Yates was born in
Toronto,
Ontario, and started writing music at the age of 11. He signed to
Atlantic Records when he was 16. His self-titled debut EP, released on September 11, 2015, was co-produced by
Robin Hannibal and
Pharrell Williams. In 2015, Yates received the Heatseeker Award at the
Canadian Radio Music Awards and performed at the official
Canada Day celebration in
Ottawa. He provides the vocals on the
Robin Schulz song "
Sugar". He also performed at
We Day events across Canada that same year. In 2016, he was an opening act for Canadian
pop rock band
Hedley on their Hello World Tour with
Carly Rae Jepsen. On February 2, 2018, his single "Come Over", was released, alongside the announcement that Francesco was going to be the opening act on the Canadian leg of
Justin Timberlake's
The Man of the Woods Tour. His next song, "Do You Think About Me", was released on April 6. This is the first song which Yates wrote, produced, and performed entirely by himself. He released his single "Somebody Like You", on July 20. At the end of August, it was announced that he was opening for Justin Timberlake again on the remaining North American part of his tour. The tour ended on April 13, 2019, after being postponed due to Timberlake suffering from bruised vocal cords. On December 27, 2019, Yates officially released his single "I Got You", having previously uploaded it on
SoundCloud at the beginning of the year. On April 10, 2020, Yates released his single "Superbad" along with an official video. On May 29, 2020, he released a second single called "Bad Decisions". On June 26, 2020, Yates released his second EP
Superbad. It features the two previously released singles, as well as the songs "Angel", "Dirty Little Secrets", and "Queen St. Blues". The EP is accompanied by a short film, which contains parts of the songs. On September 18, 2020, his single "Late Night Love" was released. On February 14, 2021, Yates released his song "Dive". After performing it on an episode of
The Recording Academy's "Press Play at Home" series, on June 10, 2022, he released his single "Jimi", which is inspired by the famous guitarist
Jimi Hendrix. In July, he announced on
Instagram that he's opening for
Backstreet Boys on the American and Canadian leg of their
DNA World Tour. Yates released his songs "Thunderbomb" and "Chanel" on April 14, 2023, and May 5, 2023, respectively. Both songs were later included in his second EP
Little Rockstar alongside "Jimi" and three other songs. ==Discography==