Kingston Musician Shifts Focus to Funk
Three years ago, not long after the band he was in split up, Ricky Brant was given a piano chord chart by his girlfriend for his birthday.
Now, the self-taught musician — he had been the guitarist in the now-dissolved Shushlang — is performing and composing on the keyboards as the one-man electro-funk band KaKaow and has just released a new recording, Future Self (available through popular streaming platforms), his third in the seven months since he started.
“I knew I wanted to do something in that (funk) vein, but I didn’t fully realize it was going to be electronica,” the prolific 29-year-old explained.
Brant considers himself a “heavy, heavy old-school funk aficionado” with a side of psychedelia and counts Jimi Hendrix, James Brown, Parliament-Funkadelic and the Grateful Dead among his influences.
He’s one of the only musicians in the city who plays funk, and that distinction has drawn some attention from music festival organizers, Brant said. KaKaow was lined up to play four or five festivals this year before the provincial lockdown was imposed.
“It doesn’t necessarily matter if everybody likes it, or everybody listens to it, but the people who do listen to it really love it,” Brant said. “I’ve seen a lot of that support from booking these festivals and not even a year into being KaKaow.”
He has become accustomed to playing by himself instead of in a band, and that it’s always a “pretty heavy, funky show” when he plays live (which he does often through Facebook). And he isn’t tethered to his keyboard during the show, and now other instruments onstage with him.
“What’s nice is that I’m playing mostly to backing tracks, everything that I just created, so there are essentially one or two key elements missing that I play throughout the song,” Brant said, “but that also gives me the freedom to step back and let the bass and drums play while I go into the audience and dance or something.”
An early riser, the do-it-yourself Brant (he records and mixes his records as well) spends at least eight hours a day on his music, he said, and that by the time his girlfriend wakes up, he usually has written a song.
“She wakes up and it’s like, ‘Here’s KaKaow,’” he laughed.
Although he considers himself as someone who sometimes doesn’t finish what he starts, music is an exception.
“So, for me, when I put out these albums, there’s a sense of accomplishment and of creation and spirit that I know I have the tenacity to do this and make something cool and different,” he said.
In his newest recordings, he has sprinkled in a few guitar lines on some songs.
“It’s very interesting incorporating my guitar into the KaKaow music because I never intended for guitar to be in it in the first place,” he explained, “but I can.”
While his music to this point has been only instrumental tracks, he’s set to change that, too. He’s been working with some of the city’s hip-hop artists, who have been adding positive-leaning lyrics to his melodies. He plans to re-release revamped versions of those songs.
After all, he said, “you can’t be mad when you’re dancing to funk.”
KaKaow unleashes cosmic funk with new album Earth to Station
Earth to Station, the new album by Kingston's KaKaow, evokes sci-fi and galactic imagery… and not just through the album cover art. In the past, KaKaow—local music composer, producer and 2021 Mayor's Arts Award recipient, Ricky Brant—has played extensively with light and colour in his artwork and stage performances, and Earth to Station continues that trend, while intentionally thrusting into deep space. The album takes off with “Takin’ Off,” and sets the tone nicely for the rest of the album. Like many of the songs to follow, it launches into layered beats and synths, while introducing more traditional instruments such as congas and brass, as well as Ricky's signature electric guitar riffs. More than just a trendy sounding title, “Stay Lit” showcases Ricky's exceptional guitar playing, with groovy slides and staccato texture. The remainder of the album is a funkadelic trip through a glowing galaxy rich with a diverse and wondrous texture of rhythms and sounds, not all of which are electronic.
The album is a funkadelic trip through a glowing galaxy rich with a diverse and wondrous texture of rhythms and sounds, not all of which are electronic.
Kingston Live met with Ricky Brant to discuss his goals and intentions for KaKaow and the new album, Earth to Station. As a themed album, what was the inspiration for Earth to Station? Ricky: I believe that everybody’s perception is the most powerful thing on this planet, and probably in this realm. (Earth to Station) runs heavy with future funk and electro, and my music is kind of cyberpunk and futuristic, so that kind of ideal develops out. It’s textural. It’s spacious. It takes you to a different place. I want to create psychedelic experiences that take people to a higher realm of understanding in themselves, the universe around them and their place within it. That's exactly what I want to do with my music. How does Earth to Station differ from the music you have produced in the past? Ricky: It's a big old red oak. It’s ancient old growth forest where its roots are deeper and its heights are even higher. I believe that I have roots in this album that hearken into my past, more than previous KaKaow releases. Especially since I recorded guitar onto every track where I wanted to really be me. Previously, I was just composing music electronically, with no guitar. I feel Earth to Station has grown my mixing and mastering skills. The sound has become more polished and clear. The ideas are getting more cohesive. Did you have any goals or experiments in mind when you set out to create the new album? Ricky: Yes. I was actually trying to capture that live guitar feel, and to experiment with effects and automation. As I perform songs from the new album more, I've started playing less, to allow the song to do what it does. Minus the guitar, there's a lot of texture in my music. The songs can be everything on their own, without the guitar. What's the connection between the Earth to Station and the poem you recited at the Isabel for the album preview performance? Ricky: I've had a really transformative year, and through my experience, I wrote Earth to Station (the poem). It's transitory; it's one place to another; it's going to a higher ground, searching what's beyond you. The first part of the poem is called “earth station,” and after I finished the album, I realized that the station is only a midway point. “Station to stars” is the second part. (The music on the album) is like a train of thought. I wrote the songs all in one go, with no real edits. It's a reflection of the poetic nature of how I think to myself.
New EP by KaKaow and Dupel a successful chemistry experiment
On their collaborative new four-song EP, Mementos (released May 12, 2023), local hip hop artist Dupel and future-funk phenom KaKaow come together in an electronic beats and rap combo. This Kingston-based tag team has been hitting the scene hard with several live performances, and boasting new imagery drawing colours from an eye-catching purple and blue palette. Not one to shy away from the bright lights and hues in his visual art—including his latest music video for “Let's Get It”— KaKaow's colourful compositions cast a glow on Dupel's dexterous vocal delivery.
“We created the project as a way to tell the story of a relationship from start to ending, using bits of our own lives to do so,” explained Dupel of the artists' unfolding relationship. “Not only does each song act as a memento of an old relationship of ours, but the project itself is a way for us to remember that point in time of our careers.”
The four songs that comprise Mementos are sequenced in a particular order so listeners are experiencing the relationship in the reverse of its timeline. “We settled on telling this story backwards through the EP, and we named it after a movie that did the same thing; (director) Christopher Nolan’s Memento,” said Dupel.
The EP begins at the end with “Good Spirits” then finishes at the beginning with “XTC,” each song delivering an ebb or flow of energy, atmosphere and mood.
Mementos is guaranteed to get your head bobbing to the broken beats of KaKaow, synchronized seamlessly with Dupel's rhymes. KaKaow retreats back to these broken beats, but also features some similar sounds that he experimented with in his last album, Takin’ Off. For Dupel, this EP highlights his versatility and his ability to adapt and shift to different sounds.
Mementos would be a fitting soundtrack for a chill summer evening with your buds (and some bud). While the EP is sonically atypical for both KaKaow and Dupel respectively, it blends their talents together in a new and fascinating way. Fans of grime or dubstep should find Mementos especially enjoyable.