ON THE RISE
When Kenya native Lovince Mckenzie moved to the United States in search of greener pastures, it didn’t take long for him to hear reminders of home.
The singer and songwriter wasn’t expecting Afrobeat music to be so popular in his new home. But he’d walk into a restaurant or step onto an elevator and hear those familiar sounds as the genre swept across America.
“That triggered something in me,” Mckenzie says. “Africa has a whole bunch of genres depending on the country but Afrobeat is like the mother genre that everything else falls under and it’s the only genre that’s really getting the recognition right now. I’m Kenyan American so I have my American side and my Kenyan side and I wanted to merge those two worlds in my music and Afrobeat was the genre to help me do that.”
Now Mckenzie has made a name for himself in the music world, with tens of thousands of streams every month and his latest single, “I Know You Know” garnering more than 300,000 plays on Spotify while the official video has been viewed more than a million times on YouTube. But Mckenzie has only been focusing on his own music for a handful of years at this point.
He started hanging around a recording studio in Nairobi before moving continents and soon found himself working on other artists’ music while his own recordings remained a hobby.
“There was a time when certain artists I was working with, their music started taking off and it was just impressive and amazing seeing someone go from really struggling on the bottom to becoming a global superstar,” Mckenzie says. “When the projects I was working on started really taking off and people got brand new careers that changed their lives, that was my moment when I decided to really get serious with it.”
After he settled in to his new home, Mckenzie traveled to Atlanta and found an “amazing” producer in Nektunes to work on his music with.
“We started working on music together and the blend was amazing,” he says.
He also traveled back to Africa and found two producers from Nigeria who helped him dial in his Afrobeat sound. Mckenzie released his first single in 2020 and has followed that up with six more releases. He’s released three official videos in 2023, and they’ve earned more than a million-and-a-half views.
“I Know You Know” has become a viral hit in the two months since Mckenzie released the music video. The song was inspired by Rema’s single “Calm Down,” which featured Selena Gomez on vocals.
“That song is everywhere,” Mckenzie says. “Rema is from Nigeria and he signed to Jonzing World and Mavin Records. I know some of the team members from the label that signed him so it was amazing seeing how they created this particular song. Big shout out to the Nigerian brothers D’prince, Tega and Don Jazzy. It took over a year of it just staying online and getting good enough numbers and after they did a remix with Selena Gomez it just took over the world and now you go everywhere on the face of this planet and Rema’s song is playing.”
Mckenzie traveled back to Nigeria to record the song and complete mixing and mastering. Then he traveled to Albuquerque, New Mexico to shoot the music video with Daniel Zollinger of Sweetascinema, giving it a definite international vibe.
“I do call myself a global citizen and music is a universal language so being able to connect the world and people through music, it’s something that drives me and inspires me,” Mckenzie says.
Mckenzie has ideas of his own for a remix of “I Know You Know” that might feature a surprising American artist.
“American commercial artists have embraced this new genre and they actually say it’s the new R&B and hip hop,” Mckenzie says. “I look forward to the future to see where Afrobeat is going to go next from here. Personally I’m looking forward to the collaborations.”
Make sure to stay connected to Lovince Mckenzie on all platforms for new music, videos and social posts.
Upcoming 100: How do you balance experimenting with new sounds and styles while still maintaining your unique artistic identity?
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