LOKII Lands the Hook on RTBO, a Mind-Against-Heart Single Made for Dancing
An American Dance-Pop Single That Casts the Mind and the Heart as Blue and Red
The chorus of RTBO says its title four times, and each line answers with an aside in brackets that ends on hysterical, miracle, spectacle or skeptical. LOKII released RTBO as a dance-pop single on 2 October 2026. Then, on 30 October, it returned with new audio under its full name, RTBO (Rip That Band-Aid Off), and an official music video.
LOKII’s RTBO now sits on our contemporary pop playlist, and the coverage so far is on LOKII’s artist profile. The single came to this desk through PopHits.Co Music Charts, which verifies independent artists and places their releases across its network of music news titles. Press play, then read on for the dance behind the hook.
Pop’s Dance-First Wave Turned the Routine Into Part of the Release
In pop, the dance can now travel before the song does. A routine filmed in a bedroom can carry a chorus to people who have never heard of the artist. So the acts who plan for it treat choreography as part of the record, not as something added later for the stage.
The clearest example is still Say So. In late 2019 and early 2020, a TikTok dance set to the Doja Cat album track went viral. As a result, the label sent the song out as a single that January. A remix then took it to number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in May 2020. Haley Sharpe, who made up the dance, also appeared in the official video, and Say So finished 2020 as the fifth most-used song on TikTok.
For an independent artist, that changes the plan. The steps, the camera and the chorus have to be designed together, because the routine is often the first thing a new listener meets.
Where LOKII Fits in That Wave, With RTBO as a Single Built for Video
LOKII is an independent singer, songwriter and producer based in Pittsburgh, United States, who grew up in Chennai, India. Alongside the music, LOKII is a graduate student at Carnegie Mellon University, after graduating from Purdue University in 2025. The course is artificial intelligence and engineering, and the research covers circuits and machine learning models for neural engineering.
The song comes from the same desk. LOKII, also known as Lokesh Sriram, wrote the words and the music, produced the track and sings it. Karthikvamsi programmed the rhythm and the drums, Aswin George John mixed it, and Lijesh Kumar TK recorded the vocals.
The chorus is only half of the hook, though. The verses set up an argument, opening on the line My mind is telling me no, but my heart is telling me yes. Before each chorus, the build narrows everything down to six words, All I got to do is, and the title finishes the sentence. The video then turns that argument into a cast, in which Mind is Blue and Heart is Red.
The RTBO Single on Screen, and What LOKII Shared Around It
Stills from the shoot follow the same idea. On Instagram they are black and white, with only a tie in colour, red or blue. One frame even sets up a chessboard for the lyric’s game of 4D chess, and another post catches a rehearsal in a dance studio.
Nithish Dhanraj directed the video. LOKII co-directed it, drew the storyboard and made the choreography with Riyaz Mohammad, so the steps were planned by the person who wrote the song.
The two releases also tell a small story of their own. The first came with a lyric video, which has passed 3,000 views on YouTube. The second, RTBO (Rip That Band-Aid Off), came with the music video, which drew over 14,000 views in the first week. Meanwhile, on Instagram, where LOKII has close to 1,600 followers, a highlight called RTBO keeps the clips in one place.
Acts Close to LOKII and the RTBO Single, From Tate McRae to Raja Kumari
Tate McRae is the closest relative. The Canadian started as a dancer and competed on So You Think You Can Dance in 2016. After that, she built a pop career in which the dancing is part of how the songs are presented. In 2025, the duet What I Want gave her a first number one on the Billboard Hot 100. RTBO comes from the same instinct, since it was written to get people up and moving.
Raja Kumari offers a different link. The American rapper and songwriter trained as a classical Indian dancer in Kuchipudi, Kathak and Bharatanatyam. Later, she co-wrote Centuries for Fall Out Boy, which earned her a BMI Pop Award in 2016. Her path shows how classical Indian dance can feed American pop. LOKII, who grew up in India and now makes pop in the United States, is at the start of that kind of crossing.
PopHits.News’s curator team: “What makes RTBO work is that it never hides the argument. The verses weigh it up and the chorus settles it. By the last round, the title has turned into an instruction a dancer can follow.”
Who RTBO Is For, and Where to Start Listening
The single suits listeners who like polished pop with a plain instruction in the chorus. It also suits curators in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Japan and Brazil who want new independent pop with a video ready to share.
Start with the Spotify player at the top of the page. Then watch the music video further down to see the steps that go with the hook, and finish with the lyric video, which shows the words line by line.
RTBO is out now on Spotify and Apple Music. Follow LOKII on Spotify, Apple Music, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and X, and find the lyric video on YouTube.
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