mareux's “The Perfect Girl” and pivoted toward what he called a darkwave sound. His typical role in the room was, in his own words, “on a guitar or synth doing chords or a riff” while Artemas “mumbled a melody” over the top, after which the pair built out the hook, added double-time drums and layered a percussive, high-end bassline that unlocked the track's final feel.
The song's viral spoken-word intro, Artemas's murmured ad-lib before the hook, was an afterthought. Daintree suggested it while the pair waited for an Uber outside Kevin White's studio at the end of a long day: “You should put a little mumble in the intro... it was the least thought out thing and it's so funny that it blew up,” he told Music Week. He also admitted he “wasn't even that into the song” at first, warming to it only after hearing it repeatedly and, in his words, “driving around LA one night thinking it was a vibe.”
Daintree's production and co-writing footprint continued to expand across nearly every subsequent Artemas release. He produced “al pacino” alongside Ben Ash and Two Inch Punch, then worked across most of Artemas's second mixtape yustyna, released July 11, 2024, including “i always kinda knew you'd be the death of me,” “you've been a bad girl,” “dirty little secret,” “wet dreams” and “you're simply wonderful,” with White and Fink joining on select tracks. On “so stunning” from the same period, he contributed a guitar part that he reportedly airdropped into the mix from a separate corner of the session, a detail Artemas later recounted in press.
He co-wrote and produced “how could u love somebody like me?” in late 2024, then rejoined the White-Fink configuration for “southbound”/“test drive,” released March 19, 2025. He was a credited producer and writer on “superstar,” the lead single from Artemas's LOVERCORE era, alongside Kent Tonning, White and additional producer MRD. Across LOVERCORE itself, a 14-track mixtape released October 24, 2025, Daintree served as the longtime producer and co-writer he had become across three prior projects, contributing to the intro track and to “in my arms,” among others. He returned again on “before we say goodbye” in December 2025, handling programming and production alongside Henry Morris and White.
In 2026, Daintree's collaborator bench moved outside the Artemas project entirely when he, Artemas, White and Fink joined Diplo, RM, Kirsten Spencer and Beau Nox as co-writers and co-producers on BTS's “Like Animals,” from the album ARIRANG. It is Daintree's highest-profile placement outside his core partnership and the clearest evidence that the Daintree-White-Fink writing configuration built around Artemas has become portable to other artists and labels.
His Warner Chappell publishing announcement also names a set of outside collaborators beyond Artemas: Devin Workman, FKA Twigs, Jesse Fink, Joy Crookes, Kamal., Kevin White, Matilda Mann and Two Inch Punch. A 2026 Instagram post crediting “producer Toby Daintree (FKA Twigs, Joy Crookes, Kamal)” on a Matilda Mann-adjacent single corroborates the breadth of that outside client list, though specific song titles and release dates for most of these credits have not surfaced beyond that one post. Daintree's Muso.ai profile independently lists 135 credits as a songwriter and producer.
Daintree's musical signature sits at the tension between jazz-trained instrumental technique and Artemas's lo-fi, vocal-first bedroom-pop instincts. George Baker, A&R Manager at Warner Chappell Music UK, called him “a world-class songwriter and producer” whose “recent hits have showcased he can write songs that connect with a global audience.”
His core method is chords-and-riff-first: he typically anchors a session on guitar or synth while Artemas mumbles a melody over the top, after which the pair build out hooks, drums and bass together. He has articulated a clear philosophy around simplicity and speed, telling Music Week, “I often think nursery rhymes have the best melodies, they're simple and easy to remember,” and “if you overthink the first take, you'll overthink the whole thing.” That effortlessness, deliberately avoiding chasing virality or what he called “pastiches of what you think might work,” is in his own account central to why “I Like the Way You Kiss Me” connected the way it did.
Sonically, the Daintree-Artemas catalog spans darkwave-inflected alt-pop, drawing explicitly on Eyedress and Mareux for “kiss me”; 80s-tinged synthpop built on retro reverb and delay chains and pitched vocals; and alt-grunge and rock textures carried by Daintree's guitar playing, which critics have singled out live on tracks like “how could u love somebody like me” and “dirty little secret” as essential texture against Artemas's synth-driven studio recordings. His outside client roster of FKA Twigs, Joy Crookes, Kamal. and Matilda Mann suggests range beyond that dark-pop lane into more traditional British alt-R&B and singer-songwriter folk-pop.
On the technical side, session breakdowns with Artemas show a plugin-and-workflow-driven approach rather than analog or outboard-heavy studio work: heavy use of Soundtoys' Decapitator and EchoBoy “on pretty much everything,” Slate Digital's Metatune and Melodyne for manual pitch correction, and Waves' SSL G Channel, C6 multiband compressor and CLA-2A for vocal glue. A signature technique involves recording vocals two semitones down and pitching the whole session up two semitones in Ableton to create Artemas's chipmunk-adjacent vocal texture, a move the pair first improvised in CapCut for a TikTok teaser before committing to it in the final session. Guitar chains follow the same minimal, plugin-based logic, running Decapitator, EchoBoy and Soundtoys' Little AlterBoy in sequence, deliberately avoiding amp modeling because, in Daintree's assessment, amps filter frequency in ways he prefers to control manually.
Daintree signed a global publishing deal with Warner Chappell Music in May 2024, announced shortly after the company won Publisher of the Year at the Music Week Awards. Under the deal he works closely with Shani Gonzales, Managing Director of Warner Chappell Music UK, and Amber Davis, Head of A&R at WCM UK, with George Baker serving as his primary day-to-day contact. His manager is Fin Kemp of Virgo Management. At signing, Daintree said: “I'm delighted to be joining Warner Chappell Music after an exciting few months for me, with 'if you think I'm pretty' and 'i like the way you kiss me' having blown up all around the world. I'm looking forward to working with George and the wider Warner Chappell team... and I'm excited to see what opportunities and new relationships come from the partnership.”
At the time of signing, “I Like the Way You Kiss Me” had amassed roughly 400 million streams, topped Spotify's Global Chart for three weeks, and reached No. 1 in Austria, Switzerland and Germany, No. 3 in Australia, Denmark and the UK, and No. 12 on the US Hot 100, the commercial backdrop that drove the deal. No public source discloses the financial terms of the arrangement, and no individual award nomination, Grammy, Ivor Novello or BRIT credited specifically to Daintree, as distinct from Artemas or the songwriting team collectively, has surfaced despite the song's global scale.
The Daintree-White-Fink triangle functions as a semi-fixed creative unit around Artemas rather than a one-off collaboration. Kevin White is one half of the Grammy-nominated production and songwriting duo Rice N' Peas, whose track record includes Bazzi's platinum album Cosmic (“Mine,” five-times platinum; “Beautiful,” four-times platinum), Bazzi's Soul Searching, Chelsea Cutler's Stellaria and Kiana Ledé's KIKI, alongside songwriting and production work for G-Eazy, Hailee Steinfeld, Lennon Stella, Queen Naija, Ari Lennox, Fletcher, Jason Derulo and Adam Levine. Daintree has called White “so efficient that it makes the whole session so easy,” describing a clear division of studio labor: White handles engineering efficiency, Daintree supplies instrumental and chordal ideas and guitar texture, and Jesse Fink, who has separately co-written Austin George's “Hands On You” and Mark Ambor's “The Long Way,” rounds out the team. Daintree has said Fink “makes Artemas feel so at ease” in sessions. This same three-producer configuration recurred on “southbound”/“test drive” in 2025 and on BTS's “Like Animals” in 2026, suggesting it has become Artemas's default outside-collaborator bench for tracks that move beyond his core bedroom setup.
Daintree comes across in available material as the low-key, technically grounded foil to Artemas's more performative frontman persona, described by tour reviewers as the composer and writing partner who plays synths and guitar within Artemas's live band rather than positioning himself as a public-facing artist. Mixdown Magazine observed that although Artemas performs and is marketed as a solo act, “the way he keeps saying 'we' alludes to a band,” clarifying that “Artemas and Toby, the synth player in his band, produce and write the music together, even mixing while they go.”
Artemas's own anecdotes paint Daintree as loose, funny and instinct-driven in the studio, describing their process as getting “drunk and see what comes out” as a stated creative method; working in the corner of a session with headphones on and independently finishing a song's ending before airdropping a guitar part that “just worked”; winding down after “I Like the Way You Kiss Me” blew up with “tequila-soda drinks at the pub above our studio,” which Artemas found “quite Hollywood”; and, in one touring anecdote, recording the song “caroline” live in the tour van between a Rotterdam show and a Hamburg date, with Daintree reportedly ignoring Artemas's initial melody idea just to needle him before laying down the bassline that completed the track.
In his own words, Daintree describes himself as initially skeptical about material that later became a smash: “At first, I wasn't even that into the song. I thought it was good, but I didn't think it was cool... I was probably just being cynical, because now I'm like, 'Damn, this is good!'” He frames trusting instinct over overthinking as his guiding creative principle: “This song has made me aware of not overthinking. It was the perfect storm of us trusting ourselves and going with our guts.” He has also downplayed the personal impact of sudden fame, telling Music Week, “for me? I'm the same musician as I was, and making music is still, genuinely, the only thing I like doing. So nothing has really changed,” a notably understated contrast to Artemas's own more effusive public reflections on stardom. His social media footprint matches that low profile: an Instagram under @tobydaintree, tagged directly by Warner Chappell Music in a March 2026 post crediting BTS's “Like Animals,” a Bandcamp profile listing his location as London with the bio simply reading “Producer, London,” used mainly to collect other artists' releases rather than post his own, and a SoundCloud account under the same handle. No verified TikTok, X or YouTube channel under his own name has surfaced, a notable gap for a producer whose main collaborator built a career on TikTok virality.
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| c. 2021–2022 | Meets Artemas after joining his band while studying jazz guitar at Guildhall School of Music & Drama |
| Oct 2023 | Co-writes and co-produces Artemas's breakthrough viral single “if u think i'm pretty” |
| Feb 2024 | Co-writes and co-produces Artemas's debut mixtape Pretty |
| Feb 2024 | Co-writes and co-produces “I Like the Way You Kiss Me” in Los Angeles in a three-day sprint with Artemas, Kevin White and Jesse Fink |
| Mar 2024 | “I Like the Way You Kiss Me” released; reaches No. 1 in eight-plus countries and goes on to RIAA 3× Platinum certification |
| May 2024 | Signs global publishing deal with Warner Chappell Music, managed by Fin Kemp of Virgo Management |
| Jul 2024 | Co-writes and co-produces across Artemas's sophomore mixtape yustyna |
| Nov 2024 | Subject of a standalone Music Week “Hitmakers” feature on the making of “I Like the Way You Kiss Me” |
| Mar 2025 | Co-writes and co-produces “southbound”/“test drive” with Artemas and Kevin White |
| Oct 2025 | Co-writes and co-produces across Artemas's fourth mixtape LOVERCORE |
| Jan 2026 | Co-appears with Artemas on the Tape Notes podcast (TN:172) discussing LOVERCORE |
| 2026 | Co-writes and co-produces “Like Animals” for BTS's album ARIRANG, alongside Diplo, Kevin White, Jesse Fink and RM |
Toby Daintree is a British songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist based in London, best known as Artemas's primary co-writer and production partner. He is a jazz-trained guitarist who studied at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama and is signed to Warner Chappell Music as a songwriter.
Yes. He co-wrote and co-produced the song with Artemas, Kevin White and Jesse Fink during a three-day writing sprint in Los Angeles in February 2024. He also suggested the track's viral spoken-word intro, an idea he raised while waiting for an Uber at the end of that session.
No. Beyond a SoundCloud and Bandcamp presence used mostly to collect other artists' releases, there is no evidence of Daintree releasing music as a solo artist. He functions exclusively as a co-writer, producer and session musician.
In 2026 he co-wrote and co-produced “Like Animals” for BTS's album ARIRANG, working alongside Diplo, Artemas, Kevin White, Jesse Fink and RM. It is his most prominent placement outside the Artemas partnership.
Fin Kemp of Virgo Management. Daintree's publishing is handled by Warner Chappell Music, where his day-to-day A&R contact is George Baker.
The commercial scale of “I Like the Way You Kiss Me” is the clearest available measure of Daintree's reach as a co-writer and producer, since chart and streaming data are reported for the song rather than for him individually.
| Metric | Figure |
|---|---|
| Spotify Global Chart | No. 1 for three weeks |
| Austria, Switzerland, Germany | No. 1 |
| Australia, Denmark, UK | No. 3 |
| US Billboard Hot 100 | No. 12 |
| Streams at time of Warner Chappell signing (May 2024) | approx. 400 million |
| RIAA certification | 3× Platinum |
| Song / Project | Artist | Year | Role |
|---|---|---|---|
| “if u think i'm pretty” | Artemas | 2023 | Writer, producer |
| Pretty (mixtape) | Artemas | 2024 | Co-writer, co-producer |
| “I Like the Way You Kiss Me” | Artemas | 2024 | Co-writer, co-producer |
| “al pacino” | Artemas | 2024 | Producer, writer |
| yustyna (mixtape) | Artemas | 2024 | Co-writer, co-producer |
| “so stunning” | Artemas | 2024 | Co-writer, producer |
| “how could u love somebody like me?” | Artemas | 2024 | Songwriter, producer |
| “southbound” / “test drive” | Artemas | 2025 | Co-writer, co-producer |
| “superstar” | Artemas | 2025 | Producer, writer |
| LOVERCORE (mixtape) | Artemas | 2025 | Producer, co-writer |
| “before we say goodbye” | Artemas | 2025 | Programming, production |
| “Like Animals” | BTS | 2026 | Co-writer, co-producer |
Outside the Artemas catalog, Daintree's Warner Chappell publishing announcement names Devin Workman, FKA Twigs, Joy Crookes, Kamal., Matilda Mann and Two Inch Punch as collaborators, without confirmed release dates for all of the associated work.
Toby Daintree's career runs almost entirely through his partnership with Artemas, alongside recurring sessions with Kevin White and Jesse Fink, the same trio behind BTS's “Like Animals.” Readers interested in the darkwave-adjacent sound he helped build with Artemas may also look at Mareux, whose “The Perfect Girl” served as a direct reference point for “I Like the Way You Kiss Me,” and at Kevin White's other production credits, including work with Chelsea Cutler.