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Keshi is one of the artists that's making it big, emerging from the post-"SoundCloud artist" era with his sights set on success.

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Casey Luong

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November 4, 1994

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Houston, TX

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Asian-American, Vietnamese decent

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Despite growing up in a very diverse community in Texas in the United States, Keshi didn’t feel connected to his heritage as a young boy. ”I'm Vietnamese, but most others around me were ethnically Chinese,” he says, remembering how his traditional food and wear was different from those around him. “I wasn't the same as my American friends either, who would have the traditional American experience with the barbecues and all.” - vice.com

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R&B, Chillwave, Alternative Indie, Indie Pop

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Island Records

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"When he was 13, he began learning guitar and first released bluesy and singer/songwriter-styled material under his own name." - allmusic.com

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Vocalist, instrumentalist, and songwriter Keshi built his infectious tracks out of lo-fi hip-hop beats and ultra-chill R&B vocalizing. His songs were defined by distant falsetto vocals, delicate and textural instrumentals, and booming drums, and singles like 2017's "over u" helped define a particularly gentle subset of R&B.

Keshi was born Casey Luong in Houston, Texas. When he was 13, he began learning guitar and first released bluesy and singer/songwriter-styled material under his own name. While working as a registered nurse, Luong shifted gears with his music. He took on the Keshi moniker in 2017 and first uploaded some demos experimenting with his new sonic personality. The lo-fi productions offered a sense of newfound musical freedom and excitement, and it wasn't long before his music took on a more solid shape. Defined by bittersweet melodies, lamenting lyrics of lost love and wobbly lo-fi hip hop beats, Keshi's first singles in 2017 broke through to millions of listeners. Tracks like "Just Friends" and "As Long as It Takes You" accumulated millions of streams and led to more acoustic-guitar based material like 2018's The Reaper EP. Keshi's music continued to develop, taking on more a more polished sound with 2019's four-song project Skeletons.

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Vocalist, instrumentalist, and songwriter Keshi built his infectious tracks out of lo-fi hip-hop beats and ultra-chill R&B vocalizing. His songs were defined by distant falsetto vocals, delicate and textural instrumentals, and booming drums, and singles like 2017's "over u" helped define a particularly gentle subset of R&B.

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"I went on SoundCloud and I made a random account called keshi. That is a childhood name that I still get called today by my girlfriend. We’ve been childhood friends ever since 5th/6th grade. Ever since then I would go over to her parent’s house and they would call me keshi. They still call me keshi. It’s like a throwback to that. It was supposed to be just a username. I didn’t expect it to explode. It’s not like I didn’t want to be listened to; I just didn’t expect it to turn into it’s own thing. Now people call me keshi and it’s kinda like whoa." - keshi 2019, fromtheintercom.com

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If you've ever searched up "chill study music" on YouTube, you're probably familiar with the iconic thumbnail of #aesthetic anime girl working diligently on some labor-intensive assignment. As an avid listener to these types of channels myself, I have grown quite fond of the cozy beats that have kept me sane through numerous late-night cram sessions. 23 year old singer/songwriter and producer keshi (Casey Luong) is one such artist that has made his mark in the lo-fi hip hop community. He has amassed a steady following on various music platforms, and rightly so. With a stream of blissfully nostalgic tracks, listeners are left captivated by the heartfelt sincerity that resonates in each song. Hauntingly beautiful vocals, bittersweet lyrics, and multifaceted beats intermingle to create keshi's signature sound. His recently released single, "2 soon", exudes a more upbeat vibe and dynamic instrumentals than his previous works, hinting at a new direction for the musician. Nonetheless, it is exciting to see where this progression will take him.

We had the opportunity to chat with Casey and learn more about the person behind keshi. On top of discussing music and future releases, keep scrolling because things get real when an In-N-Out debate is involved...
Do you pursue music full-time or do you have another job?
I do have a full time job, but I like to keep them separate. I'm an RN [registered nurse], but I'm looking to make music full-time.
Have you always been into music, and what got you started in song production?
I've always been into music, ever since I was little. I think I started playing the guitar around when I was 13 years old and I've gone through different stages of making music. Before keshi, I did very acoustic-based music, like John Mayer and Ed Sheeran: that's who I looked up to. That was the first mature song-writing that I had encountered that wasn't like punk rock music. When I started listening to John Mayer, I really started to hone my craft in songwriting. It got to a point where I played for a competition here in Houston and they flew me out to LA and go perform. I performed against other people and when you are in an enclosed space and you hone your craft, you feel like you're the only person that does this type of thing. That show was a revelation because I found that a) you're not the only one that does this and b) the people who are around you do it better than you.

I was at a loss. I wanted to give up making music in general because I also messed up my set which wasn't a good thing. It was such a crossroads of growth for me as an artist. It was really important and that's how keshi started. What happened was around that time was when lo-fi started to boom a little bit. I was listening to other artists and I loved how Tomppabeats , , and In Love With a Ghost used these unconventional sounds to create this soundscape--an ensemble of glass, and water and marble. I thought it was the coolest thing ever. It had this diversity that standard, conventional music didn't have. I think everybody was craving something that sounded different at the time too.

Then there was this other thing. The only listeners I had at the time were friends and family, and I thought I was awesome--like yeah I got 100 people listening to me. I realized after I had my show in LA that the people who are listening to me aren't really fans-they're friends. I wanted to have listeners who were strangers, and if strangers listened to my music, and they liked it, and they told me that they liked it, it was a more genuine sense of accomplishment. Other than people just telling you that you're doing a good job. And in addition to that, I didn't want my friends and family to see me fail. If I pursued a different kind of music and it turned out to be shit, I didn't want them to know.

So what did I do? I went on SoundCloud and I made a random account called keshi. That is a childhood name that I still get called today by my girlfriend. We've been childhood friends ever since 5th/6th grade. Ever since then I would go over to her parent's house and they would call me keshi. They still call me keshi. It's like a throwback to that. It was supposed to be just a username. I didn't expect it to explode. It's not like I didn't want to be listened to; I just didn't expect it to turn into it's own thing. Now people call me keshi and it's kinda like whoa. I don't really think of myself as this project. I refer to keshi in the third person because it's more of like an idea or a project for me rather than an extension of me. It was really weird--it started as me putting a bunch of bad demos on there for very close friends to see. I put everything on private and then there was this forum where they held this music competition on Reddit and I submitted the first song I had written since I stopping writing since the LA show because it was kind of traumatizing for me. The very first song I had written is actually one of the more popular ones-it's "if you're not the one for me who is?". I submitted it to this Reddit competition and it won. It was just this really small group of people, you know who are trying to emulate the lo-fi sound as best they can. We were all learning at that point. When that happened, it was a really big moment for me because I took this step in the off beaten path, in a direction that I didn't think I was supposed to go. It was straying away from the safe acoustic music and covers. It got received well by people who weren't my friends. That's what I wanted. I made it a point to not just spam people to listen to my stuff.

I made it a point for people to find it and I think that genuine discovery of it makes it more appealing. It's crazy because these Youtube aggregators have established this really solid relationship with their viewers that they have good taste-like they're curators-they find music for you and once you've established a really solid reputation, at that point any artist you feature is going to be "it". They're going to get a bunch of attention directed towards them, and I've been fortunate enough to get the attention of these aggregators. Thanks to them, I've gotten a listener base. And now also with Spotify doing their discovery thing-you know using their algorithms I've gotten directed a lot of people who like to listen to that kind of music so I'm really lucky in that regard too. I remember back then when I first started making music as keshi, my friends would listen to the radio and the first time one of them sent me a screen shot and my name was on the 27/4- for one of them-and I was like whoa that's so cool, I made the cut. And that's when I didn't have anybody listen to me, hardly. Now we're here.
How do you get the inspiration for your songs?
They're all from real life and they're all real stories. I think that's really important to making a genuine sounding song. It's interesting. I see keshi as a very concentrated part of me. A lot of them are very moody lyrics. I have a fear of being alone, so if you look into the lyrics for all the songs, you can definitely see that there. I really enjoy the dichotomy between being really vulnerable with the one that you love the most, but that also gives them the ability to hurt you the most. There's this bittersweet aspect to it and I love capturing those feelings in my music. It's my favorite thing to write about. Conveying that mood is something I really enjoy doing. "if you're not the one for me who is"- I was talking about that earlier, how it's my favorite because it is the epitome of that kind of feeling. On one hand that phrase "if you're not the one for me who is" is like there's nobody but you; "you are the only one for me" is the romantic side of it and the other flip side of it is like well if you're not the one then who is? And you're really lonely and like all of a sudden it's just you.
Is there a specific approach you take to making music?
I like to take unconventional chords and chord progressions that aren't so present in conventional pop music. Lo-fi is getting pretty saturated with the same kind of minor 7 chords, so I try to avoid using those. I think John Mayer put my guitar in that direction. It used to be where I would just sit down with a guitar and start to write lyrics to it and that would be it. Now it's gotten to the point where I'm searching on the fret board for something that sounds really neat and I've taken a sampling kind of approach. Not in the sense that I like to sample things because I really don't-I don't like taking other people's music and claiming it as mine. I sample myself in the sense that I'll record something cool after noodling on the guitar into logic and it'll be a four bar loop. I'll manipulate it in there until it sounds the way I want it to and then I'll just attack it with drums. It's one of the most fun things in the world.

I love producing music, making it sound really full. I've always enjoyed making music sound dynamic and that's something I couldn't do when I was just doing acoustic music. Like little easter eggs for you to find. I'll track out the beat, and what usually happens is I'll make four bars in a guitar and then I'll fill it with drums and bass and everything. Once I have those four bars done, it's probably 15-20 seconds worth of stuff. Then you go on to create the full song you know the chorus, bridge and everything. Once that's all laid out then I add my little effects and nuances. I'll turn on the mic, put my headphones on, and I'll start humming melodies. Just mumbling a bunch of nonsense until I find lyrics that fit. Producing is not the hard part, that's actually the most fun part of it and it's in the beginning. The hard part is writing the lyrics and finding really good lyrics takes months. I just have dozens of beats sitting around that I haven't had the time to write to.
Do you think being Asian-American has shaped your identity as an artist?
I feel like the whole Asian identity part to it gets stressed a lot, you know. Wanting Asian representation in media- I think that's great. But for me, personally, I feel like the bigger part, the more important part to me is making good art. Whether I'm Asian or not shouldn't have anything to do with it. And I know that's kinda what you guys are going for which makes a lot of sense, but I think that when you try to stress that you are an Asian-American artist, it's almost like you're trying to carve out a space for yourself that says, "Hey, this guy is an Asian artist so you should give him attention because of that", when the real reason you should be giving someone attention is because their art is just good. I've strayed a little bit away from doing those kinds of organizations because I didn't want to be labeled as an Asian-American artist, I just want to be an artist. I think that's where I found success, just doing my thing.
Do you have any hobbies aside from music?
I'm a big sneakerhead. I have one prized pair of sneakers. They're the Off-White Air Jordans. They're dumb expensive but they're my trophy because I worked with a rapper named who signed to Warner Brothers. He really liked my track "over u", so he asked for sampling clearance and [I used] the clearance fee to get them. I still have leftover too, but I used them to purchase the Air Jordans. It's like a landmark. It was big step for me and I wanted to treat myself. Whenever I have shows, I'll always be in my best sneakers. It's excessive but you can't help what you like.
Do you have any new material in the works?
So I have new material coming out very soon. I've been telling everyone that I'm going to be releasing a small EP of four songs, like the best things I can come up with. All of the songs I've been working on are in a gladiator pit right now- they're all fighting each other for the best four spots. Two are completely done, while two are to be decided. I want to release it very soon. I have this itch- like I need the gratification of having other people listen to it. I'm very tempted and I'm very weak to my instinct, so I might actually go ahead and just drop them. I feel like it's a new sound, a little bit that I think everyone's going to really like. When I made "2 soon", I thought that it was going to be big and I feel like these are going to be going in that same direction, so if you enjoyed "2 soon" you will be getting more of the same.
Have you been performing lately?
I actually haven't performed since the LA show. I wanted to go back to the drawing board and really hone my craft and now looking back at the numbers, I'm just like yeah I think it's about time. I want the cities of LA, Houston, San Francisco, Dallas, and Chicago. I think are my top 5. I'll definitely be dropping by LA first, that'll be my first show. I'll announce when that happens, but I have to release this next project first and then the shows are going to happen. It'll be awesome, I'm so excited for it.

What's the most rewarding part of making music?

You want to hear a crazy story? So I already mentioned earlier that I wanted to go to Berklee College of Music, which I now realize was not the best idea. I just know most people who want to pursue music say that because it's the first thing that pops into their head. Like, "hey if I go to college for music I'll do well". Basically what ended up happening was while I was on shift, I was on my lunch break and I was reading a fan message from Instagram. I just get a bunch of DM's every day now. It's gotten kind of tiring but I love replying to everyone. I got this one and he was like, "Hey I go to Berklee College of Music and I'm studying here. I'm just trying to do what you do. How do you do it?" So I sat back for a while and was like holy shit-like here I was trying to go to this school and because I didn't go to that school, I'm making music, and the student is wondering how I do it. If I had gone to Berklee, I would still be pursuing jazz or blues, or guitar-based music and I wouldn't be where I am now. It's because I didn't go that it ended up this way. It was one of the most validating experiences. It's crazy, I couldn't believe it.

On the other end, what is the most challenging part of what you do?

I'm haunted by "over u". It is just like the mountain that I cannot surmount. While I love the success that it's getting and all of my old tracks are getting, I am in constant fear that I am going to get lost in this humongous saturation of the lo-fi scene right now. I feel this immense pressure now when I write music that I need to deliver quickly, but space them out so people won't get tired of me...but just enough so that people want to listen to me. It's so hard juggling it and I want to do better than "over you". I want to do better than "just friends" and I want to do better than "as long as it takes you". It's basically trying to top myself that's the hardest part.
Random, but do you have a favorite food? (I mean who doesn't, amirite?)
I like Japanese sweets. I love daifuku. My girlfriend's mom will make it for us and it's like red bean paste covered in mochi. I am Vietnamese, so I mean I enjoy my Viet food and everything. I love Shake Shack Burgers. I don't know if you have Shake Shack in LA, but man Shake Shack is bomb.
Sorry I'm an In-N-Out fan!
So, there's actually an In-N-Out in Texas now and there's this huge debate between Whataburger and In-N-Out. I do not like Whataburger. If you post that I'm going to be eaten by my Texan fans. Everyone here shits on the In-N-Out fries, like "It tastes like cardboard blaerhjsh," but I've learned to love them... Yeah I agree they're good.
What's your favorite movie?
Dude, I love ! Everytime I tell my girlfriend, she's like "I don't get why you like that movie so much, it's just John Wick shooting people up", but I think the choreography in that movie is great. It's my favorite movie.

What advice would you give someone who wants to make that jump into the music scene?

The mistake that I made was that I was too eager to share what I made because I wanted validation. I think it's important to really be honest with yourself and hone your craft. Create a very small group of people, like one or two people who know what you're trying to pursue, and will give you honest feedback. I have a very close friend that handles, or he doesn't handle the mixing but he will lend me an ear because he's much better at it than I am. He doesn't make music like I do, but he's got a really great ear. So, the first thing is to try and save your music for yourself and really hone it. The second thing is to not release everything that you make. It's to be very critical with yourself and only release the very best stuff that you do. Don't spam your friends to listen to your stuff. Just put it out there, make good stuff, and wait for somebody to find it. I don't know if that's the best way to do it, that's just how I did it. I got extremely lucky.
Is there anything else you would like to add?
Well, if any of my listeners end up reading this, I want to say thank you for listening and I hope you stick around. There's more music coming soon. And if you haven't heard me, please give me a listen. Thanks so much for taking the time to talk to me!

Shout-out to keshi for answering our questions! 🙂
This interview was conducted over video chat on Saturday, October 6th by Clarissa Aben. Photos courtesy of keshi.
Artist pages: Soundcloud | Spotify

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If you've ever searched up "chill study music" on YouTube, you're probably familiar with the iconic thumbnail of #aesthetic anime girl working diligently on some labor-intensive assignment. As an avid listener to these types of channels myself, I have grown quite fond of the cozy beats that have kept me sane through numerous late-night cram [...]

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"...graduated from Stephen F. Austin High School in Fort Bend County and earned a BSN from the University of Texas at Austin" - houstonchronicle.com

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Preview | Houston Arts & Entertainment Guide

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Keshi is an artist very much on the way up.

The Houston native signed with Island Records in 2019 and just released "always," the final EP in a trilogy that showcases his gorgeous falsetto and rich layers of production. He clocks more than 3 million monthly Spotify listeners and tens of millions of plays each for several songs. A virtual listening party for "always" had so many people trying to log on that the servers crashed.

But it took a breakdown at his day job for Keshi to finally, fully embrace his passion for music. He was working as an oncology nurse in the Texas Medical Center and flying weekly to New York for music meetings at the same time. The balance and the stress of the job finally overwhelmed him.

"I can only explain it as sort of a coping mechanism for the stress that was underneath, like a dissonance. 'Why am I here and not making music?'" Keshi, 25, says. "Basically, I had an outburst at a co-worker for absolutely no reason. I think it was just me and my manager in the room where that breakdown sort of happened. I came out 10 minutes later and apologized to everyone for the incident. It was just so clear to me at that point. 'I obviously cannot do both things anymore.' That was the signal.

"I was very scared. But I couldn't be scared anymore. The next day, I turned in my two weeks."

Making it accessible

Keshi began releasing music in 2017 and broke out with his 2018 EP "The Reaper." It became a favorite among K-pop idols, including BTS, NCT 127 and Itzy. That in turn gave Keshi a huge boost among the K-pop fan base.

His own music has been dubbed everything from lo-fi hip-hop to indie-pop. At its essence, it's a soothing blend of samples, guitar and Keshi's comforting vocals. His "skeletons" EP was released in 2019, with "bandaids" and "always" coming in 2020. That trilogy follows color (blue, purple, yellow artwork) and number (four, five and six songs) schemes.

It can be a heady mix. But the beauty of Keshi's work is largely in its accessibility.

"There came a point where something clicked in my head. The songs can be really good," Keshi says. "But if I can't present them in a way that is digestible then there's not a point."

Inspired by Frank Ocean

Casey Luong, who would become Keshi, grew up in Sugar Land with parents who moved there from Vietnam. He graduated from Stephen F. Austin High School in Fort Bend County and earned a BSN from the University of Texas at Austin. He took piano lessons and played in school orchestras throughout his childhood. Despite that, music was not a priority at home. His parents rarely listened to the radio, and when they did, it was NPR.

"My first exposure to music was when I would get home, and I would watch this show called 'Drake and Josh.' It was a sitcom on Nickelodeon. Drake Bell wrote and sang the theme song, and I thought that was so cool," Keshi says.

It wasn't until high school, when he discovered John Mayer, that Keshi began to develop his own tastes and truly sharpen his skills. The title track from "always," in fact, samples Mayer's "Waiting on the World to Change." He also looked to Ed Sheeran and Jason Mraz, who embrace a DIY mentality.

Keshi watched YouTube tutorials and taught himself to write, producer, perform and engineer his music. He first recorded under his birth name. But his songs weren't picking up much traction.

"Something was missing from my music as Casey Luong, as this acoustic singer-songwriter. My songs just weren't good enough" he says. "Something had to change in that mix. I was at a real war with myself. I wanted to quit guitar."

It was Frank Ocean's 2016 album "Blonde" that pushed Keshi to think differently about his music. He quietly created a Soundcloud account under the name Keshi, where he uploaded what he calls "weird, experimental stuff." He took the name from the Japanese pronunciation of Casey used by a childhood friend's family.

Growing popularity

Things then progressed quickly. He racked up astonishing numbers that now include half a million followers on each Instagram and YouTube. He reluctantly secured management and eventually got a call to fly to New York for a label meeting.

"I remember telling my mom that day, and she was like, 'Who's trying to take advantage of you?'" he says. "There was definitely fights along the way, them thinking that I didn't appreciate the opportunities I had been given because they came from Vietnam to the States during wartime to give me everything."

Gradually, as Keshi's popularity grew and it was clear this was not just a hobby, his parents came around.

"I remember coming home that night after the incident at work, and I talked to my mom. I said, 'I can't do it anymore. There's no reason for me to juggle these two lives. I'm gonna quit tomorrow.' And she said, 'Go do it. I get it,'" Keshi says. "It was a really nice validation."

More Keshi

Pandemic life: Honestly, I never leave the house unless I'm going to H-E-B or picking up food. And to see my parents, who live just a couple of minutes away from me. I'm so used to locking myself up in my home studio, anyway.

Building up confidence: When I first joined the label, I had a lot of impostor syndrome. It felt like this little project that I kept to myself in my bedroom, and I remained largely anonymous for the most part. I was now taking that step into the limelight a little bit and stepping into this persona that I created for myself. The fact that I was able to see it through is something that I'm very proud of.

Art as an outlet: Nothing sparked a love for music like the guitar did. Music, when you create it, is where the joy really is and where the freedom really is. The guitar gave me that.

Social-media superstar: You try not to attribute a number to what your idea of success is. My idea of success is making something people regard as a classic, that they wanna listen to over and over again. But it still surprises me every day.

Mom and dad not letting him study music in school: I'm glad that they did, honestly. I feel like I would not be where I am today. There's a certain hunger to not doing what you're allowed to do. You just wanna break out of it. I feel like my approach to music would be a little more "correct." But correct isn't always that fun.
-- JG

Joey Guerra is the music critic for the Houston Chronicle. He also covers various aspects of pop culture. He has reviewed hundreds of concerts and interviewed hundreds of celebrities, from Justin Bieber to Dolly Parton to Beyonce. He's appeared as a regular correspondent on Fox26 and was head judge and director of the Pride Superstar singing competition for a decade. He has been named journalist of the year multiple times by both OutSmart Magazine and the FACE Awards. He also covers various aspects of pop culture, including the local drag scene and "RuPaul's Drag Race."

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The journey of Houston's Keshi from TMC nurse to pop star

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Keshi is an artist very much on the way up. The Houston native signed with Island Records in 2019 and just released "always," the final EP in a trilogy that showcases his gorgeous falsetto and rich layers of production. He clocks more than 3 million monthly Spotify listeners and tens of millions of plays each for several songs.

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Do you pursue music full-time or do you have another job?

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Do you pursue music full-time or do you have another job?

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"I do have a full time job, but I like to keep them separate. I’m an RN [registered nurse], but I’m looking to make music full-time." - keshi 2019, fromtheintercom.com

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"Before keshi, I did very acoustic-based music, like John Mayer and Ed Sheeran: that’s who I looked up to. That was the first mature song-writing that I had encountered that wasn’t like punk rock music. When I started listening to John Mayer, I really started to hone my craft in songwriting." - keshi 2019, fromtheintercom.com

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"What happened was around that time was when lo-fi started to boom a little bit. I was listening to other artists and I loved how Tomppabeats, In Love With a Ghost, and Joji used these unconventional sounds to create this soundscape-–an ensemble of glass, and water and marble. I thought it was the coolest thing ever." - keshi 2019, fromtheintercom.com

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Between SoundCloud, Instagram, and Tumblr, it's easy to feel that, as a generation that lives on the internet, we've hit a self-made saturation point; artists are going beyond their home Wi-Fi network, infiltrating hard drives internationally. Mass awareness has almost contributed to an overall loss of awareness - to stick out, you've got to have something new, something for stans to rally around. Simply making home-brewed chill trap beats won't give an internet-made artist a long-term career.

Keshi is one of the artists that's making it big, emerging from the post-"SoundCloud artist" era with his sights set on success.

A unicorn of the self-publishing music industry, Keshi knows a thing or two about getting noticed. He just signed with Island Records and is about to embark on his first tour for his EP,, that will span from Brooklyn to San Fransisco, beginning with two sold-out NYC shows starting tonight at Rough Trade and tomorrow, September 3, at Mercury Lounge.

It all started on GarageBand for Keshi. He's undeniably a part of a growing "laptop producer" monolith; he's a part of a wave of artists who write, create, and publish their own content all on their personal computers. It is a distinct form of production that allows artists total autonomy, and as labels have seen, it shouldn't be written off as less-than.

While Keshi's self-reliance required a great amount of discipline, it also granted him the freedom to explore his own style, resisting any single genre. His sound hinges on lo-fi hip-hop, a genre that combines traditional hip-hop and jazz styles. He's joining an all-star roster of artists by participating in the lo-fi discourse currently flanking pop music; he's now part of a peer group consisting of Flying Lotus and Joji with his new project, Skeletons, and has proven to be a key voice in the internet-led genre.

PAPER sat down with Keshi to talk about Skeletons, life as a registered nurse, and, surprisingly, John Mayer.
Tell us a little about your Skeletons tour, which I heard you needed to add dates for because the show sold out so quickly.
It's so mind-blowing. There were five cities at the beginning, which all sold out the first day. And that blew my mind, I had no idea they would sell out that fast. I'm just stoked to go out and play, to see the fans face-to-face.
Now that we have SoundCloud, artists have a greater ability to self-publish.

Exactly! I feel like there's a marriage between production and songwriting. To me, they're inseparable. It's been convenient to not have to wait on anybody else.
I heard that there are some aspects of Skeletons that were inspired by your work as a nurse.
So it's not that the experiences I encountered on the floor influenced any songs that I made. I actually keep it very compartmentalized because I like to keep my life very separate. But the fact that I was doing something that wasn't music, that wasn't my passion, did inspire me to write the song, "Skeletons."It was that dissonance in my own head, "Why aren't I doing something that i'm actually good at?" I remember producing in my room one day, thinking, and not to toot my own horn, like, "Man, I'm good at this! Why am I not doing this, why am I just doing something that I'm faking, and just going through the motions?" So there was a sense of repression. And it really fueled a lot of angst, I guess.
Aren't we all.
I know, right! I was originally just a singer-songwriter, like acoustically. I listen to Jason Mraz, Ed Sheeran, and John Mayer, so I've been writing songs way longer than I've been producing music. So it was like a meeting of both worlds: the old, songwriting world and this new production that I've learned from lo-fi. It was like a gateway drug of sorts. So, when things merged together I really started finding the sweet spot in creating my sound. And I really craved, throughout the years, making music. Even just acoustic stuff, because I didn't have the ability to do what I want in Logic quite yet, or in GarageBand quite yet, I was restrained to just singing in my guitar. And I was like, this isn't quite what I'm going for, but this is all I can do, so I'm going to do this. And now, with the Reaper EP, I listen to so many different kinds of music. I love hip-hop, I love R&B, I love pop music, I love rock. The 1975 has this fusion of pop and rock, all these elements, all of my favorite things about music is kind of what The Reaper was. And the S keletons EP, they both are expanding more into this discovery of my producer self and my songwriter self. Being able to have them meet and shake hands is what it is.
That's a really good way to put it. Tell us a little about your new EP, Skeletons, which you produced yourself. What excites you about performing it?
This album was already in the works before I partnered with Island Records. It was basically ready to be released by the time I signed with them. Everything was written and produced by me, as I hope it remains for the most part. I always want to have a hand in how it sounds, because that's one of the most fun parts for me. Skeletons is long, long overdue to be released. It's been sitting on the shelf for a long time. I feel like The Reaper has this longevity to it, and we really wanted to let it breathe. We started to hit a point where the fanbase grew exponentially and once we hit a sweet spot, we decided, you know, it's time to let these babies out.

Stream Skeletons by Keshi, below, and follow him on Instagram (@keshi).

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It all started on GarageBand for Keshi. He's undeniably a part of a growing "laptop producer" monolith; he's a part of a wave of artists who write, create, and publish their own content all on their personal computers. It is a distinct form of production that allows artists total autonomy, and as la...

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Image courtesy of Universal Music Group.

Despite growing up in a very diverse community in Texas in the United States, Keshi didn't feel connected to his heritage as a young boy. "I'm Vietnamese, but most others around me were ethnically Chinese," he says, remembering how his traditional food and wear was different from those around him. "I wasn't the same as my American friends either, who would have the traditional American experience with the barbecues and all."

But with time, Keshi learned to be proud of his Vietnamese roots. His only regret is not learning the language so he can better connect with his grandparents.

Keshi has become renowned in the scene of lo-fi hip-hop, a relatively new genre he describes as "a nostalgic fusion of jazz or R&B samples with very raw, and old-sounding hip-hop beats that are good for setting a mood." But he doesn't like to be classified as a lo-fi artist "because that would be a disservice to the really authentic artists, like the forefathers of lo-fi. But I've definitely learned a lot from it."

It wasn't an easy journey to get to where he is now. But it wasn't the struggle to 'make it' in the traditional sense that Keshi faced. Rather, it was a battle with himself. His journey to accept that he was going to be a full-time musician came long after he garnered a loyal fanbase online. With his parents discouraging him from pursuing music, he thought it would be almost impossible.

So he went to college and became a nurse instead, a moment Keshi describes as "a fork in the road where I went off and took a more traditional path."

The artist Keshi was born during his college years in the form of a Soundcloud page: "Keshi was an alias that nobody knew was me. I didn't want anybody to know I was trying this new path. Lest they see I made terrible stuff, lest they see I failed" he said.

But slowly, his distinct style garnered more and more attention: "It's about only creating the most interesting and best sounding things I could, and establishing a strong trust with a very small amount of fans who would carry the torch for me and spread it around."

The rawness that underpins Keshi's sound kept fans coming back for more and drew new listeners in. Being unafraid to express one's emotions is what builds a lot of his music.

"I would definitely classify myself as a very romantic person. I feel emotions very strongly and what resonates with me the most lyrically and poetically are bittersweet things."

And it's not only drawn from personal experience. Keshi likes to "marinate in someone else's pain," drawing inspiration from close friends. "I live vicariously through them, and I'll be like, 'wow that's so fucked up how did you go through that'. And I'll write it from my point of view."

Listening to Keshi talk about his writing process, it's hard to believe he hasn't been doing this full time for years. He knows what he likes, and he knows how to make it. But even the newfound success he faced in his first years as a singer wasn't enough to convince him he could quit his day job. "There's no way I'm going to make it", he remembers thinking.

But as most people with a full-time job know, all it takes is one bad day at work for you to consider risking it all. "I was about to release my last record 'Skeletons' when I had a particularly bad day at work, so I came in the next morning and gave in my [resignation] letter."

A week later he flew to New York and signed with Island Records.

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From Nursing To Lo-Fi Music: Keshi's Unusual Rise To Fame

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Image courtesy of Universal Music Group. Despite growing up in a very diverse community in Texas in the United States, Keshi didn't feel connected to his heritage as a young boy. "I'm Vietnamese, but most others around me were ethnically Chinese," he says, remembering how his traditional food and wear was different from those around him.