The Top-shelf musical stamp of Ke $upreme
“Timeless” EP a big move for musician
Afew weeks ago, Albany native and resident Kemiyah Griffin released her first EP, “Timeless.” Recorded under the name Ke $upreme, the project was the impetus for the R&b/hip-hop artist to really commit herself to growing as a musical creator.
“For the past year or two now, I’d been dropping a single here and there, like every six months or so,” Griffin said. “In April 2019 after I released my song ‘Gimmie Gimme’ I decided to be more consistent. I didn’t want to have just one style of sound and to be able to show my diversity.”
Sonically, “Timeless” is the synthesis of Griffin’s favorite sounds and artists – R&B in the vein of Chris Brown, gospel and Caribbean music. For her lyrics, she decided to make a concerted effort to delve into her own emotions and life.
The goal was to make a focused, cohesive project. And while she was committed to that, Griffin didn’t force her creativity, choosing to let ideas come to her naturally.
“Before, even two or three years ago, I wasn’t writing lyrics about myself. I’m a very private person,” Griffin said. “I’d make songs with my cousin Ace and just make up cool-sounding lyrics because of how they sounded with the beat, not because of any meaning.
“Now I write based on my emotions and how I’m feeling at that time,” she explained. “It’s in the car, really, that I think of things more. Just looking out the window, thinking about my emotions, making a music video in my head. I’ve been doing that since I was a kid.”
If Griffin’s been envisioning videos since childhood, she’s been working up songs to accompany them for just as long. She took her first stab at writing lyrics in elementary school, and from there she was hooked.
“My first song, I wrote it in second grade and it was called ‘Shayla Back,’” she recalled. “I just kept rhyming ‘back’ with something else. After that I started writing a page a day to get better at rhyming.”
Griffin found a mentor and cohort in her musical endeavors in her aforementioned cousin, Aaron “Ace $upreme” Chapman, a well-regarded local musician, videographer and graphic designer in his own right. The majority of her early material was conceived and recorded with his assistance, and he designed the cover art for “Timeless.”
When she discusses her creative pursuits, her cousin frequently comes up. It was his influence that inspired her to take music seriously and push herself to consistently improve as a vocalist and lyricist. She stresses that without that support, the journey that took her to the creation of “Timeless” would have been much more difficult.
“When I was eight, Ace lived around the corner from me,” she said. We’d set up and pretend to be our own radio station. He really inspired me and really got me into music.
“Ace is really it, he really got me started,” Griffin enthused. “I don’t know if I would have done any of this as easily without him. He does my videos, he did my cover art, someone really needs to give him an award.”
Because she received that encouragement steadily since childhood, Griffin felt confident when it came time to work on “Timeless.” And with the coronavirus pandemic keeping folks home, she made the most of the time and her self-confidence, using both to discover the exact version of herself and her art she wanted to present on the EP.
“Quarantine really helped me focus on my music; I was really just trying to find my sound,” Griffin said. “I was working to be more diverse with my music and message, so it will be more enjoyable to everyone.”
Part of that vision was keeping it clean. Griffin doesn’t curse in her music, which she thought might be a turn-off to other artists and fans of the genre. But she’s found that isn’t the case and has found that friends and family “like that they can play it around the house and in front of people.”
Moving forward, Griffin is focused on maintaining a consistent output of material and finding her audience. She’s already working on her next project and has a longterm goal of where she wants to end up as an artist.
“For me, I don’t want to be an A-list celebrity; I don’t want to be Beyonce,” she noted. “I make music for how I feel, and I want family and friends to support and enjoy it. I’d love to have the opportunity to play Alive at Five or something, and just have people who enjoy my music.”