Phone interviews can be kind of tricky. To the artists you are talking to, you are nothing more than a disembodied voice traveling over a sea of telephone wires and cables. You are also probably not the only disembodied voice that these artists will have to speak with on that particular day. For this reason, phone interviews can either be great or be lousy. You cannot see the artist's reactions when you ask them a question. You cannot study them for any "tells" that might give you more of an answer than they could give you verbally. You’re not even sure if the person you are interviewing knows your name, let alone if they even care who you are. Which is why I was pleasantly surprised to pick up the phone and hear the soft and friendly voice of musical artist Kenna say my name. He then asked if he’d pronounced it correctly which immediately led into a bonding moment over names that most people find difficult to articulate. Like his own for example. The day before the interview he had done a concert in Philadelphia. After his set, the crowd cried out for an encore and one particularly enthusiastic concert go-er kept screaming for "Kenya" to come back on stage. After a little while, the fan realized his mistake and quickly corrected himself. I could completely relate to that story, having had my own name massacred on several occasions. The interview went well beyond the amount of time generally alloted, and the entire time I felt like I was catching up with an old friend, not a rising musical star.

It's been four years since Kenna's first album 'New Sacred Cow' was released. He's faced numerous setbacks in his career: no radio play, little to no press and record labels that just don't know what to do with his music. But he's had tons of help and support, most notably from childhood friends Chad Hugo and Pharrell Williams (a.k.a. The Neptunes). Kenna signed to Star Trak/Interscope last fall and is releasing his new album, 'Make Sure They See My Face' (Release Date June 24th) on their label, and the first single off the album, "Out Of Control," has already been featured in a PSP commercial. Author Malcolm Gladwell (best known for the book 'The Tipping Point') wrote an entire chapter about Kenna and his music in his most recent book 'Blink' (the chapter is actually called "Kenna's Dilemma"). He guested on Mark Ronson's new album 'Version' and is even helping out popstress Ashelee Simpson on her upcoming record. When Kenna is not working on music, he is trying to make the world a better place.

Kenna definitely has been busy, but talking with him, you wouldn't necessarily realize it. He's very easy going and gets genuinely excited about his numerous upcoming projects. In a way, Kenna and his music are very similar: They are both very easy to relate to. The day after I interviewed him, I went to Kenna's concert at DC's Rock & Roll Hotel, a venue that has become the center of DC's Atlas District. The crowd was a highly diverse group of people, as his show was part of the annual Six Points Festival. Because there was such an array of bands playing that night, a number of concert goers didn't even know who Kenna was. However, when he came on stage, the audience went nuts. He opened the show with some new tracks off of 'Make Sure They See My Face.' When a rowdy fan heckled Kenna by saying "Play some old shit!" Kenna didn't miss a beat. He invited the fan on stage so he could dedicate the next song to him, not something a lot of artists would necessarily do. And after his last song was over, Kenna was persuaded by the audience's cheers and applause to come out and do two encores, the final one being his hit single "Freetime."

After the show, Kenna stuck around in order to hang out with fans eagerly waiting to take pictures, get autographs and tell him how important his music was to them. When I introduced myself, Kenna greeted me with a huge hug. You could see that he was pumped up by the show he had just done, and when he later mentioned that he would be going on tour with Justin Timberlake, it wasn't to brag. He was excited at the idea of going on tour. It would be an opportunity to show the world what it is he's really made of.

You can read my conversation with Kenna after the jump.

So you have a new album coming out.

Yes Ma'am.

Are you excited about that?

Very.

So, your last album came out in 2003. Why the long delay?

Um…I uh…(Long pause) Yeah…

Not to be picky or anything, but what happened?

You know what? I actually went through a bit of a block. I don't know if it was writers block I can't say it was writers block. I can say it was just a mental block. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what the sound was going to be. Didn't know who I was for that record. I just went through a process of trying my hardest to show who I was for a few years with one album and nobody really understood. I thought maybe I was communicating wrong and maybe there was something missing. So it took me a while to get through that process of sorting out what it is that was ailing me, I guess, if you want to put it into that kind of term. It was something that really kept me from…um…I’m dancing around this question…

(Laughs) Sorry, didn't mean to ask you the tough ones right away…

No I love you for that cause honestly, it's a lot different when you're talking to somebody and they just ask you the basics.

Well, I have a lot of basics. Don't want to tire you out just yet. I have a lot of tough questions.

It's all good. Hit me with those later. All I can say is that I was pretty schizophrenic about it and I really didn't have any idea of what I wanted to do and it took me a long time to figure that out and it took me a long time to divorce myself from the idea of trying to give people what they wanted, whether it be the industry or what the world thought. I figured out that it's just not in my DNA to sell out on that level and I had to work really hard to get to where I am with the record. I'm really happy with the record because it represents me. It's still a little more accessible to who I am as a person but at the same time, it doesn't step outside of that. It's very true.

True in what way? True to you?

It's true to me. I just taught at University of Penn yesterday, with Malcolm Gladwell, and Gladwell and I were having a conversation and then we had a question and answer session. The kids were asking questions like "Yo, so what is it to sell out? What is selling out to you?"

That's a hard question.

It is a hard question but I think it's not as difficult as it seems. The answer is very, very simple. Selling out is when you do something that is against who you are as a person and that's defined by and lived through your own self. You make that decision and you know when you've done it, you know when you've pressed that button and you've gone one step too far. I know with this record that I have not done that. I haven't sold out. I have made a record that still has the spirituality of my first record. There's a journey, just like the first album. Starts from the first song till the end of the album. It goes through the schizophrenia and every single song has a story to tell or if nothing else, if it doesn't tell the story literally, it tells the story in general. It shows who I was at that time in my life.

Wow…



Do you have the album?

No, I don't. Unfortunately. I really want to hear it.

It's a cool record.

Well I'm glad you think so.

I LOVE IT. I loooooove it. Look, I get to work with some of the greatest. I mean, Chad Hugo…

Well, that's what I was going to ask you next, about Chad [Hugo]. Did you work with him? Because I know you worked with him on the last album.

Yeah, I worked with him on the whole record and Pharrell and Chad did a song, the Neptunes as a whole did one song, then Pharrell and I did a song. It is like the joy of my life is the fact that I have somebody like Chad Hugo working on my records, because he really does know the balance of my entire being and I don't know how to explain that. It makes it so that the records are cool. He makes it so my records are cool.

So then, I can assume that your working relationship is really great?

Yeah, he's one of my best friends and I respect him immensely. He respects me. We battle but when we battle it's for the greater good. There's no ego in it, you know.

So then why did you not…when did you sign to Star Trak Entertainment?

I just signed to them in December.

Why did you take that long to sign to them? Why did you not sign with your first album?

Well, you know what it was, was you come from the same neighborhood. You know these guys and they're your friends. You make music with them. And if you sign a record deal with them it's a whole other thing, you know? You sign to them and now you work for them in a way and they work for you in a way and …

It's a different relationship?

Yeah. If something goes wrong, you can really lose your friendship over something that's not important enough. It wasn't important enough for me to sign a record deal, it wasn't important enough for to do that and have fear of losing my friendship. That wasn't important to me. And on top of that, I'm also somebody who really likes, wants to do my own thing. I want to make sure that I did it my way and I didn't have to rely on the success of my friends, you know? So I proceeded on my own and it was a much more difficult road and it had its ups and downs. But this time now, when we came together and discussed it and Pharrell asked, would you do this with me, would you do it on our label together, unite the family and have everybody in one place. It sounded right to me, because now I'm in a position where I have my credibility and people know my music, at least the people that I respect have the records. They know what I am capable of and Pharrell knows…It's much more of a peer to peer discussion. And he supports my dream. Not that he wouldn't have before, but I think I'm in a better position to communicate it and there will be less confusion at the end of the day now because of it. And having people who back you like your family, who've grown up with you, is the best way to do it, I think.

But you haven't only collaborated with them, you've done other collaborations as well?

I've done some other work with other people but the best work I’ve ever done is with them.

Cause I was going to ask you about Mark Ronson's new album. It just came out in the UK and you did a song with him, "Amy"…what was that experience like?

It was fly by the seat. I didn't really plan on doing that song…it was just a couple choices and he called me and I was in the city and he said would you mind doing this thing? And I was like sure, whatever, you're my boy. He's a friend and he's a connoisseur of music and he loves music and he wants to make great records, so I was like sure. It wasn't really that planned our and I didn't pick the song and it wasn't something I organized. I wanted to be a part of his album and he asked me and I said cool, I'll do whatever you need to do.

Ok.

What I'm trying to say is that it wasn't so much a collaborative thing…

Right, it was more like you were guesting on his album?

Yeah I was guesting. It was his vision and I was following his vision.

So do you like his vision?

Yeah, he's cool. I think Mark is a really talented producer and right now, just like a lot of other producers out right now, he's coming into his own. It takes a while to go from when people consider you a DJ mainly and then really realize what your talents are. It takes a while to break through, but he's now at the second album, he's kinda breaking through on some levels and I'm proud of him, you know?

So you're, as you mentioned all ready, in Malcolm Gladwell's new book 'Blink.' The chapter, I will be honest, I have not read but I really want to, is "Kenna’s Dilemma." So first off, how did you get involved with that and what is the chapter about?

Well, Malcolm was interviewing me for the New Yorker and it was basically a profile. Afterwards, he felt like the interview was warranted being in his book, as research in his book and he asked me and I said sure. I thought I was getting, like a paragraph and it turned out to be forty-five pages long and made my dad very proud. (Laughs) But the chapter is basically about the idea that sometimes it takes a little bit longer for people to actually fall in love with something and that our snap judgment may be to not like it but inevitably you might find yourself falling in love with it just because you've given it a chance. And I think he used my music, my first album as an example because it is not Britney Spears, its not pop, it is not on that level. It still has a popular sound to it, but it just has a depth about it and it will take a lot longer. So he kinda compared me to Pepsi and Coke and he was saying that Coke has more longevity with people and that Pepsi has a little more sugar, so they would constantly lose the Pepsi challenge which would be the mirror of market research in the music industry. It would lose the Pepsi Challenge all the time because it was sugary but over time, if you look at it, Coke is the largest soft drink brand in the world, and it’s because it has that appley taste that takes a while to get used to but then you fall in love with it and you're just stuck on it. So it's basically that, you know, he's kind of comparing that chapter to me.



He's comparing you to Coke?

Me to Coke, yeah. That's what I meant to say. He compares me to Coke, he says I'm appley…

How does that make you feel?

How does it feel to be considered appley? I don't know. Its weird.

The book is all about snap judgments and looking at visual snap judgments as well. And I was wondering…your new album is called 'Make Sure They See My Face.' On your last album, you weren't on the cover of it, you weren't in any of the videos, really, that came out. Does the title have anything to do with that?

Um, yes. In part. The real reason why is the title…I'm just kinda taking the piss out of the fact that Pharrell called me for weeks straight when I started this new record. He called me for weeks straight and every single day around eleven o'clock, he'd call and say "You know man, I know you're makin' your new record and I know you're doin' this. You better make sure they see your face!" And he would say it every single day. He would call me three or four times during the week and finally on the last day I was like "Yo, listen it's simple. I'm naming the album 'Make Sure They See My Face'…” Click. And he was like "Yo, that's dope." And I was like "Ok. All right, done." And I didn't have to think about it any more. It was really just like, fine I get it, you need the world to see my face. But my thing is, the world doesn't really need to see my face. The world needs to hear my music. My face is not…it's basically unimportant other than the fact that after you've heard the music, you wanna know who did it. But before that, if you see my face, you can make a snap judgment that will throw you off. And I don't necessarily want to, you know…I want to be delimited and the way to be delimited is interestingly enough to be on the scene. That's what I did with the first record, kind of intentionally but not intentionally at the same time. Those videos were so cool and I was like, yes, that's perfect. The first "Hellbent" video, I was in a real debacle with the label at the time and it just showed up. 'It was Dark Side of the Moon'/'Wizard of Oz.' I didn't make that video. The video actually fit the song with one major edit and that was it. Just one piece was frame by frame put together, where the goggles go up to the eyes. That's the only time that anything was really edited. And then the "Freetime" video was just a cool idea again. It just so happened that I wouldn't be in it, but I didn't sit down and go "I need a video that I'm not in. Can somebody hook me up?" That wasn't the plan. (Pause) You're asking really great questions.

Oh, thank you!

Or maybe you're asking them in a really great way. I don't know. I can't tell.

I try. I really do try. You're giving really great answers.

Thank yoooooou!

I was going to ask you something along those lines with the record label and it has to do with, kind of the idea that record labels need to label their music. And since your music…you can't really label it…I was talking to somebody and I was trying to describe your music and I was like "Well you can't really put it in a box. It's good." That's really what it comes down to. Do you feel like in some way the label had something to do with not putting your face on…I mean, cause clearly you wanted to do that but at the same time do you think the label had a say in how your music was advertised?

At the time, they didn't do anything. They didn't know how to do it. They didn't do it. It was like "Well, do we advertise the guy? Do we put up the symbols? Is he a band? Is he a solo artist? Well he's not R&B, he's not Hip Hop, Is he Rock? Is he Pop?" I mean it was just like, in a world of widgets, I was a wadgit. And they were kind of like, that doesn't work for us. The wadgit doesn't fit in the widget machine. One person I know said something to them, to the label head at the time who was president of the company, one of my friends who was managing Zach from Rage [Against The Machine] and Saul Williams. She was saying to him [the label head] "You know what you guys did?" And they were like "What?" She says "You guys were at a mattress shop, a headboard mattress shop and you saw a headboard that was really amazing. It was gorgeous, it was amazing and you wanted it and it was gigantic. And you knew that it didn't fit through your door, but you loved it so much. You knew it didn't fit through your door at your house. And then somebody came in two minutes after you and they looked at the headboard and they were like 'I want that. I want that headboard. It's amazing. It's perfect. It fits in my house perfect, it fits through my door. It's amazing.' And you guys came in and spent. You went ahead and bought it just so the other person wouldn't have it." (Pause) That's pretty much an example of my career. That's pretty much what happened.

So your career is just one long line of metaphors, really?

(Laughing) Yeah. I’m a gigantic metaphor. F-ing hell. No, you know what, I think everybody had good intentions. They loved the music. They love what it is. They never had any control over whether I'd been seen. They didn't market anything because they didn't know what to do with it. They never sat down and said, "You know, if we don’t show him, it’ll be better for the project." Because they didn’t do ANY marketing. Nobody saw anything anywhere.

But now you are getting marketing…

Yeah.

You're getting it on PSP advertisements.

Yeah. That was something that my manager got for me.

Ok, so now you are in the PSP ad. But you're playing it off, cause you're wearing a hoodie. I guess that's kinda your new thing. We can see you but we don't really see you.

Um, yeah.



I'm a big fan of hoodies, so I really appreciate…

Hoodies are GREAT!

They are great.

They're my favorite thing in the world. I've been rocking hoodies for like the past five years and now they've just become the biggest thing in the world.

So wait, then to ask a really shallow question…does Pharrell hook you up?

With what?

With hoodies?

Billionaire [Boys Club]?

The waffle hoodie and stuff?

(Laughs) I get hooked up if I want to but I've got a thing about opportunity costs. I try to just…I go buy my own gear and I kinda feel like if my friend owns a label and I want to wear it, I'll support, you know? That's the way I look at it. I mean I'll take stuff that I need, if I need it for something specific and I don't have time to go out and get it myself cause I'm working and they need to send it to me. That's one thing. For the most part, I go to my Union stores in New York and LA. I go to Commonwealth and I just pick up the gear that I want, whether it be kicks or whatever.

Oh, well then I should tell you, as a side note, since I know you’re gonna be in DC tomorrow, they just opened up a Commonwealth in DC.

I know. I'm working with them.

Are you?

I’m working on opening a store in LA called "For The Greater Good" with them, with Omar. And we’re actually doing like a…it's also gonna be [connected] with my foundation which is called "For The Greater God." So we’re gonna be doing a bunch of altruistic stuff, stuff involved with the store as well as some pretty massive…

What's your foundation for?

It's kind of street to street. Giving from street to street, like a youth culture movement. I'm kind of hoping that I can inspire some music and art world people to kind of like give back to the street, whether it be in America, at risk programs and things like that…I'm on the board of directors of a really great music and film and entertainment company called Youth Entertainment Studios which helps at risk kids all over the country. I've worked with them for ten years. I created a music curriculum with them. And then, I just tried to find a way…Basically the foundation is a conduit for finance, so the whole idea is to get people to give money to the foundation so that we can give money to the people who are doing a lot of the work. So it's just basically a big collection agency and I'm coming after the wallets of those major corporations that say they have money to give.

(Laughs) That's great!

It's fun. I mean that's my goal. Why do I make music? I make music so that I can go and give. I want to dig for water in Africa with my dad, in Ethiopia where I'm from. That's a real big hope for me. My dad almost died when he was a kid from dirty water and he was Administer of Agriculture in the southern half of Ethiopia because of it. His big dream is to go and dig wells. I'm gonna help him do it. For The Greater Good is gonna help him do it. Working with these water companies and trying to help figure out ways for them to be a part of…for every person that gets clean water here there is somebody who gets clean water there. Same thing with the kids here in America, just being able to help them see that there's more to life than being a rapper or a singer. It has nothing to do with bling bling or rockin' whatever new shit that's out. It's really about being able to find a niche that you're good at and if you get all the rest of that stuff, it's extra. Just do what you love and find what you love and trying to help them do it. So the music program is actually, it would be more like if they come to class, it will be a publicist standing there and a video tape of a celebrity that says "This is the publicist that got me the six covers of Rolling Stone and whatever and she's amazing. Listen to everything she says." And then that person stands there and says "You know how I did that was this and this and this and have you ever seen this or are you a people person or do you do this or that?" And these kids are like "I'm a people person. I love people" They find themselves and then they can work as a publicist for any company, anywhere. It basically shows the structure of business and it shows them that there's a world and business around entertainment that they can be a part of that, if they're tone deaf or can't find their rhythm, they'll do something in this life. You know what I mean? (Laughs)

(Laughing) Yeah

Cause not everybody has a skill to become…

To become a celebrity?

Yeah. Break out and rhyme, you know? (Pause) I mean I can't rhyme to save my life.



I think you did pretty well for yourself so far.

Yeah, I'm working on it. God bless, one day I'll be good.

So, you mentioned going to Ethiopia with your dad. Have you been back to perform?

Not to perform, but I've been back. I've been back and I plan on going back a lot. I mean it's difficult when you're here and you're trying to build something. I'm hoping that the foundation will give me the ability to schedule, plan and go with my dad and do these things. My dad's also in his sixties now, and I really feel like this is one way for us to hang out a lot more, cause I'm starting to travel a great deal. I love that guy so much and I just want to make sure that I'm around him right now and be able to do something really significant for the world together would be the greatest thing ever. The kind of way I've been raised is that just being the best person you can possibly be and also to be someone who actually constantly gives. And my dad's big story is, in his life, he says it with an Ethiopian accent: (puts on an Ethiopian accent) "You know, I try to give as much as I can. I shovel all I can out the door. I shovel it, I shovel it, I shovel it out the door and then God just uses a bigger shovel and pours everything back into my house. So I am never able to give enough." And it's like, if you have a dad like that, what can you do? You have to be the best person ever! You have to fight to be the best…if I could be a tenth of my dad, then I'd be amazing.

Wow. (Pause) Um, I'm looking at my sheet of questions…

"What’s your favorite color?" Mauve! (Laughs)

(Laughs) Do you like Ovaltine?

(Laughs)

What are your hopes with this album? What are you hoping to…cause I mean, you played for The Fader…The Fader had a show and you played it. Now you're touring around, you did this big show in Philly…what is your hope now, with your music?

My hope is the same that its always been. My hope is that I actually get to touch peoples lives and I hope that the music, that people find themselves in me and that I will have spoken from my spirit and will have connected with them. My main thing ever is to be out there and to see that. I mean I've been blessed already with that. There's a rhyme on one song that hasn't been released and it probably will be in the next little while. It's a song that I wrote called "The Deafest Ones Never Wanted To Hear" and the second verse in the song says "I'm one step before the rapture comes, if I'm only heard by one, then my purpose in this life is done. I can't help if they act blind and don't see. I can't help it if they're mute and don't speak. The truth is obvious even if you don't hear me. Oh world, the deafest ones never wanted to hear." And I've been blessed because I know, I know I've already met that. I've done that already. A girl came up to me, at one point, who had listened to "Love, Hate, Sensation" and told me flat out that she quit heroin cold turkey because of that song. How do I evaluate the rest of my career when one person lives because of a song that I was blessed to write? I really don't know. I hope that my music gets heard and that it touches people like that and I hope that I have a chance to continue to do that. I'm mediocre right now. I'm hoping I get to be better at this. I'm lucky I get to make music everyday. So, you know, hopefully I'll become a really great artist one day but I'll probably always think I'm mediocre trying to get better.

It's not a bad way to live your life.

No, it's not. I feel blessed.

Once again, the release date for Kenna's album 'Make Sure They See My Face' is June 24th. If you want to hear some new tracks, you can check him out on MySpace.

Great interview. Ever since I read Blink a couple years ago I've had an urge to learn more about Kenna. Thanks for this.

Holy cow.

This is one of the best interviews I have ever read. I'm going to make sure this gets the traffic it deserves.

I love me some Kenna.

Good stuff here, lots to think about and a lot of new light has been shed on our artist, Kenna. Can't wait for the album

My favorite part was when Kenna put on the Ethiopian accent to share what his dad says. My family is Ethiopian too, so I could TOTALLY hear the accent in my head. :-D Rock on, Kenna!

Really good interview

good questions

props. to the person that interviewed kenna