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Keshi on Creative DNA
Keshi steps offstage looking relieved, hoops glinting in the dusk. He did the same set a week earlier, but something was off then: “I thought my playback machine was melting—everything felt half-speed,” he laughs. It wasn’t gear trouble, just adrenaline stretching time. “Today I felt like I was at my own show again.” That reset—learning to ride the rush instead of letting it warp reality—frames the headspace he’s taking into album three.
“Taste Is the Filter”
Keshi skips academic talk and goes straight to instinct.
“You can’t make anything unless you have things you decide you enjoy or don’t,”
he says. On Gabriel he guarded every stem, convinced his preferences were superior. That narrow lens was armor: “You need unshakeable confidence starting out because there’s so much fear of rejection.”
With Requiem the aperture widened. He chased sounds that grab you before you have time to analyze them: “I started opening up to things that are a little more immediate—sonics that catch your attention if you weren’t even thinking.” Now, album three aims to fuse both mindsets—intentional detail married to first-listen pull.
“I’m hoping this third record is gonna be the opus for me,”
he admits, half-grinning at the ambition.
Up the Influence Tree: Cracking Prince
For years Prince bounced off him. “I tried multiple times and failed,” Keshi shrugs. A friend fixed that by curating a 15–20-song sampler spanning the Purple One’s shapeshifting catalog. The tailored entry point finally clicked.
“If you want to capture your favorite artist’s essence, don’t listen to them—listen to who they were listening to,”
he says. That method—climb up the family tree instead of down—is rewriting his homework for album three. Prince’s playbook of guitar bravado, layered falsetto, and genre slide is less a template than a permission slip to stretch. Keshi won’t spell out the sound palette, but he hints at “so much more beyond this horizon.”
When Taste Needs Time to Catch Up
Studio sessions now balance openness with decisiveness. He’ll finish tracks even when unsure, because perspective can change.
“Just because you don’t like something in the moment doesn’t mean you shouldn’t pursue making it… maybe your taste catches up,”
he says, citing “Soft Spot,” a Requiem highlight he initially passed on.
Collaborators push that elasticity. During Requiem sessions he sometimes waved off songs mid-take—“That’s not for me”—only to circle back later. The lesson: discomfort can be a placeholder for growth, not a red flag.
Relentless—but Only If You Need It Like Air
Asked what he’d tell aspiring artists, Keshi is blunt. “Be relentless,” he says, but only if creation feels “as essential as breathing.” Money and clout rank dead last. The drive, he insists, has to survive in a vacuum before it can survive the industry.
Festival Notes & Favorite Sets
- Adrenaline glitch: The half-speed illusion of Weekend 1 is now a running joke in the camp.
- Confidence boost: Watching The Marías on the big screens—“captivating, mesmerizing.”
- Night-off playlist: Ed Sheeran, T-Pain, Charli, and Clairo rounded out his off-day wander.
- Dream cameo: Without hesitation—John Mayer. “That would be a dream come true.”
What’s Next
- Merge the extremes – Gabriel’s lock-in detail + Requiem’s instant catch.
- Prince primer on loop – that 20-track gateway is steering new drafts.
- Goal line – songs that feel immediate today and still land in ten years.
Keshi signs off with a crooked smile, humming an unfinished melody as he disappears into the artist compound. No spoilers, no extra context—just the quiet certainty he’ll keep climbing the tree until the view terrifies him again.
