Kai is a local artist – beat boxer, singer-song writer and vocal
percussionist and tenor with the a cappella group Vocaluptuous. A believer in
creating music through personal experience, Kai has earned himself multiple
platforms to showcase his works at musicals, festivals and café gigs. His drive to be different and
unique values in making music make him one talent to look out for.
Acoustic
songs are general favourites. What made you decide to experiment with beat
boxing in your compositions instead of going with what most artists typically
work with?
While I think the melody and lyrics are
extremely important in any song, I feel very strongly about musical arrangements
as well. In producing the EP, I was influenced by my background in a cappella
music, arranging in layers and in certain keys or chords to give the music
particular colours. My background in beat boxing also led me to explore
different rhythms and incorporation of more electronic sounds.
Even though I categorise my music as
acoustic indie-folk/pop/rock, they sound vastly different when I’m performing
solo with guitar and vocals, versus the produced tracks because of the
different elements involved in my arrangements, and that’s something I hope
makes my music unique.
In the interest of keeping my music
completely independent, I took it upon myself to work on all facets of the
album, from writing to performing, recording to producing, and that might well
be my motto – that music can be highly
personal and that I would like to retain as much creative direction as possible
in the work which I put out.
This attitude has also impacted my outlook
on music appreciation as I listen to a lot less mainstream music and instead
choose to support excellent but less well-known local independent artists; since
I know just how difficult it is to make it in the local scene.
One of your songs from the Beginnings EP, Masks,
starts out slow but transits into a short beat box arrangement. What is the
story behind this unexpected arrangement?
The songs from the EP are about
relationships – not just romantic relationships but all sorts of interpersonal
ones, and just how fragile they are.
Masks has a backstory deeply personal to me, which I tried to reflect
both lyrically and musically. The beat box interlude which then progresses into
musical chaos, incorporating more electronic influences like synthesised wobbling
basslines and lead guitar riffs, followed by a sombre quiet thereafter, was intended
to represent how this particular relationship was strained by disagreement. Metaphorically,
Masks would feel something like
waking up the morning after a massive argument being very unsure of oneself,
and feeling a little regret.
With a wide variety of experience from café features, being involved in a
production by Dream Academy and even teaching at beat boxing workshops, how
different is each experience?
Café features of course allow me to
showcase my music to audience that tend to be more receptive since they
willingly and readily attend original music nights.
Crazy Christmas 2013 by Dream Academy was
definitely a memorable experience – working alongside renowned local entertainers,
having a two week run at the Esplanade, and falling in love with the magic of musical
theatre.
Teaching beatboxing workshops is also
always enjoyable as I have a special interest in pedagogy and it’s just incredibly
rewarding watching kids (mostly) learn a noisy and thoroughly useless skill.
Other memorable gigs include performing at
the National Museum of Korea, doing the National Day Parade last year, collaborating
with various musicians for a series which the Esplanade invited me to perform
(Kai and Friends, 2014), judging the National A Cappella Championships Beatbox
Battle this year, and so many others that it really is impossible to pinpoint
just one favourite.
Given
the rising exposure of independent music artists, has there been more support
for your works from the local audience?
Perhaps several years ago, before the
emergence of younger local independent musicians, it might have been more difficult
to break into the scene.
Beat boxing is about percussion, rhythms,
and is combined with vocal sound effects. I think it speaks to most of us on a level
that transcends lyrics or musical background. People were very receptive towards
it, but at the same time it was not really the kind of music which would draw
long-term sustained support from the same listeners over and over again.
As an independent singer-songwriter now I
am glad that my songs have been well received in the live-performance scene; friends
and total strangers alike have been very kind in going out of their way to tell
me how much they like the album, but there are still so many more venues I
would love to play and so many more listeners I’d like to reach out to.
What are your hopes for the future?
I hope to be able to do my own music more
often in the future. In the short term over the rest of this year, I will be
involved with festivals including the Y2K14 International Live Looping Festival
in California, where they invited me to perform as a Featured Performer at the
main festival and in a select pre-festival concert entitled “Best of the Fest”,
as well as the Singapore Night Festival, Singapore Live Looping Festival,
International A Cappella Festival 2014, and a bunch of other upcoming gigs,
which with a little luck will enable me to do music most of the time!
