Music Artist
Origin: Michigan
K-Si Yang is a music artist originally from Michigan and currently based in Florida. We enjoyed his most recent project, "Ghxst," so we had to contact him and learn more about it. We spoke about his passion for all types of music, his upbringing, and plenty more. Check out a snippet of the interview on our IGTV / Youtube or read the full interview below:
Who is K-Si Yang, where are you from and what do you do for those who don't know? K-Si Yang is an R&B lover, hip hop lover, music lover. I've been doing this since I've been a kid and I've loved this since I've been small, so it just naturally transitioned into who I am today. I grew up in Michigan and I ended up moving here (Florida) to pursue the whole music thing. The first stop.
I like the sound of that. There's going to be more movement. How has the move to Florida affected you in your life and your music? I would say when I was home, back in Michigan, I was still like trying to find my sound. I've been doing music for a long time, but I was still fresh at the concept of actually creating the song. So once I got down here, this was like my pressure moment. When there's cold in this pressure to turn it into a diamond, Florida was the pressure moment that solidified me and it helped me find my sound and what type of music I want to make. There was good pressure I needed.
Right. You needed to leave in order to find my find out about yourself. Around what age did you start to make music? I don't know the exact age. I've always been in a church. My mom was very Christian. So from as early as I can remember, I was singing in the choir. One of the earliest things I remember is she used to have a piano and it was a Yamaha like you can make beats on it and everything. And she used to make her own songs on there. Then there was just a point where she just stopped making music. There was a time that she gave it to me and when she gave him to me, I started making beats and making full songs and she saw that I had a talent with that. So they just pushed that. And ever since then, I kept it going. Started with covers, used to put them on Facebook and YouTube, and all that. And I took 'em down cause they were trash and I just kept getting better and better.
And then you got to now making songs with Pleasure P? That was crazy how that came about. You got to understand in Michigan, there are not celebrities walking around left and right. So coming down here you see it and it's a wake-up call. The amount of people that I've seen that I used to listen to is just crazy. Of course, everybody knows Pleasure P from their childhood. That was a shock to me too and I thought I was going to be hella starstruck. But it just woke me up. This is surreal. We linked up through a mutual friend. We knocked out that record, which is actually old, "Sounds". It was a totally different beat to it. And then we ended up having to rework it. And then I actually went to his studio not too long after and he put out an EP that's everywhere now. I have a song on there with him as well that I helped with. So that was a dope relationship and that wouldn't have happened if I would've stayed my ass in Michigan.
What was the creative process behind your most recent project, "Ghxst"? I love going back to listen to old albums and just hearing how ahead of their time they are. I hear old albums like Prince's old album. I love albums that feel like a story. I love albums that either has some cool interludes or the transitions into the next song are crazy. One of the ones that recently inspired me to work on Ghxsts was "More Life." People slept on that project but what I love most about it was how the songs transition into the next song. So if you go back and listen to that and you hear like certain transitions, that shit takes work. It's cohesive. So my biggest thing was how do I make a cohesive project by myself and have it come off as a story. So, that was actually based on a time in my life. The whole thing is basically based on a true story, the accident, the ex, all that. That project was a lot of negative emotion that I needed to get out. I just put everything I had that I was feeling at that moment into the project. But it was also real and it came from a real place. I just sat and I figured out how to make the voicemails flow into each song and how to fade certain songs out and then bring the other ones in. My team and I did that. Shout out to Clapback, shout out to Solo. Everybody that helped on the project, everybody over in Australia. Y'all helped me body that project.
What's next for K-Si Yang? What are you working on that you can talk about? I'm really just building my catalog man. That project, what I did was I found a picture, shout out to my girl Natalia, she's a photographer. I found a photo and put it up on the screen and anything that I had in my catalog that fit that picture I was putting on a project. So I went through hundreds of songs, found those, 9 or 10 songs, and I put that together. So I'm doing the same thing for my next project. I have an image that I'm working with. It's going to be the complete opposite because my name is yang has gotta be good and bad. So that project was the dark. The next one is going to be light. So, I'm going to go through my catalog again, find an image, and every song that I have that fits that image is going on.
So in other words, you get inspired through photography as well?
Of course, hand in hand. Before I wanted to do music, I wanted to be a director. So I may not have the biggest eye for it, but I know what looks good and what moves you. That shit goes hand in hand. If I see an image that moves me best believe I'm gonna have a track to go with it.
Somebody who's really taking that seriously is Tierra Whack. Her visuals for her project. That's kind of what I wanted to do with either this project or my upcoming projects, like putting out 15 different videos. The attention span too, that's another thing, it's cool that she did that because that brought all that traffic to that one video. When I originally uploaded "Ghxst", it was the whole 30 minutes stream. It wasn't separated how I have it up right now, but there was gonna be technical issues with that. But same with my videos, I would rather have it be all in one place versus I'm putting out six-seven videos. There's just not the time for that right now.
What music are you currently listening to or what type do you prefer? I listen to everything. If I'm in a store, if I'm in a restaurant and I hear, a string or chord, something that makes me "Oh that was fire" and pull out my phone and I'm Shazaming I don't care if it's Shawn Mendes, Alessia Cara, EDM, I don't care what it is. I just love music. So if it sounds dope to me, I'm listening to it. I just went back and I started listening to like old stuff. I don't know if you've seen that show the Wu-Tang show that they have right now, but I was hearing music from that and just getting inspired by that. But anything as in the newest upcoming stuff, I've been listening to probably DaBaby's project. He's got a few songs in there that are fire. SAFE, listening to some of his stuff. Anything. What I like to do too is go through 'em cause I use Apple music and go to their radio section or their recommendations for you because sometimes they're on point. Sometimes you're like, no, what is this? But other times, I'll scroll through and if it sounds good, I'm adding it to my catalog. I like listening to music, but when it comes to me being in my creative time to get to my own stuff, I don't really like doing it cause I don't want to take too much inspiration for what I'm hearing and then put it into my stuff. But when I'm not in creative mode, I'm listening to anything and everything.
What is your mission musically, as in what you would like to bring to the world with your music? I just want to make people feel something, and that sounds corny. I remember I put out a song, I took it down now, but it's still up on YouTube. I put out a song "Zooming" and I played it for a few people and I'm not going to say who those people were, but they literally teared up and started crying. And that was one of the first songs I put out. And I always knew music was deep cause I obviously I felt things from music, but to have somebody like a cry from something I've made, it was like alright, it has power. I want to make people feel something. Certain types of music are cool to listen to when you just want to kick back. There's music for every emotion, but I just want my stuff to move people the way that I was moved and when I heard certain records. I want that same feeling from my music to somebody else. I just know the power that it has. It can make your day 20 times better, make you feel 20 times better. I want music with feeling and I want to show the world, I don't believe in coincidence. I don't think I was put into this field on accident. I just want to make that feeling that I said I had when I heard certain things, I want to put that on somebody else.
Don't forget to check out K-Si Yang on Instagram and his most recent project, "Ghost".
Artwork by La Reinarde. Interview by Dreina Bautista.