K.W.E.S.I.

Cincinnati, Ohio native "K.W.E.S.I." started his interest for music at an early age admiring the art form from what his mother would play at home and on the radio. Artist names ranging from Michael Jackson, 2 pac, Snoop, Sade, Jodeci, Anita Baker, Rick James, Master P, Notorious B.I.G. and so many other phenomenal musicians. He would watch BET and MTV with his younger brother standing in front of the television reciting all of their favorite songs. Until, one day he decided to write a song that had no instrumental or melody but just a partial 8 bar verse. But the irony is that he didn't know this wouldn't be his last time encountering a pen and pad. Since then his passion for music began to grow even more abundant as the years came and he eventually ventured into finding his own taste for music. His grandmother bought him his first mixtape from one of the local bootleggers, which just so happened to be an earlier project from the Legendary Young Money CEO "Lil Wayne". Wayne became one of his first major inspirations and influences in music that he found pleasure in listening to himself aside from all the other cultural influencers his mother would play. Sooner or later it wasn't just listening to the music, K.W.E.S.I. began to learn from the different lyrics, rhyme schemes, melodies, cadences, and adlibs that he would hear in the songs played. In 2011 K.W.E.S.I. uploaded his first webcam video of himself rapping a freestyle version of Drake's hit single "The Motto" going by his first original stage name "Loko" or "DaKidLoko". The song consisted of similar like rhyme schemes, and melodies. He then uploaded several more videos which were freestyles, remixes same to the first one he released. The uploads started to gain attraction and views with no promotion, and very little marketing effort within a few months as a collective. But this wasn't enough to satisfy the hunger that he had deep down inside for music. It was merely only the beginning to a beautiful journey of learning and creating, growing as an artist of both visual and recording arts. Visual which is his God given talent, he's had ever since he was old enough to hold a crayon or pencil. However his talents in music began to amass as the years went by, as well as his skills in the visual form of art. K.W.E.S.I. purchased his first microphone from eBay in 2011, but didn't start using it until late 2012, early 2013 once he bought the rest of the necessary equipment and software needed to record. The young aspiring creative spent 2 months of the late 2012 in Huntington, WV, where he recorded his first few songs and collaborations at a local independently ran studio operating inside a friend of a friend's home. He then released the recordings he made once he came back to Cincinnati but this time by rebranding himself under the name "L.O.K.O.", uploading them to SoundCloud and YouTube over the course of a few weeks, as well as writing, and recording new material using everything thing that he had learned prior, which involved amateur level engineering. But unfortunately this wasn't enough to suffice so he deleted everything he put out and wouldn't release another song for years, but this wasn't the end of the determined artist. Him and his younger brother continued to advance themselves as the years passed, with his sibling taking on the role of the producer, "SYCHO", admiring the passion his elder brother had for music and finding the same passion in it himself. After years of self education of the music business and industry, years of self artist development, they both finally felt that they were more prepared to release a song, so they then went on to release one of their very first collaborative efforts in 2017, the single, "Night Shift". But before the artist released it he decided that he needed to rebrand himself once again which would be his last time in doing so. Finally he felt as if his original birth name "Kwesi" would be perfect and stand out amongst the rest of the Hip-Hop community. A unique name indeed which is originally from Africa, from the region of Ghana meaning "Sunday Born", the name can also mean "handsome, confident, intelligent, spiritual, well rounded man". Same as his former stage name he uses this alias as an abbreviation for a phrase or deeper meaning that he says he will reveal once he drops his debut studio album. K.W.E.S.I. went on to upload 3 more tracks afterwards before the year would come to a close, and then at the beginning of 2018 he dropped another single to start off the new year, but also to let everyone know that he was here to stay. As the months progressed he made it a point that he would stay consistent by releasing new content, and that he did. The artist went on to release 7 more records throughout the year, as well as attending and performing at several different local open mic showcases weekly. In the same year he was given an opportunity to perform at his first official gig headlined by one of the city's local talents, which was held at "The Thompson House" in Newport KY, and ran by a promoter whom K.W.E.S.I. would build a relationship with for future shows. In 2019 he dropped his first single of the year titled "Profit", an original work, but at this time he understood more about distribution, and marketing the music so he found a way to put the song and all of his other recent singles, on majority of all music streaming platforms. This would be one of the only 2 singles the artist would drop for the entire year, very underwhelming for an artist who would've liked to stay consistent monthly. On the date of July 2nd which is his birthday, he released his final single titled "Nun 2 Sumn", the lead single for a project that many did not expect from the artist. "R.O.A.R." (Rebel On A Rise), the project that he had been telling everyone about for years, but also one that no one anticipated from lack of faith in his career as a musician, local presence, and consistency, nobody took him serious. K.W.E.S.I. first created the idea and original artwork for the mixtape in 2011 still attending high school, all of those who knew about it at the time thought it was a great idea for a debut project, but little effort was made to bring his imagination into reality. Until summer 2019 that is, the starving artist never gave up on the idea for the project, but yet he did rewrite it over about 3 times adding brand new material and redesigning the artwork, however he kept one of the original songs he made from the first tracklist. The release date of the mixtape was teased after the first few weeks of the "Nun 2 Sumn" release, and then boom, July 19th the body of work had finally been released featuring only two other artists, "SYCHO" & "KushHeadTae" everything all together was a huge relief for the rookie artist. Once dropped he would market the project all over the internet including social media, DJ promo and uploading to most of the available mixtape sites. But since this was a completely free project, non-profit, he decided not to release it on any paid music services, so majority of the promotion was word to mouth. With this body of work being his priority for marketing, he then later partnered with the highly reputable local videographer "Kendall Mathis" CEO of Shooter & Co." to film and direct the visual to his single "Nun 2 Sumn", his very first official music video. The video was released on YouTube November 23rd, accumulating a couple thousand views over time. At the start of the new decade K.W.E.S.I. was featured on a single released January 1st on YouTube and SoundCloud by another local talent named "Waeko Swami", as well as two other features that were released later the same month by "KushHeadTae" also on YouTube and SoundCloud only. In the first few months of 2020 the artist started to engage in various different productive activities, experiencing majority of them for the first time. These activities included getting professional pictures shot by "NTNK Productions", to scoring his first interview and Magazine feature by "AMillion Magazine", and also filming with "Dawson Digital" for his next upcoming official music video for "NASA" another track from his 2019 debut mixtape.