kii: Sunday Spotlight

kii is a fresh new artist, bringing her soulful and upbeat vibe to the Syracuse music scene. As a military kid, she bounced around a lot during her childhood, living in various states. Born in Virginia, kii spent a lot of time in New Jersey, especially during summers, to visit family, and claims the state as home. She also talked about her Grenadian roots and the Caribbean influence on her music. Kii is a proud collaborator of The SENSES Project Syracuse. SENSES (which stands for Studying an Environment that Nurtures Self-Exploration in Students), is a “student focused multi-media lab” focusing on various aspects of the industry such as podcasting, production, DJ-ing, vocals, instruments, and more. kii was featured as one of the artists on The SENSES Project’s collaborative album HEART/BREAK, singing on tracks like “Memories.” When talking about her writing process, she said she likes to be secluded when writing songs, and writes most of songs either comfy in bed with a blanket, and writing lyrics on her notes app, or as she’s driving alone in her car, coming up with melodies and using voice notes. She cites living in many different places during her childhood as a big inspiration of her songwriting, saying she likes to pull from anywhere and can’t stick to one genre, saying artists like Stevie Nicks were introduced to her from living in different places. Some of her other biggest influences are SZA, The Weeknd, and Frank Ocean. kii is especially inspired by Ocean’s writing style saying, “he doesn’t write music, he writes stories to beats.” Her song, “Down for You,” was inspired by the vibe of a sunny spring day, driving with the windows down, which she wrote during a cold Syracuse winter as she was missing sunny weather. The lyrics of the song, which she made the beat for, is about the energy of a summer fling and having love for somebody. kii has performed live, like at a music showcase in SU, and she said it’s something she wants to do more of. You can find kii’s music on Spotify and Apple Music. She is planning on dropping music in the Spring or Summer.