Today we’d like to introduce you to Kinfolk Jon.
Hi Kinfolk, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
My passion for music started when I was growing up in New Orleans, seeing the success of local labels like No Limit Records and Cash Money Records really inspired me to get involved in music at a very young age. In middle school, I moved to New Mexico, where I met my bestfriend Gabe Miller, we got along because of our passion for music, especially Hip Hop. When we were 14, we decided it was time to start making our own music. We bought all the equipment to be able to produce, DJ and be the artist. Immediately we gravitated towards the producing aspect. We loved making beats. We started putting our music on Soundclick.com and we quickly received great recognition on the site. Frequently charting top 50 on the instrumental charts on the site. We then moved to LA and started The Beat Brigade production team with our friend Ben Great. We started throwing show in LA in 2015 to showcase Ben Great and an artist we produce for $teven Cannon. At one of our first shows, we met Lil Xan who was just a supporter of $teves at the time. He then started doing photography at our shows til his camera got stolen at one of the shows. After that Xan decided to start rapping because he had access to our studio and $teve was willing to put him under his wing. 2016 Xan signed his deal with Sony/Colombia. I’ve been producing for him, $teven and a bunch of other artists since then. Also started dropping my own music as well during the pandemic. Have gotten to tour all over the world with Xanarchy for the past four years.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It’s never been a smooth road. You just gotta take it day by day. The worst part of the journey was Gabe passing away in the studio in 2016. That really hurt all of us deeply. Definitely a very depressing time, but it also motivated us to go harder. He was a monumental part in everything, including him pushing us to move to LA. I don’t know what I would be doing if we didn’t start making music back in the day.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I’m a music producer, songwriter, engineer and recording artist. I’ve produced for Lil Uzi Vert, YBN Nahmir, Trae The Truth, Kidd Keo, Lil Duval, Smoke DZA, Caskey, Odd Future and many more. In-house producer/engineer/DJ for Lil Xan. Mixed a couple of multi-platinum songs as well (Betrayed for Xan and Bounce Out by YBN Nahmir). I enjoy being a part of all aspects of the music-making process. From producing, mixing, songwriting, artwork, roll out plans for the record. Every aspect is fascinating to me.
How do you think about happiness?
Music makes me happy, it’s very therapeutic for me. The moment I’m away from working on something, I start to get anxiety… Seeing my family and friends happy makes me happy as well.
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Website: kinfolkjon.com
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/kinfolkjon
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/kinfolkjon
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02S5Gx6_SfQ
- SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/kinfolkjonn
