Inside Story with Keithian

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Inside Story with Keithian

Kethian is a Singer, Songwriter, Musician, Actor and Producer based in the US and who performed his song ‘Communicate’ in the JAM Festival collaboration in April.

Kethian is relaxing in his Californian back yard as the interview with Kate takes place. “You recorded your track ‘Communicate’ live from your home studio for the JAM Festival, we have all faced the technical difficulties of working from home over the last year, but did you face any whilst recording?” she asks.

He says that there were not any technical issues as such but recording at home always presents some issues, for example the neighbour had the lawnmower on but luckily, he didn’t think we could hear.

His song ‘Communicate’ is beautiful and very emotive. When asked about his inspiration for writing it, he said that it came from his friend, who so sadly committed suicide, and so the song was an open letter to this friend, as well as anyone else that is struggling and needs to communicate as it is one of those things that “you actually have to do to feel better or to get your thoughts out, so that’s exactly what that song was about.”

Kethian was born in New Orleans into a “showbizzy family.” Kate asks about what influence their work had on him as a child growing up and how it inspired his music and career.

He grew up in Louisiana and Texas, “New Orleans is just full of music, everywhere you go”, his parents were in music as well as his grandparents so making music for him was something that “just happened, I’ve never known any different.”

Kethian was previously signed to a major record label, but has ended up going independent, Kate asks why he made this decision

“It wasn’t really the best experience. I figured if I went independent, I could give myself the better experience, and control creativity and stuff like that, and now that I’m my own everything, I’m able to understand myself more as an artist, what I need, what I want, how I want to promote, or what songs I want to choose” he shouts excitedly.

In 2018 Kethian was working on music for Rhianna, he said “it was one of those things that just happened, although she hasn’t actually released the music yet and I wish I had some insider knowledge as to when she will, but I don’t! Basically, after I left the label, I was a writer and producer...I was writing for various artists and one of them said ‘this is gonna be for Rhianna’ and I was like ‘what?!’ and that’s how it happened. I met the [person] that I work with now and produce most of my music with currently and it has just been cohesive since then.”

Kethian is currently raising investment for his next project: “It makes me feel really good as an artist when someone invests in me because it means that they believe in me as an artist, and as an art, a lot of our motivation and motivators are to make people happy and just to feel something or have an outlet, so to be supported in this way makes me feel so much more confident.”

In response to this comment, Kate explains what Jeeni is: a platform for new and upcoming artists which seeks to support them in the best way possible and asks Kethian what his advice would be for aspiring artists that are just starting out.

“Simply be the best artist that you can be and be the most you can be in life for you. It’s one of those things…being an artist is so giving, you walk around with your art, you are your art, and so when someone says something a little different or a little insane, it touches you more…just be confident, stay close to your art and stay close to you as a person and just love every bit of it.”

What can we expect from him in the future?

He expresses his excitement in regard to doing more shows with Jeeni and is hopeful for the future of live shows and touring as the world returns to normality after the Covid-19 pandemic.

He says that he ultimately wants to “put out as much music as my fans want me to and as much as I want.”

Through AmplifyX, one of our collaborators from the JAM festival, Kethian is working on his new EP called Green Clouds which is due at the end of May and you can invest now.

To find out more about Kethian, listen to his music and invest, please visit https://jeeni.com/showcase/keithian/

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06
Jun

DO YOU WANT TO DANCE?

By Sammy Venn, Jeeni's Official Writer Columnist and Blogger. Click HERE to visit or return to jeeni.com Come and join in... Plato said that music and rhythm find a way into your soul; that’s so true! I love music and have an eclectic taste that I think most can’t comprehend. The plethora of suggestions I get is wonderful, so it works for me, as my knowledge of music becomes far more expansive that way. I discovered Fip radio about a couple of months ago. It’s a French radio station; genius in that I can listen to a myriad of tunes and not turn it off or down because of adverts or news that makes me feel sad - it’s all in French! So not only am I picking up a language I adore, my collection of music is expanding. Music really feeds my soul, I thought it might be a fun idea to create a “Musicians and Performers Group" playlist I can create on Jenni for us all to listen too. So please, please add your favourite songs below so we can all share in the delight that music brings to our mind, body and spirit...Many people don’t know this but listening to music is not just something that brings joy, it can also improve your health in a variety of ways and scientists have proven that through many researches. Read on to find how music can make your life more awesome. By Eevee G 1. Helps you sleep better Music contributes for a healthy sleep. Researchers have found that classical music can help us deal with Insomnia, especially college students. This is definitely a healthier and much cheaper fix for your sleeping disorder than taking pills. 2. Fights stress It is no surprise that listening to music helps relieve stress off your shoulders. Studies have found that music stimulates biochemical stress reducers which helps us feel more relaxed. 3. Helps you get in touch with yourself As it puts us in a better mood, music helps us get in touch with our emotions, a 2013 study suggests. The participants marked “self-awareness” as one of the most important advantages of music. 4. It relieves pain Music has the ability to decrease the intensity of the pain. It activates sensory pathways that fight pain pathways and takes a person’s attention away from the pain. 5. Fights anxiety When we are feeling anxious, listening to music can help us fight it as it has the same effect on the brain as a massage has on the body. 6. Acts as a motivator for bikers and runners. College students conducted a research and proved that the people who rode stationary bicycles were able to work harder while they were listening to fast music compared to those who weren’t listening to any music during the experiment. If you are like me and prefer running, listening to your favorite songs can help you beat your personal records and even strengthen your endurance. Long story short, music helps you perform better during your workouts and also makes them a lot more enjoyable. 7. Helps you recover faster after a workout. It’s proven that your body recovers faster after a hard workout when you are listening to your favorite music 8. Fights sadness Researchers have found that music can successfully fight symptoms of depression but the genre is very important. Classical and meditation music can boost your mood when you are feeling down, but listening to heavy metal or techno music won’t help that much with chasing away the bad thoughts. 9. Helps the function of the blood vessels Science has proven that the emotions that people have while listening to music contribute to healthier functions of blood vessels. As music makes you feel happier, it boosts the blood flow in your blood vessels. 10. Helps with stroke recovery A Finnish study found that if stroke patients listened to music for 2 hours a day, they recover faster. Not only their moods improve, but also their verbal abilities and attention span, too. 11. Improves performance in high-pressure experiences Fast music can help you fight stress before a high-pressure experience- an important game, for example. Researches have proven that listening to fast music just before a basketball game helped player relieve the stress and perform better. 12. Makes you mindful while you eat Playing some music in the background is proven to help people slow down and enjoy their feeding process. This makes them more aware of what they are consuming and really tasting the food rather than eating quickly which leaves them feeling hungry and dissatisfied with the meal. 13. Improves cognitive functions Playing background music while working on tasks that need your mental focus can boost your performance. A research has found that music can boost one’s cognitive abilities, but only if it has the same effect on the emotional state. 14. Music can get you into a state similar to meditation Slow music can have effect on the speed of your brainwaves which makes them similar to someone who is in a meditative or hypnotic state. This can have a healing effect as it eases the symptoms of PMS and behavioral issues. 15. Eases patients going through a surgery A research discovered that when patients are played music just before a cardiovascular surgery, they start feeling less worried. Moreover, music reduces the stress after the surgery if it is played while the patients are resting in their beds. It doesn’t matter what the music of your choice is. Click HERE to visit or return to jeeni.com

12
Oct

Jeeni Monthy Round-Up, September

Welcome to our new monthly blog update where we will discuss the latest news on topics such as streaming, music, performing, tech and all the other industries Jeeni aims to support. Firstly, seeing as this is the beginning of the monthly round-ups we have broadened our news to cover the last few months. We wanted to begin by highlighting the long-awaited reopening of live music venues and the return of festivals to the UK! A Mast Journal on COVID-19 stated, “the COVID-19 outbreak has been framed primarily as an economic crisis, in which the music-based products and practices through which revenue is derived have been abruptly and, arguably, irreparably disrupted by a global public health emergency.” Many musicians struggled financially during this time, with many pleading to the public to help the industry. Thankfully by June 2021, the venues were able to reopen and festivals such as Reading, TRNSMT and Victorious were able to run once again. Members of Team Jeeni did an amazing job at Victorious, interviewing artists and showing our support to the industry and independent musicians. A BBC article stated “Artists cannot truly operate without their fandoms. Fans can still congregate online while we wait for their return.” While everything was shut down artists had to change the way they communicated with their fans and find ways to gather in virtual spaces. Jeeni believes that even now when venues are open, artists and creatives will use online spaces more and more. Jeeni is a great platform for them to do this as it is more ethical than most of the larger corporations and Jeeni artists keep 100% of everything they earn. The next topic we wanted to highlight was brought to our attention from an NME article: “Fewer than 800 UK musicians make a living solely from online streaming,” and also “A particular finding points to artists making a “sustainable living” from streaming alone, revealing that approximately 720 British artists are able to. Those 720 musicians fall into the 0.4 per cent category of those who are achieving more than one million UK streams.” It is clear it is already challenging for independent artists to make decent earnings from streaming but "Spotify’s New Marquee Promotion Feature Is Forcing Artists to Pay to Reach Fans They Already Have — As Much as $0.50 Per Click” says Digital Music News. The big players in streaming are continuing to rip off artists and their fans alike. The article goes on to state that “it would take artists anywhere from 100 to 167 streams (on Spotify) to break even on just one sponsored click. That means each person who clicks on a sponsored Marquee campaign would have to listen to a new album roughly 12 times for the artist to break even on that fan’s interest." Thirdly, Twitch and the music industry clashed back in 2020 over licensing streamed music. Now a deal has been struck, but streamers are unhappy. Many streamers on the platform were hoping for a change but the deal remained virtually the same. "Only listen to safe music." All Jeeni royalty-free songs on the site are safe to use while streaming. Fourthly, the New York Digital News site published a story surrounding TikTok and the platform’s new massive impact on music. Stating “TikTok is evolving into a very different kind of music streaming giant. TikTok creators who aren’t musical creators themselves are using music. Musicians get paid off the back of that, and it can become a healthy revenue stream. It helps break songs and artists, consumption goes up on the other platforms, more tickets are sold, a bigger live-streaming event can happen etc.” Lastly, only just falling into the monthly round-up we wanted to highlight the release of the latest James Bond film No Time To Die. “One of the most famous pieces of film music of all time, this has featured in every single Bond film in some form or another since it played over the opening credits of Dr No back in 1962 is the John Barry & Orchestra, Monty Norman – James Bond Theme (1962)” Each film has a title song dedicated to it including the new track by Billie Eilish- No Time To Die. But the all-time Jeeni favourite has to be Paul McCartney's "Live And Let Die", which was written on the Wings Bus that Jeeni helped to rescue, and which goes back on the road next year. Watch this space for exclusive info on that one!

23
Mar

Where Did All The Bands Go?

This month, Adam Levine of Maroon 5 caused a ripple when he was chatting to Apple Music's, Zane Lowe. Whilst referring to all the bands about in 2002 when they released their first album, he questioned, "where did all the bands go? I feel like they're a dying breed." After clarifying he meant bands, "in the pop limelight", it still managed to spark a mix of bemusement and outrage from some fellow artists. Maroon 5's Adam Levine - photo Mauricio Santana Though his remarks may have smarted somewhat, it can't be denied, he has a point! In the early 00's new bands were a dime a dozen, filling arenas and regularly collecting platinum discs. New TV talent shows such as Pop Idol and X Factor filled Saturday nights with girl groups and boy bands, but the trend is shifting. According to Dorian Lynskey in the Guardian, currently, there are nine groups in the UK Top 100 and only one in the Top 40. Two are the Killers and Fleetwood Mac, with songs 17 and 44 years old respectively, while the others are the last UK pop group standing (Little Mix), two four-man bands (Glass Animals, Kings of Leon), two dance groups (Rudimental, Clean Bandit) and two rap units (D-Block Europe, Bad Boy Chiller Crew). There are duos and trios, but made up of solo artists guesting with each other. In Spotify’s Top 50 most-played songs globally right now, there are only three groups (BTS, the Neighbourhood, and the Internet Money rap collective), and only six of the 42 artists on the latest Radio 1 playlist are bands: Wolf Alice, Haim, Royal Blood, Architects, London Grammar and the Snuts. Of course, radio and streaming are dominated by pop, rap and dance music but festival lineups don’t point to a golden age of bands, either. Of those that have emerged in the past decade, only half a dozen have headlined either Coachella, Reading/Leeds, Latitude, Download, Wireless or the main two stages at Glastonbury. That’s The 1975, Haim, alt-J, Rudimental, Bastille and Tame Impala, and the last of those is effectively a solo project. Only one band, the Lathums, appeared on the BBC’s annual tastemaking Sound of … longlist this year, which is not unusual: bands haven’t been in the majority since 2013. The album charts are still regularly topped by bands thanks to loyal fanbases who still buy physical formats – such as Mogwai, Architects and Kings of Leon in recent weeks – but not since 2016 has one hung on for a second week. So what happened? With even the largest, well known bands struggling to get into the Top 20 in the streaming world, could one theory be, solo artists are cheaper and easier to handle for the record labels? Apparently not, according to Dirty Hit label's, Jamie Osborne. His independent label is responsible for among others, Wolf Alice and The 1975, but he is still desperate to find the next band he can sign and develop. However, he's not finding it easy! The problem is, he says, there aren’t that many around. “It’s more likely now that a kid will make music in isolation because of technology. When I first met the 1975, they were all friends meeting in a room to make noise. So much is done in bedrooms these days, so you’re more likely to be by yourself.” The 1975 - photo Spotify Press Ben Mortimer, co-president of Polydor Records, says that cost is more of an issue for artists than for labels. “If you’re young and inspired to become a musician, you face a choice. If you go the band route, you need to find bandmates with a similar vision, you need expensive instruments and equipment, and you need to get out on the road to hone your craft. On the other hand, you could download Ableton [production software], shut your bedroom door and get creating straight away. Culture is shaped by technology.” So if the expenses are too high to even start a band, then rehearsal space and travel costs just add to the negatives. Does that mean bands and touring will only be for the rich, middle-class kids? “Social media has filled the hole, creating individual stars who are seen as more ‘authentic’ than anything the retro talent-show format could offer,” says Hannah Rose Ewens, author of Fangirls, a study of contemporary fandom. "Social media is built for individual self-expression. Platforms such as TikTok, Instagram and Twitter – and even the portrait orientation of a smartphone screen – give an advantage to single voices and faces while making group celebrity less legible. Hannah Rose Ewens with her book 'Fangirls' The challenge posed by all pop cultural trends is to work out whether or not it is a permanent structural shift or just another phase. The right group at the right time, whether it is the Strokes or the Spice Girls, can change everything. In the short term, the pandemic has made it impossible for new bands to form and threatens the survival of the regional venue circuit on which they depend, while Brexit has thrown up expensive new obstacles for touring bands. Yet Jamie Oborne remains optimistic. “I’m excited about the wave of creativity that’s going to follow this period that we’ve just lived through,” he says. “I feel this hankering in youth culture for real experience and connection. I’m still quite the romantic when it comes to music. Look at Fontaines DC. I see a picture of them and wish I was in a band. It’s the same thing as walking down the street with your friends and feeling like you’re part of something. Anything’s possible.”

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