New Band of the Day 293: Kenna

This Ethiopian-born, Virginia Beach-bred protege of the Neptunes creates brilliant new wave hip hop-synthpop electro-R&B. But are we ready for it?

Hometown: Virginia Beach, USA.

The lineup: Kenna Zemedkun (vocals).

The background: Kenna Zemedkun was born in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, but attended the same Virginia Beach high school as Chad Hugo and Pharrell Williams of art-funk unit N*E*R*D and genius production duo the Neptunes. What a stroke of luck - not being born in Ethiopia so much as winding up in the same seat of learning as the two most influential R&B auteurs of the last decade. You can hear the influence of Hugo and Williams on Kenna's debut album, Make Sure They See My Face, which seems to do everything but what you'd expect - it goes all round the houses to avoid the taint of being what you or anyone might call a soul album. You can tell their signatures a mile off - Hugo engineered and co-wrote it, Williams supplied some of the material, it's released on the duo's Star Trak label, and as a result it sounds like the third album N*E*R*D may never get to make because they didn't manage to find a sufficiently large and open-minded audience.

All that said, the third of a million plays on Kenna's MySpace for the album track Say Goodbye To Love suggests "it" - the solution to the problem of how to communicate the excellence and invention of this new wave hip hop-synthpop electro-R&B - might all be in the marketing. Make Sure They See My Face is a black pop LP, with all the hooks and harmonies and tricksy rhythms that phrase connotes - apparently Kenna's "sonic aesthetic" was shaped by U2's The Joshua Tree, but listening to his music one imagines XTC remixed by Terminator X or a summit meeting between Todd Rundgren and Timbaland. A song called Loose Wires asks, "Isn't it electric in here?" and with its nervy beat and shimmering synths it does indeed sound like a bootleg mash-up of Kelis' Milkshake and Tubeway Army's Are 'Friends' Electric?

He's got a notable cross-section of supporters for his rocked-up cyber-funk, including Bono, Justin Timberlake, ?uestlove, Michael Stipe and Nas. And some people at least in his management are thinking along the right lines - he's opened for Depeche Mode's Dave Gahan and toured with No Doubt - well, half right. When Mark Ronson played Kenna's forthcoming single Out of Control on his Authentic Shit East Village radio show, the internet underground was set a-buzz. And when that song served as the soundtrack to the recent Sony PSP commercials Kenna's mainstream cred grew exponentially. And yet the problem of how to project this and other eclectic musicians like him remains. It even made its way into a book: author and marketing guru, Malcolm Gladwell, in his 2005 best-seller Blink, devoted an entire chapter to the subject, entitled Kenna's Dilemma, after his 2003 debut album for Sony bombed. Hopefully, this time Kenna will be met with more than confusion and bemusement.

The buzz: "Part Stevie Wonder, part Radiohead, part Ric Ocasek, Kenna blends different cultures and identities in a sound that's completely his own."

The truth: If you liked the two N*E*R*D albums - and bizarrely, hardly anybody did - then you'll love Kenna's one.

Most likely to: Give radio programmers a headache.

Least likely to: Be confused with early-70s glam-rock also-rans Kenny.

What to buy: The single Out Of Control (State Of Emotion) is released by Universal on April 28, with the album Make Sure They See My Face following on May 5.

File next to: N*E*R*D, XTC, Talking Heads, The Police.

Links: www.myspace.com/kenna

Tomorrow's new band: The Loose Salute.

Contributor

Paul Lester

The GuardianTramp

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