- 20 hours ago
Essence Music Monday returns with an interview and live performance by R&B crooner Luh Kel.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00happy monday beautiful people and welcome to this week's episode of music mondays um and welcome
00:22back for those of you who have been joining us and following along uh for this series where you
00:28know we get a chance to really check in um with some artists that we love and get to know some
00:33artists that are rising and doing their thing um and so that's exactly who we have here today the
00:38type of artist that we have here we're so excited to have him here um he is currently coming off of
00:46uh they're dropping his first new project um and he also has a single out in the market with queen
00:54which we're really excited to get to get to hear more about um he's from st louis he's 18 and you
01:00know he's killing it so without further ado please help me welcome look how hey what's up how you doing
01:07how are you good how you feeling pretty good pretty good you know monday monday monday is monday in
01:15um yeah yeah so thank you so much for being here with us today um and you know congratulations
01:23definitely for everything you have going on you know um you know 2020's been a crazy year for
01:29everybody but um it looks like you're still kind of killing it in the midst of all of that so so
01:34congratulations on that um yeah so i said a little bit about you in in the intro but i do want to give
01:43you a chance to you know put it in your own words um tell the people a little bit about you know your
01:48journey so far in music where you're from and yeah just a little bit about yourself
01:52um i'm from st louis you know it's not too many people that like come out of st louis but
01:58i'm definitely blessed to come up by the st louis um i started out in the music group
02:05like just doing anything i can like for music like just doing anything and it didn't really work
02:12out i almost gave up for real but then out of nowhere like i started making snippets like on
02:17instagram and then i blew up and i got to where i am now so
02:20solo uh you predict can you repeat that did you you said you started in a group and then you became
02:29a solo artist after the group thing didn't work out yeah yeah that's that's dope so what have you
02:34enjoyed more so far like did you enjoy a lot of people talk about you know when you go from even if
02:40it's a short stint with a group they talk about going from a group to being a solo artist sometimes
02:45you miss that comfort of being able to have your group members to lean on but how has it been for
02:50you are you enjoying being solo more or were you having more fun in the group um i think i like
02:56being solo more i mean being in the group was cool like it was lit we had fun but like being solo
03:02i don't know it's easier like i don't really have to work too hard to like fit this person character
03:09yeah that's true and i still get the comfort of my friends around me you know what i'm saying my
03:14cousins around me so yeah that's true even if you don't have your group members you still have a team
03:20of folks who like you know love you and support you and stuff so that's dope so you just put out i
03:26know you've been put you put our music in 2019 a couple projects in 2019 you have a new project this
03:31year you had some singles um what's been for you kind of your biggest moment so far as a solo artist
03:37like one of those what's been your most unforgettable you know uh moment so far
03:42uh just starting out when i dropped my first song it went crazy like and i didn't really expect it to
03:49go that crazy because i ain't had no music out so i was fused at how like crazy it went so that was
03:56probably the biggest moment ever since then it's been like steady going up yeah yeah and you had your
04:03first single hit billboard right which is you know not every artist can say that and you've also had
04:08like i think you had a couple singles go gold go platinum what's what's that feeling been like as a
04:13new artist because you know honestly new artists not new artists people returning like how is how was
04:19that for you just coming straight out the gate with you know such a huge kind of milestone like that
04:24uh it's different i mean i don't really know how to put it into words or explain it
04:29it's just a different type of feeling like especially coming from nothing like coming
04:33from st louis it's just a different feeling yeah yeah so st st louis is is midwest um i'm actually
04:42in the midwest too i'm in ohio um so um slash chicago but um so so st louis how has the love been
04:49from from your city so far you know and um having somebody kind of of this generation because you know
04:54we know um nelly and there's a few others that came from you know from the loop from st louis and
04:59um but you know being someone again from the current generation to kind of again get out there
05:06have success um really build a following and just doing their thing how's the love been for you from
05:11your city so far oh it's all love for sure i mean when i go back everybody like show me love i go to
05:17remords and stuff like we take it so it's just lit honestly yeah yeah now one thing you know talking
05:26about 2020 and and just in general it's kind of a different uh landscape for artists now um in in
05:32terms of the so the many options that you have to connect with your fans and stay connected and build
05:37your following kind of do your thing the way you want to um and i noticed that for you you know you
05:44have a super close relationship with your fans and and you know you're you're always interacting
05:49you're very interactive on social they're always responding to you um how did you i guess was there
05:54a rhyme and reason to that was there a strategy behind that or that's just kind of you how you are
05:59in your everyday life and it worked out as an artist as well well that's just how i am like i'm a real
06:05fun program i mean i'm 18 yeah it's like just being on social media is like 18 year old everything
06:12and it just so happens that i was able to connect with a big variety of people anybody um that's
06:22been kind of a a a fan or kind of gave you a a cosign or let you know that they were um listening
06:28to your music that kind of you know surprised you or shocked you or or um you didn't expect
06:34uh i mean a lot of people like hit me up i mean they never really text me oh i listen to your music
06:41like you know what i'm saying but a lot of people hit me up like i'm cool like like being that he from
06:49my city that's pretty cool and i used to do a lot of pinky rock so you hit me up cool
06:55cool there now what made you want to go into r b or how did you kind of fall in love with with r b i want
07:03to go that direction or do you even categorize yourself as r b and if so like yeah how did you
07:09kind of choose that path in terms of music because you know you can go a lot of different ways you
07:13seem like a pretty eclectic guy um in terms of the music so what made you want to do r b um
07:21i don't know it's just me coming up like all the melody melody in my head like
07:26what i think like i used to be in love with like all the like soft music yeah like the hard rap you
07:35know what i'm saying like i was always listening to people's melodies and people's like music about
07:41females and stuff like that i don't know why i was never into like rap music like before like
07:46it's cool now because it's like a part of the new like waves and they shaped it like
07:50like artists like before like i just always like chris brown and things like that so just me listening
07:59to that just now it just shaped me to be who i am yeah you have kind of a vibe that's similar to
08:06you know we've seen currently and um you know kind of some of some of the throwback in the 90s and
08:122000s as well as presently um it's always a win when rap and hip-hop kind of i'm sorry r b and hip-hop
08:18kind of combined so you had even if you think about st louis you have nelly and kelly and you
08:22had ja rule and ashanti um i feel like you and queen niger are kind of bringing you know that
08:28similar kind of vibe where we get you know we get the we get the two r b but you still have kind of
08:33a current modern sound um that i feel like a lot of hip-hop heads probably resonate with too you know
08:39just because there's really there's really less limits and less boundaries today to what people are
08:45into and in terms of music so how did that come about um with you and and queen niger and the new
08:52single um i did that song in like the studio like before like we're a writer like me and a writer work
08:59together she like did like the melody of the hook like the no not that part she did that part yeah
09:07uh and i just put the words to it and like this one we knew it was like the old school type of vibe
09:15song but it like brought like a new street kind of feel to it so we was just trying to find an artist
09:22that could like build around the old school vibe you know queen niger always had that like beautiful
09:28voice you know what i'm saying so yeah definitely put her on the record and it was just a vibe honestly
09:35yeah and and you guys got the video too which i love um and to set it up for anybody who maybe
09:41hasn't seen it yet i think what what's going on is you're kind of trying to get your girl back and
09:45then you we see you kind of she had she gets to heads to like a club or a little lounge spot and
09:50then you kind of serenade her um so it's really cool it's really cute uh how did the concept of the
09:55video come about was that something that you knew you wanted to do when you were kind of working
09:59on the song or did it come later um when we do videos this is all it start with a vision you always
10:08start with a vision um and i work with a team and we just put the vision together so just the sound
10:14of the phone and how the phone went got put together we just moved that was like a storyline
10:21and then were you were you like excited with how it came out because it's really it's really a
10:25cool video it's cute it's like a movie yeah yeah yeah and you want to know what's going to happen
10:29at the end definitely i want to be an actor so just doing stuff like that and like that
10:36yeah yeah now what about now you have you haven't you have a new single but you also have a whole
10:41a new project out um in in general um how long have you been working on that and um yeah like how
10:48how long have you been working on it um what are you excited for people to know about it and um hear from
10:53it uh i've been working on that project for a minute like since the start of this year um i'm
10:59just excited for people to hear it so then like i'm trying to bring great music back you know what
11:04i'm saying i'm trying to make it i'm trying to make a new sound like you know what i mean like i don't
11:11i don't know how to explain it but project i feel like it's going to spread love around the world
11:15because it's just it's not nothing like negative you know it's a lot going on in the world i just
11:22want to be positive for sure yeah when you when you think about your sound and your image and even
11:28like what you want like what you're speaking about you know having a positive energy um that comes from
11:34your music when people get to know you what do you think it is that sets you apart whether it's
11:38something that you saw missing that you wanted to bring to the music game or just something in
11:43general that you think makes you you know unique um something that make me unique i don't know it's
11:52just my whole like my whole melody like different you know i'm saying i feel like my sound it don't
11:57really sound like nobody else's you know like especially the different like melodies that come to
12:03my head like i rap but i sing that make sense i sing without rapping like it's weird yeah
12:14it's definitely weird but i don't know i just feel like i tap into a different element that a lot of
12:19people don't tap into for sure and i feel like people feel my music because i'm real vulnerable you
12:25know what i'm saying i'm not afraid to speak on how i feel my feelings so the fact that people feel
12:30the same that i feel in like real life you know what i'm saying they gonna understand what i'm saying
12:36well i think i think your your strategy is working um you know you're really like i said you're you're
12:42killing on youtube on instagram everywhere your following um are just growing and growing and you have
12:48a lot of positive feedback from your fans and i know today we're going to get into two songs that
12:52you're going to perform so tell us a little bit about what we're getting ready to hear with this
12:57performance um the first song i'm performing is called real i worked on that with scott storage
13:05and that's definitely a big record i mean we just dropped this and make sure y'all go listen to that
13:10and my second song is gonna love we got that like four months ago that's a key
13:16how is it working with scott storage that's dope uh he quit like it's just like
13:22walk in like he heard how you now and it's just
13:28yeah with the keys
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