KeAnthony

From the blues to soul to Hip-Hop and R&B, the melodic music of Black people in America has told the stories of a people much like a harmonious, ever-evolving history book. Whether the woeful wails of slaves toiling in the tobacco fields to the revolutionary rhythms of 1970s funk right down to the rugged rhymes of Compton, Calif. gangster rap group N.W.A., the music of Black folk has told stories of love, losses, triumphs and even shortcomings.

Continuing in that same oral tradition of unapologetically sharing his soul to the masses is east Nashville native KeAnthony. Over hard-hitting Hip-Hop production, this brazen balladeer bellows in a brilliant baritone about the struggles of everyday people on his as-yet-untitled highly anticipated album on Nashville-based Felonious Records.

“I make the kind of music people can relate to,” he explains. “I’m able to take the experiences that I’ve had and actually saw, write down them down and sing that to you…What I sing is stuff that you actually feel. I’m actually singing things that both men and women both can feel and understand.”

Coming up in Nashville’s notorious Lane Garden Apartments, music was always a part of his life. By the age of five, young KeAnthony Dillard was touring the country as a member of his family gospel group the Gospel True Notes made up of aunts, uncles and cousins. But because singing barely made ends meet, KeAnthony took to the streets at an early age to earn money for his bread and meat.

“When I saw what the cats in streets were doing, it influenced me to go out and do things I wasn’t supposed to do,” he confesses.

So at the tender age of 19, KeAnthony was caught on the wrong side of the law. A consequence of being turned into police by his longtime best friend, he was convicted of aggravated robbery and spent the next eight years in the belly of the beast.

“Sitting in that penitentiary gives you a whole lot of time to think,” says KeAnthony. “Either you’re going to get back out and do the same things you were doing or you’re going to get out here and plant a seed and grow.”

KeAnthony chose the latter after his release. KeAnthony realized that a life of crime was not for him. Back in the free world at age 27, he released his independent debut album A Hustlaz Love Story in 2007. The city ate it up and eventually, the album fell into the lap of the head of A&R at Warner Bros. who quickly signed KeAnthony to a major label deal. The following year, his major label follow-up album A Hustlaz Story was released on Warner Bros./Reprise.

KeAnthony penned each track on the album with production credits from the likes of Tank, the Underdogs and Scott Storch. But because the label neglected to market and promote the project correctly, the album did not reach expected numbers in sales.

Disgusted with way his project was handled by the label, KeAnthony turned in his walking papers last year and landed a deal with Nashville-based Felonious Records. With the release of his as-yet-untitled forthcoming album, he will soon show the world exactly what they have been missing.

“Other cats may call my music thug R&B but this is Hip-Hop/R&B, kind of like Mary J. Blige,” KeAnthony explains. “But our style of Hip-Hop down South is different from Northern Hip-Hop. Down here, we are talking about what’s real. Up there, they’re spitting for lyrics. But it’s all Hip-Hop. My lyrical content is different from everybody else’s because I’m a man who came up off the streets.”

music by KeAnthony

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