Wayne’s embrace of rock music as a tenured rap star was a sight previously unseen, contradicting the racial and cultural stereotypes that have become intertwined with music. However, no one anticipated that he would ever play a guitar or that he actually skateboarded himself. Yes, Wayne, a Nirvana fan, had dipped his toes into the rock genre before, mostly with lyrical references to rock culture staples like skateboarding. However, neither artist forgets their rap roots - autotune is still Wayne’s friend, and Minaj delivers a punchy rap verse after a guitar bridge that parallels the main melody in Kings of Leon’s “Use Somebody.” “Knockout” and other songs from Rebirth, such as the grungy “Prom Queen,” are attention grabbing and incredibly ironic. Notable single “Knockout,” a collaboration with Minaj, leans on pop-punk inclinations: climbing guitar melodies, spunky drums, and power chords galore. Rather than continue competing with other rap artists, Wayne decided to turn to his alt-rock inspirations - Fall Out Boy, Blink-182, and others - on his 2010 rap-rock LP Rebirth, raising eyebrows in the process. Meanwhile, their mentor Lil Wayne, of “Lollipop” fame, had just released a rock album. He’ll be the first to tell you that no matter the size of his long term goals, he’s more than ready for everything between here and there.In 2010, Young Money protégés Drake and Nicki Minaj ascended to the top of the rap game with Thank Me Later and Pink Friday, respectively. Musically I want to bring Charleston to the world even moreso.” There’s no telling what he has planned to make those big dreams a reality, but in the meantime he has God to set his journey off. “People come to eat the food and see all of the slave stuff but Charleston has big commercial potential that’s why all of these companies come here. He understands that Charleston is now a world city, that people of all ages, and all backgrounds want to come here to see what it has to offer. To call Keith Fleming driven would be an understatement. It’s not to see myself as a supreme being, it’s about how I think you should see yourself and how you should respect yourself.” I realized that it meant nature, it meant everything that was of the universe,” he says. You’re taught these notions of God according to the systematic Christian version, and I started to really dive into that and I looked into where the word came from.
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Like Marvel, there are two things that really drive Fleming’s art commercialism and the concept of “the universal.” “Around that time I was fascinated with universes, cinematic universes like what Marvel has been doing.” I got more into the drawing and put the storytelling aside, but as I got older I was more interested in things that did a little bit of both.” He got his feet wet in hip-hop when he was taking part in dance and rap battles during his time in Orangeburg.
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“I was ambidextrous at one point so I would draw and write at the same time. From a young age, creating and entertaining has been a focal point for him. Rappers made me want to rap but I want to create things that appeal to everyone,” he says.Īpart from a brief move to Atlanta, Fleming’s always lived in South Carolina. Like if you’ve been to an EDM show, you know the kind of energy that’s in there. “Musically and sonically, just crafting a sound, I go back to people like Charlie Wilson, the Gap Band, Barry White. On “Astral God” he goes from a slouched whisper to spewing high energy to rolling down into a deep, warped register.
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Musically, the songs that have been released by God KOz are very well unified by dark, mechanized, futuristic beats, and Fleming’s expressive, ever-changing flow. If anyone knows that God KOz is legitimate, it’s the man himself. People knew if I got on it I was going to kill it.” Anytime he says “knock out” or “kill it” he lightly smacks his fist into his opposite hand.
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“Every time I got on the mic and got on the end of the track I knew I was going to kill it, I was going to knock it out. “Times have changed, Charleston has changed, now feels right.”įleming operates as a rapper under the name God KOz - and yes, that is pronounced K-O-Z. “Life just takes its course I’ve been holding onto this energy until now and I feel that now everything is ready to release itself,” he says. After releasing three singles in 2019, his debut LP, titled God, will drop on Feb. He’s the rare newcomer who plays things like a veteran and carries his experience like a badge. Now at the start of a new decade, he feels that he has everything he needs to get off the bench and become an all-star. Keith Fleming has been watching the Charleston arts scene unfold for almost his entire life.