Today we’d like to introduce you to Kemoni Williams.
Hi Kemoni, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
Born in 1992, in California, I was just a normal kid who loved puzzles. No true ambition for life just enjoyed things that any normal kid would. Would get in trouble, and discover things through trial and error, but nothing that would shape me for anything for the next 30 years. That would all change with the discovery of one day, one instance, and one man. Michael Jackson — my discovery of him is what would influence both aspects of my life professionally and musically.
Now in 2024, 2024, who knows what happens now, I am learning to live life more, learning and working in synch, getting closer to god, working with more artists, etc. For now, Media Vybe Entertainment is on hold as we are looking at new approaches to the ever-changing music industry. But the story is yet to unfold, we have the future so let’s see what lies ahead. I have plans on making a final project titled “13 to 31” which captures my journey from making music from when I was 13 until 31, which I plan to release on my 32nd birthday.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Perhaps I should start my story from the beginning:
In 1997, I was about 5 years old in California at a friend’s house due to our moms being close, a dance battle was starting yet I did not know how to dance. This would lead to a discovery that would shape me into who I am today, the discovery of Michael Jackson. Despite the stories and claims my friend would tell me, he said he had proof, just only two problems, he showed me a VCR in which he said he had physical proof of this greatness but the VCR was broken and the Tape film was all over the place and tangled. I was a kid who loved puzzles and I treated both VCR and Tape as puzzle pieces, if I could fix the issue I would be able to see this tape.
The discovery of my first love, Technology. I first started on the tape and saw how it worked after using my pinky to rewind parts of the tape to get it to straighten out, I had never seen a VCR before but something in me just clicked. A piece of the film was just slightly tangled, so I carefully straightened out the film and was able to rewind manually back into the tape so at least the tape is fine. They were amazed and I was shocked to figure it out using the same puzzle logic; Next would be the VCR. I figured out that the VCR turned on and could play but it would not accept any tape no matter what, that is until I heard some rattle inside the VCR. Taking a look inside the insert, I saw a small penny trapped and hanging slightly on the side. My solution was simple, with one finger on my left hand, I held the insert open, and using my other hand, I carefully removed the penny, using my index and pinky finger. The look of shock and amazement on all of our faces, I wish we had cell phones as we do now lol.
Now the beginning of my second love, Music. I popped in the tape and when it played, it played a black screen, until I accidentally pressed “Rewind” instead of “Stop” and it rewound to the very beginning of the tape and I will never forget the first Michael Jackson song I would ever hear “Smooth Criminal” or how my young mind knew the song “Annie are you ok?”. We would watch Michael Jackson perform many songs but that song I tried so hard to learn because I was fascinated by it, As I began to study his voice, I tried to mimic it, looking at how he sang certain notes like it was another puzzle. Once I got enough of it down, my friend dared me to sing it into the crowd of adults. Which I hesitantly did, the look on their face was of amazement, including my mother’s. Later on, she would tell me, this was the first time she ever knew I would be a singer.
1998 – 1999, East St. Louis, IL, my father caught wind of my ability to sing and wanted to see how well I could adapt to modern music (other than Michael Jackson), this would be my introduction to neo-soul. The song in question was Donnell Jones’s “Where I Wanna Be”. I still remember the choreography me and my brother would do for this song, especially around the lyric “but in time” in which I would have to remember to tap on the watch on my wrist. Who knew this would be my primary genre the older I got?
Summer of 2006, Greensboro, NC is where I began to take music seriously, I think I was bout 11 or 12 going into High School (yes, I know, super young). I was gifted a USB MXL Microphone back in December of 2005 on my birthday and never knew how to use it until I paid for Magix Music Maker for $15 in 2006. The first three songs I ever made were the same songs I can no longer find anywhere, those songs were “You Never”, “The Rain”, and “Broken”. I remember being shy and never wanting anyone to know I did music because I personally never thought I was good enough. It wasn’t until I had a CD made for a teacher I had a crush on (my Spanish teacher Ms. Hardy) that she asked me if it was ok for her to play it for the class. I agreed and of course, I had to hide in the restroom (due to being shy about my music at the time). I came back to the whole class in support of my music and that day would be the day that would jumpstart me into pursuing music.
I would meet and collaborate with a lot of people from the years 2006 – 2010, those would be, RumyDaBeast (@rumydabeast_), King Ocie (@king_ocie), DJ Lil Vegas (@djlilvegas), Evan Melville aka E-Pham (@mynameis_evan), and many others. But my most memorable moment, aside from being a class clown due to being the youngest at the school, would be the talent show at Ben L. Smith in 2008 when the whole school heard me sing for the first time (aside from Ms. Hardy’s classroom). The song was “Exclusive” by Day26 and was originally meant to be performed by “Biscuit”, “Thylee” and myself, but ended up being Biscuit and myself. Never did I imagine that I would now be known for having a voice, which led me to try out for a competition for C.T.E. when they had a competition on looking for the next star.
2010, graduating high school at 16, going to Australia as a Student Ambassador, coming back to Chowan University in Murfreesboro, NC, and truly learning how to work on Computers volunteering at A-Head Computers in Greensboro. I battled between what I wanted to make out of my life, on one hand, Tech was my first love but on the other hand, I was told to not waste my “talent”. So I thought I could only make room for one.
2011, making the move from Murfreesboro, NC to Atlanta, GA. I would make music and upload it to Datpiff & Soundcloud but nothing would get anywhere other than a couple of plays so I figured I wasn’t good anymore and I should quit music and just focus on tech. Life ran pretty normally, good, bad, love gained, loss, you know, typical life stuff. I would still record but never release, that is where I started losing myself in music and nothing I made would allow me to evolve because I did not understand the new R&B coming out as I did not truly know how to adapt (this would be a continued problem within my life). Adapting was much different than a puzzle, because at least with a puzzle it was something that was already completed before, but I never thought about creating my puzzle piece. I would show some friends my songs but it would never be impressive to them other than “That’s cool”. That was until 2018, Donald Earl (my co-worker) at Northside Hospital in Atlanta, was in the 2nd Floor ICU working on some computers there where the topic was about music, and decided to share a song I freestyled a week prior called “Time” and he listened and looked at me and said, “No, you got to finish this and mix this to release it”. This is what re-ignited my passion for music. I started taking music super seriously during this point. But what made me go extremely hard would be when I performed at an event named “ReplayATL” hosted by Horus Gump and the reaction of the crowd was like a surprising shock to me. Maybe this time I have learned to create my puzzle piece finally!
From 2018 up until 2021 I was on a roll, meeting new people, collaborating with many people, and meeting some of the artists I looked up to such as Devvon Terrell, Kevin McCall (@kevinmccall_official), and many more. However, my career and life took a drastic turn for the worse when I suffered job loss, a relationship that left me broken, those whom I called friends to turn on me, and just the overall embarrassment of being a failure. In the middle of this time, I met folks who would later be the pillar of strength I needed to get back up and moving; Rad HD (@rad_hd), StopheCrazy (@stophecrazy), NovaDaBrat (@officialnovadabrat), BRE.iSH (@bre.ish), MAI the Official (@maitheofficial), Brendan Goshay (@thebrendangoshay), Cali YaYo (@cali_yayo), PlayPlay Beats (@playplaybeats), J-Minor (@prodbyjminor), Ayana Hassan (@ayanahassa.n) and Brenae (@itzbrenae), alongside my family. Media Vybe Entertainment was created in 2018 but was fully operational in 2020.
In 2020, I found myself in the middle of the pandemic, homeless, jobless, and in the worst state of life I could find myself in. In a toxic relationship where trust was broken, still trying to keep life together, unsure about the future. I was definitely in a dark place, but despite that, a conversation from Kenneth Goings that I remember having, brought up an idea, to bring back love. To bring back hope and faith, later on in November of 2020, I found myself in a better predicament. A new job, introduction and invitation to Clubhouse, and the expansion of Media Vybe Entertainment.
In February 2021 I released a project I have been working on since 2019 titled “L.o.V.E {LettingOutVariousEmotions]” which was about finding love in not only myself but my music and my relationship at the time that was just so filled with love, the irony being that same relationship ended disastrously for me a month before release. With sales, listeners, and overall reach being extremely low, I figured it was back to how I felt back in 2010 where maybe I hadn’t created my puzzle piece, maybe I hadn’t adapted. What would this mean for Media Vybe Entertainment?
Later In 2021, Rad HD and I agreed that I should give it another try with a different style and approach to music. This would lead to the beginning of my second album “pain·free” which tells the story of my journey from being in love, to being broken and learning how to find peace again, that album grew at the same time as me and it was released January 1st, 2023 to signify a new year and new way of looking at life. On the side of Media Vybe Entertainment, we were growing, shaking things up, working, until 2024.
2022 – 2023 was the year I began believing in myself again and this time I gave it all I had at the time, changing my sound significantly and adopting new styles, beats, and collaborations, I poured a lot of time, money, sweat, and tears to get that album out alongside getting the publishing/label Media Vybe Entertainment into the direction it needed to be. My second project “pain·free” would have a release party on my birthday and be released on January 1, 2023, at that time, life was picking up and nothing could go wrong right?
2023, life. I found myself jobless again, in debt, and once again unsure about the future, this time, I had a lot of successes and a lot of failures. This entire year, I have been the most disappointed in myself than ever, and the most honest with myself I ever had to be. I failed my own goals, but it was the folks I mentioned above who helped me in many different ways not giving up and keep trying new things until I can eventually and officially say that I have created my puzzle piece, that I have finally adapted. But most importantly, finding faith in God once again, finding a church that is New Love Manifested Glory (NLMG) (@nlmglory), with Pastor Brown, Ms. Tonya, Chriz Vaughn (@chrizvaughn), Matthew Heard (@mattondrums_), Marlon Chapman Jr. (@marleeeonthebeat) and many others who believe in me more than I have myself.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I do everything from Photography, Videography, Graphic Designing, Editing, Production (Engineering, Arrangements), Vocal Coaching, Background Singing, Artist Development, Songwriting, Publishing, Licensing, Business formation, Computer Repair, Computer Building, Gaming, you name it! I do so many things, I forget some other things I do not mention here. All these skills are a collection of information I gathered, tested, applied, learned from mentors, self-taught, and trial & error. The motivation behind all of these honestly comes from not having money to pay for a lot of things or having close relationships or networks willing or able to assist, so I figured to develop the skill myself. I guess it all boils down to one word, Capability.
Works:
L.o.V.E [LettingOutVariousEmotions]
https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/kemoni/love-lettingoutvariousemotions
pain·free [2023]
https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/kemoni/painfree-2
In terms of your work and the industry, what are some of the changes you are expecting to see over the next five to ten years?
Honestly, I cannot tell, we will just have to try and see what happened. Anything can happen, good or bad. I do however expect to give it everything I got.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/justkemoni/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/justkemonii
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/justkemoni
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXeQIebzovYacbm_uw7UWZQ
- soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/justkemoni
Image Credits
Shoan “Shoandphoto” Douglas & KeMoNi
