Music
Keita Juma is finding the sweet spot between life and music
The Bristol-born, Mississauga-based rapper talks fatherhood, building a musical community and his new album, "Young Zen Mode".
When Keita Juma asks to meet at Toronto’s Allan Gardens Conservatory on a weekday afternoon, it’s hard to imagine a more apt setting to interview the Bristol-born, Mississauga-based rapper. Over the course of multiple genre-skewering projects, including 2015’s CHAOS THEORY and 2017’s Friendly Reminders, he’s established himself as a gifted storyteller who’s constantly taking in his natural surroundings. Young Zen Mode, feels like the culmination of his career to date and traces the journeys he’s been on not only as an artist, but as a father too.
“Young Zen Mode is that perfect marriage of experience, information and patience,” explains Juma, who made the album while splitting time between Canada and the UK and raising his now six-year-old daughter. “This record is me figuring out my balance of life and how I want to pursue all things.”
On why he prefers putting out albums over singles
Around the time Juma was working on CHAOS THEORY, he made a beat for a song called “Young Zen Mode,” which would later become the title of the album. “I realized in completing this project only in the last few weeks I actually like albums more. I like putting out a body of work,” the rapper explains. Over the last two years, he says he recorded many additional songs that would fit on Young Zen Mode, but decided he needed to start sharing them.
“Yes, some people are going to miss some of the songs, they may only like a few songs, but that’s not the reason I’m doing this. I’m not doing it to try and make one hit for everybody,” says Juma. “You can dissect it however you want, you can put one on your playlist, that’s not up to me, but I do want to share the whole thing and I do enjoy piecing it together.”
On the records that influenced "Young Zen Mode"
Rather than being influenced by any one album, the 13 tracks that make up Young Zen Mode incorporate elements from several genres, which Juma says was an unconscious decision. “In any kind of music, the one thing that sticks out to me every time is the drums, whether that’s electronic music, reggae, Dirty South [hip-hop], funky house or afrobeat,” he says. “I was in the UK for half of that [recording] process and reconnected with that raw dance culture of going to the club and just hearing beats.” Besides experimental hip-hop mainstays Shabazz Palaces and Saul Williams, he kept a playlist of all the songs he was listening to while making the album, which included James Blake, Hiatus Kaiyote, Nils Frahm, Jonny Greenwood’s “House of Woodcock” (“That shit’s my jam”), Bobby McFerrin’s “Improvisació 1,” and other movie scores.
“Minimal artists are inspiring me, but also allowing me to be more comfortable in my own skin with how minimal I want my music to be,” says Juma. “I don’t have to make this expansive musical soundscape, I can just have one synth and this drum loop if I want it to be that or grow from there, which is my long-winded answer of saying people who are making weird music."
On making music as a single parent
“My daughter is the A&R,” he says with a laugh. “She’s listened to every song first since CHAOS THEORY, and she’s kind of my marker. Even the track that got the biggest reaction at the [Young Zen Mode] listening party, “Nature,” she’s like ‘Play the nature song dad, play the nature song.’” He says that he typically records at night after putting her to bed, and this schedule allows him to focus on parenting and "just living life." “I try to subtly let her listen to other young women or women who are inspiring other women, and it gives her confidence,” adds Juma. “She loves to dance, she loves to sing and she makes music with me sometimes.”
3 min
Queued Up: Ebhoni
Raised in Toronto’s vibrant Weston Road community, Ebhoni is cementing her spot in the city’s famed R ‘n’ B scene, but she’s destined for the international circuit.
On the Toronto artists past and present that inspire him
Growing up in Bristol, Juma names a handful of UK grime emcees including Wiley, Skepta, Kano and D Double E as formative influences on his style and how he approaches music. “I think they just let me know at a young ago it’s okay to be who you are,” he says. As for his all-time favourite Toronto rap albums, he lists Choclair’s Ice Cold, IRS’ Welcome to Planet IRS, and Saukrates’ The Underground Tapes. “Choclair was on Rap City, he was on 106 & Park. The Saukrates album you couldn’t find anywhere so I was deep on Limewire trying to get all the tracks,” he says.
During the recording of Young Zen Mode, Juma found himself reaching out to a handful of younger Toronto artists, including brothers Colanthony(who co-produced and played on a handful of the album’s tracks) and Clairmont II Humphrey (aka Clairmont The Second). “I’ve actually learned a lot from Clairmont. We sat down, he showed me what he was working on, and his level of internal exploration is admirable in that sense because he doesn’t see any limits,” he explains. “I feel like there’s a level of confidence in the younger generation because Toronto has always been cool, whereas as when I was younger and I would leave Toronto, it wasn’t always cool and it became cool.”
On where he sees himself and his peers in the Canadian music scene
“I feel like we’ve recognized our power and potential in a new way, in not just a one-tiered approach of like, ‘I’m going to give you this record and that’s my identity.’ I feel like now we recognize that we enjoy art as a whole, music is just one of the things,” he says. After the album comes out, Juma plans to do a gallery installation based on "Nature" and says it’s just the beginning. “I’ve always believed that we all have to be active for this community to work and for us to have a global identity,” he says. “It can’t be one person putting out records, we all have to put out our records, we all have to do our listening parties, do our shows, it’s this thing that has to be living and breathing consistently. I feel like we’re in a great place but it still needs work.”
