Building relationships, finding originality, & balancing music and business: Kenni Blu

Kenni Blu is the next busy guest on our list.

• PR & Marketing Consultant & Strategist and Music Producer
• Founder of channelindigo.co.uk.
• Working with charities like The Music Works and Your Next Move. As well as Eljé, Kevin Taylor (House of Pharaohs), George Astasio, Edward Nixon and more.
• VCSE Strategic Partnership Board Member, supporting the voluntary sector for the South West.

Let’s just begin with, what have you been up to lately? 

So more recently I’ve been kind of back producing kind of records rather than just marketing them, which has been cool. I’m working on stuff with Eljé at the moment who’s an artist who’s based in Gloucester as well, but has recently started popping off. I initially worked with her in a kind of marketing sense for her first release, but I’ve just kind of been getting back to producing. It’s been nice to actually be able to get back in the studio rather than just sat behind a laptop all day and sending emails and press kits and everything, which has been busy, but nice. Bit of a change.

How how did it all start for you? What’s your background? 

I used to be a professional dancer before music, basically, and I was always kind of wanted to be able to produce my own music and be able to kind of put on my own shows with most of produced by me. I’ve always been around music in some way, shape, or form. 

My brother was a relatively big Garage DJ at one point. My uncles have always been kind of working on sound systems and stuff, so when I got to about 18, I wanted to kind of jump into that a bit more. I started producing and kind of dabbled with artist management at the time and that’s where I first started kind of like picking up experience with marketing. I interned for a couple of people like Edward Nixon who’s a music producer and he’s a sound engineer for Justice League. He co produced and sound engineered a lot of the early Drake and Nicki Minaj. That was pretty much what really kind of pushed me into the industry and started opening up doors for me and stuff. I also had some shorter spell internships and things like that alongside, but from then it was just mainly production really. And it’s been the last, say about year and a half, nearly two years that marketing started to take a bit more of a lead just in terms of who I’m working with on like a regular basis. So it’s been nice to kind of come full circle and get back to actually making the music again. 

Were you based in Gloucester during that time? 

Yeah, so I was really lucky because Edward lived like he used to live probably around like 20 minutes away from me or something like that, like 15/20 minutes. So we kind of crossed paths at the Music Works. From there really we spoke and I had absolutely no clue about sound engineering but I was very keen on learning, and I made a point of that. I said that I would more or less do anything to be able to intern and it was good because he gave me a chance and I’m lucky to still have that relationship today. 

How would you describe the music scene in Gloucester? 

It’s definitely got a lot of talent. 

I’d say quite a lot of rap is quite big in Gloucester, but because we neighbour, Bristol Dance music is quite big as well. Drum & Bass, Garage, Jungle, all of that stuff is kind of getting a bit of a buzz back in Gloucester, which is cool, because my brother’s generation was like, 16 years older than me and he was kind of popping off in Garage. That was his first kind of insight into the industry and his friends and whatnot. We’re kind of running down that path and this has again come back in, like a wave and bigger this time, really, a lot of people are kind of getting involved in music from a younger age and are putting themselves out there from a younger age, which hasn’t always really been the case. It’s always been like a kind of hobby in later life kind of thing in Gloucester.

I think the one thing that Gloucester’s missing is seeing somebody that’s taken it kind of all the way in terms of a commercial sense. Just because I think in such a small place, you do find people kind of competing for the same opportunities and whatnot. So it’s been nice to see with Eljé, for example, somebody who’s very sure of where they want to be and that weight is carrying into the industry rather than just kind of bouncing around Gloucester where people are competing for the same kind of thing. She’s broadening her horizons, which is cool. And I think it will kind of change things for Gloucester in general because I think with all small places there’s like an element of small town mentality. But, yeah, I think there’s a lot of the ceilings high for what Gloucester can produce. Definitely. 

Would you say that’s thanks to places like The Music Works?

Yeah, I’ve been involved with The Music Works since I was just past 18 and I’ve personally seen their presence open up a lot of doors for people that didn’t have access to kind of quality music studio years and things like that before.

They have an artist development program called Upsurge as well, which I market for, and the artists that kind of come through there, they get quite good support. Eljé being one of them initially who was on Upsurge and has kind of been supported in the things that she’s needed anyway in terms of access to studio time and kind of good advice to getting into the industry. 

It’s definitely helped a lot of people and obviously everybody’s journey is different, but it’s always like a safe kind of place to go. If you need to make a quality recording or if you are on the verge of getting into the industry, then the tools are there to be able to steer you in the direction that you want to go in. benefiting from that relationship as well. So, yeah, it’s a cool thing, definitely. 

The main person that I kind of owe a lot of this to is Malaki Patterson. So he’s the artistic director of the Music Works. We knew each other anyway, somebody that I know growing up just through my brother and whatnot. So he kind of took me under his wing and was showing me basic kind of stuff and then things kind of snowballed from there.

How did your marketing career progress? 

I was initially managing an artist who I was doing kind of press for and was always kind of actively promoting different campaigns. With Sam Recks and a couple of other people, I was kind of going back and forth with Malaki about what I thought was going to take off and why, and Malaki is quite funny because he’s very up to date, but he’s also kind a little of out the loop as well. He says we kind of make him feel old at some points, but he basically realized that I did have a decent eye for marketing and connecting with audiences and whatnot. So he was letting me kind of trial some different releases and support in different ways and whatnot, as well as having my initial track record of working in artist management going recently well as well. Eventually they became like my first proper client, really, outside of managing a single artist, and yeah, it just kind of picked up and grew from there. 

What were you seeing in these artists? 

There’s a big pool in Gloucester, but I would say for me, because rap and dance are like the two bigger genres that I kind of look at, and it sounds cliche, but it’s originality. The feeling that something new is kind of coming from what the artist is producing, because I think in a more generic sense, music is so accessible nowadays and there is naturally going to become an average of what people are producing.

I just think that’s the biggest thing for me, like, just having your own style and having your own persona about you, even if the music is not exactly where it needs to be in terms of quality. Got those first two things, and you’re already moving in the right direction of having some kind of superstar quality. 

So you kind of started onboarding clients. Is that what Channel Indigo is? 

Yeah, Channel Indigo is me, basically. So it’s still like a one man band, but it’s more of a face of my marketing and my love for music. In one place, I basically still work with a kind of mix of clients. One of them is a dance company, another one is a music tuition company, and then others are kind of more similar, like The Music Works. Yeah, that’s like where I kind of write about music, market music, and to just keep up to date with what’s going on, really. 

What have you learned whilst having this business in marketing, and what advice would you give for someone would want to do the same sort of thing? 

I’d say be willing, ridiculously willing to learn. That opens up more doors than I think initial ability ever will. I never went to college for marketing, and I never did any kind of formal education for it. 

There’s obviously a lot that kind of goes into it, but I’d say my eagerness just to find out as much as I possibly can has always been like the driving factor for me actually getting anywhere with it, if I’m being honest.

Those early days were like the best kind of times for me to really trial and error. Learning online, learning from books, learning from different people that work in the industry and stuff. I think the one person that I do have to kind of give props to in regards to developing market wise, I’m really grateful, is a guy called Rich Lee. He’s a CEO of Radioactive PR, but he’s a very forward thinking kind of marketeer and kind of took me on and allowed me to learn quite a lot under him as well. 

There’s a lot of learning on the job, I would say, so just be prepared for that. 

I think getting through those early stages is being able to shift a lot of self doubt and kind of being able to say yes when you don’t think that you deserve to kind of beat an impostor syndrome, but also being able to say no as well and admit when you’re not actually ready for certain things. I’ve been in positions where I’ve been kind of put forward for different more corporate work, kind of bigger pay work and things like that, but there’s points where I had to say no because I knew that the money was good, but it would kind of damage my reputation long term just because the quality I was able to deliver wasn’t what was needed. 

Looking back, pursuing marketing has only kind of opened up more doors for me. And I’m probably more active in terms of being involved in bigger potential records now than what I was before, just because I’ve got an extra skill that I can add.

So what would you like kind of want to tell us about your music? How would you describe it? How has it evolved? 

I wouldn’t say I’m any genre of producer, really, just because I know my stuff varies from being quite commercial or fitting into a certain kind of bracket, but I’ve always been lucky to have my own kind of sound and my own kind of way of approaching kind of music. But over the last couple of years, I think it’s evolved more in terms of a quality, not quantity approach. I’ve slowed down from chasing placements and forcing bigger records to kind of come through, And I’m lucky to have kind of bigger records there that are kind of waiting to come out, but they don’t excite me as much as the kind of smaller, more engaged stuff. When you’re working with the artists on the cusp of doing something really new and really exciting. So I mentioned Eljé before, so I think for what she’s doing within the dance music sense, it feels refreshing and there’s something really cool and it’s something which I don’t necessarily produce on a regular basis. It’s kind of pushed me out of my comfort zone to really kind of deliver something new again and focus more on the quality rather than chasing 500 songs a year, really. 

I think most producers, we get caught in the loop of trying to churn out loads of beats and then send them out to as many people as possible. But recently I’ve noticed the value of kind of stepping away from that. It’s made me love music again, if I’m being honest. 

How do you balance that sort of making the music and then the business side?

It’s hard, I’ll be honest, it’s not easy and I probably don’t get as much time as I want to kind of make music.

I would advise in terms of being able to balance it is just remembering why I’m doing it, why I’m doing the other stuff. Not everything has to be a major career choice and I think that’s always important to remember. Not everything has to be what you’re going to make the rest of your life. Some things can just support you along the way even if it doesn’t feel like you’re going in the right direction.

Before all of this I was still working a normal job pretty much full time whilst trying to balance music, which just wasn’t sustainable because the flexibility wasn’t there and I didn’t have any money to kind of invest back into myself as well. So yeah, it’s just kind of understanding why you’re doing certain things and taking solace in the fact that your journey is going to be different to other people’s and that’s fine. 

So what are, looking back, what are some highlights of your career so far and what are your plans for the future? 

So highlights, I’d say two of the biggest ones. 

I was always kind of really big on a group called House of Pharaohs when I was in school. And last year I’ve had a song that’s released with Kevin Taylor from House of Pharaohs called ‘Young Thug’. And that was like a surreal moment for me because I remember listening to them on the way to do my GCSE’s. 

Eljé’s Peach Squash Sunday, hands down, one of my most favourite things that I’ve worked on personally, not just because of the success of it, just because of how kind of new it felt at the time and and where it’s kind of going now. She’s in a position where she’s taken off, and I’m just kind of grateful that I was a part of the process kind of early on going to be a part of the process in the future as well.

I’d say for the future, I’m mostly excited about more music coming out, really, that I’ve actually been able to get hands on. I think over the last few years, I’ve started to become more known as Kobe the marketer rather than Kenny Blue, the producer- and that’s my roots.

I think really kind of getting back into that mode and being able to prove myself again has put a battery in my back, and I’m just excited for the next couple of records to come out and start getting the ball rolling again, really, because I think the next kind of few that are on their way have got high ceilings.

What motivates you?

I would say with anything that I’m involved in is just creating something original. I think art motivates me to be honest. Just being around what Eljé’s doing at the moment in terms of video shoots and next kind of steps for plans and whatnot. It really motivates me to do more because it’s so creative and it’s so different – it just feels very new. 

I think before we even get into the studio, and if we’re already thinking in the kind of sense of like, “yeah, we really want to push the boundary today” – that really puts a battery in my back to try and make the best thing that I possibly can do you know what I mean? 

I think it’s so easy to get kind of swamped up in technicalities that are making music, like “I need to get the mix perfect or need to change this on the beat. Change that on the beat.” But I think the initial thing that kind of makes me happy about it is just knowing that I’m in the headspace to really come up with something new today, something which is authentic to me and the people that I’m working with.

I’ve obviously got the kind of normal producer goals of kind of going gold and going platinum. 

But I think one of the biggest, and I guess weirdest ones for me, is that I would want to produce the music for a fashion show, start to finish. Off White would have to be one of my ideal ones, but there’s some other brands which at the moment are kind of coming up that I want to get involved with.  Corteiz is a brand that I’d like to kind of produce music for, and another one called Years of Tears. I think that’s one of the biggest bucket list things for me as a producer, making music start to finish for something like Fashion Week or something like that. That’s a huge one for me. 

Have you got any other song or artist recommendations from your experiences?

Yeah, so I mentioned it so many times throughout this, but Eljé definitely, Len, Kevin Taylor again, is like a big one that I think has got a ridiculous amount of potential. Jim Legxacy again, this another a big one that I think has got a ridiculously high ceiling and is really creative at the moment.

Otherwise, Fimiguerrero is like another kind of up and coming artist that I’d recommend. Those are probably my top five that are really going to kind of make strides within the industry over the next couple of years.