By: Aiden Berkley
Keno is an independent Hip-Hop/Rap artist from Des Moines, Iowa who recently has been making his mark in the underground Rap scene. He is currently 19 years old and is self produced for the most part. He often makes the beats for his music, but is fully responsible for the writing, recording, mixing and mastering of his records. Over the years of making music, Keno has gone through several sounds within the Rap and Hip-Hop community. After going through his discography it can be seen that he has made several changes in his sound. For instance, his song “I’ll Be Fine (feat. B Murph)” was a classic in the Emo/Melodic Rap scene and then it can be seen throughout his discography that he switched to a more ‘ambient’ and underground sound in songs like “BETTA” and “fedUP™.”
Sitting at 5,241 monthly listeners on Spotify and 2,115 followers on SoundCloud at 19 years old, it is clear that Keno is doing something right. The uprising of Keno has brought a multitude of attention across several different social media platforms such as Instagram and TikTok with songs like ‘SLIDE’ which reached hundreds of thousands of views on TikTok and over 50,000 streams on Spotify. During our interview, we talked about the importance, significance, and challenges of an independent artist.
- How long have you been making music and what genres have you explored throughout your time?
“I’ve been making music for like 3 ½ years now. I started producing in 2019 around my birthday because that’s when I got a computer. I was watching a lot of Nick Mira tutorials so I started making beats. But it wasn’t until like 6 months later like probably April or March of 2020 that I really started recording my own shit that I started fucking with. And throughout that time making music I made a lot of melodic rap, I’ve tried some acoustic stuff which I really like making and then obviously the more underground rap sound. I’ve also been trying to explore more rock and shoegaze, I really like making that kind of music”
- What is your favorite part of making music and why?
“I think my favorite part about making music is honestly just listening to the final product. Because I love like writing music and producing the music. I love recording it, I love listening to it, but really hearing it all put together and mixed and mastered after it’s all done. It really makes it feel worth it. Along with getting compliments and shit obviously, like it’s super easy for everybody to say like ‘oh the words of other people don’t mean anything to me’ but it really does boost your confidence hella when somebody’s like ‘dude this is fire’ like I genuinely fuck with that a lot.”
- Your songs have a unique structure, can you tell me a bit about your creative process on how you make music?
“Thank you, I appreciate you saying that they’re unique. That means a lot to me. But it depends cause sometimes I will sit down and I’ll produce the beat myself. And sometimes I’ll pull in a melody that I got sent and I’ll throw drums on it. Sometimes I’ll write my own melody, sometimes I’ll play guitar… But often times I’ll just go into my beat email and I’ll scroll through a few of those and listen to the ones that I fuck with and then usually I’ll just try to get a catchy hook down at the start and then for the verses I just basically freestyle/just punch in and try to come up with things that are catchy or sound good.”
- What’s your favorite song that you’ve made and how did it come to be your favorite?
“I think that my favorite song that I have made is probably bottle control. The reason why I like bottle control is because of how catchy it is. It’s different. It’s got a different vibe to it. I think it became my favorite honestly like right after i made it if i’m being honest. I’ve recorded so much since then but the vibe of that song and era I was in as an artist when I made that song. I could go with an obvious one and say ‘slide’ just because that helped me develop as an artist a lot but bottle control helped a lot with being experimental.”
- As a rising artist, what do you believe is the most important aspect in growing in 2023?
“I think the most important thing for growth in 2023 is probably consistency. There are a lot of artists that promote their shit all the time and they blow up. And in my personal opinion, I don’t like their music that much. That might be me just being nit picky because you know I’ve been an artist for so long. But, to me it feels like a few of these people that do end up blowing up off their music is because they post it so much and they catch the algorithm on social media and they’ve got connections. Connections really help too because you see some people that I wouldn’t say are like ‘superstar’ status but they’ve got connections and they know people and that definitely helps a lot.
- You’ve released a series of singles this year that have done substantially well across all DSPs. Do you have any plans to release an album or a project of any kind?
“As far as an album or a project goes, I do want to put one together. I had a plan to make an entire album this year, a little more experimental kind of sound. But I got busy, I ended up getting into a relationship and that got me sidetracked a lot. I won’t lie. So I kind of fell off of that wave of doing an album. But since then I’ve been cranking out singles. I think that’s what’s best for me right now; is just cranking out a bunch of singles, staying consistent, showing people that I’m versatile. So maybe, maybe not for an album or a project. Maybe an EP but I’ll probably wait until next year to do an album”
- What would you say is the most frustrating part of being an independent artist, do you think there are disadvantages to being independent versus signed?
“I think that the most frustrating part about being independent is the funding. Because all the funding in terms of being an artist when you have a label, they will fund your shit and they will fund promotion, studio time, etc. But when you’re independent, that’s all you. So that is probably the most frustrating part for me as an independent artist.”
- In your experience, which platform would you say is the most important for gaining traction for your music?
“Honestly, Spotify. Because obviously Tik Tok is huge and helps people immensely, but sometimes focusing on social media too much rather than the music will kill the motivation and drive. Tik Tok isn’t less powerful in that sense, I just feel like it can be damaging to an artist’s mental health.”
Keno just released a music video for one of his more recent singles “DOING MY BEST” and “fedUP™.” Check out the videos as well as all of his other music and social media platforms below.
Keno – DOING MY BEST (OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO)
Keno – fedUP™ (OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO)
https://www.instagram.com/savekeno/
https://open.spotify.com/artist/1Tm819xX2ZupGnJkIfCP3e?si=YRUT6s8xQESUDG9myJmV-g https://soundcloud.com/savekeno
Thank you to Keno for joining Mezz in this interview. We learned a lot about how you make music, your thoughts on growing your music in this day and age, and about you as a person. We look forward to what you have to show the world – keep it up!