MEET KESHI
The Houston nurse turns his viral fame as a singer-songwriter into a new career.
Keshi is an artist very much on the way up.
The Houston native signed with Island Records in 2019 and just released “always,” the final EP in a trilogy that showcases his gorgeous falsetto and rich layers of production. He clocks more than 3 million monthly Spotify listeners and tens of millions of plays each for several songs. A virtual listening party for “always” had so many people trying to log on that the servers crashed.
But it took a breakdown at his day job for Keshi to finally, fully embrace his passion for music. He was working as an oncology nurse in the Texas Medical Center and flying weekly to New York for music meetings at the same time. The balance and the stress of the job finally overwhelmed him.
“I can only explain it as sort of a coping mechanism for the stress that was underneath, like a dissonance. ‘Why am I here and not making music?’ ” Keshi, 25, says. “Basically, I had an outburst at a co-worker for absolutely no reason. I think it was just me and my manager in the room where that breakdown sort of happened. I came out 10 minutes later and apologized to everyone for the incident. It was just so clear to me at that point. ‘I obviously cannot do both things anymore.’ That was the signal.
“I was very scared. But I
couldn’t be scared anymore. The next day, I turned in my two weeks.”
Making it accessible
Keshi began releasing music in 2017 and broke out with his 2018 EP “The Reaper.” It became a favorite among K-pop idols, including BTS, NCT 127 and Itzy. That in turn gave Keshi a huge boost among the K-pop fan base.
His own music has been dubbed everything from lo-fi hip-hop to indie-pop. At its essence, it’s a soothing blend of samples, guitar and Keshi’s comforting vocals. His “skeletons” EP was released in 2019, with “bandaids” and “always” coming in 2020. That trilogy follows color (blue, purple, yellow artwork) and number (four, five and six songs) schemes.
It can be a heady mix. But the beauty of Keshi’s work is largely in its accessibility.
“There came a point where something clicked in my head. The songs can be really good,” Keshi says. “But if I can’t present them in a way that is digestible then there’s not a point.”
Inspired by Frank Ocean
Casey Luong, who would become Keshi, grew up in Sugar Land with parents who moved there from Vietnam. He graduated from Stephen F. Austin High School in Fort Bend County and earned a BSN from the University of Texas at Austin. He took piano lessons and played in school orchestras throughout his childhood. Despite that, music was not a priority at home. His parents rarely listened to the radio, and when they did, it was NPR.
“My first exposure to music was when I would get home, and I would watch this show called ‘Drake and Josh.’ It was a sit
com on Nickelodeon. Drake Bell wrote and sang the theme song, and I thought that was so cool,” Keshi says.
It wasn’t until high school, when he discovered John Mayer, that Keshi began to develop his
own tastes and truly sharpen his skills. The title track from “always,” in fact, samples Mayer’s “Waiting on the World to Change.” He also looked to Ed Sheeran and Jason Mraz, who embrace a DIY mentality.
Keshi watched YouTube tutorials and taught himself to write, producer, perform and engineer his music. He first recorded under
his birth name. But his songs weren’t picking up much traction.
“Something was missing from my music as Casey Luong, as this acoustic singer-songwriter. My songs just weren’t good enough” he says. “Something had to change in that mix. I was at a real war with myself. I wanted to quit guitar.”
It was Frank Ocean’s 2016 album “Blonde” that pushed Keshi to think differently about his music. He quietly created a Soundcloud account under the name Keshi, where he uploaded what he calls “weird, experimental stuff.” He took the name from the Japanese pronunciation of Casey used by a childhood friend’s family.
Growing popularity
Things then progressed quickly. He racked up astonishing numbers that now include half a million followers on each Instagram and YouTube. He reluctantly secured management and eventually got a call to fly to New York for a label meeting.
“I remember telling my mom that day, and she was like, ‘Who’s trying to take advantage of you?’ ” he says. “There was definitely fights along the way, them thinking that I didn’t appreciate the opportunities I had been given because they came from Vietnam to the States during wartime to give me everything.”
Gradually, as Keshi’s popularity grew and it was clear this was not just a hobby, his parents came around.
“I remember coming home that night after the incident at work, and I talked to my mom. I said, ‘I can’t do it anymore. There’s no reason for me to juggle these two lives. I’m gonna quit tomorrow.’ And she said, ‘Go do it. I get it,’ ” Keshi says. “It was a really nice validation.”