We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Christopher Kenji. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Christopher below.
Christopher, so excited to have you with us today. So much we can chat about, but one of the questions we are most interested in is how you have managed to keep your creativity alive.
For me, one of the most important things about being and staying creative is to not have a scarcity mindset. Sometimes it’s easy to think that there are only a certain amount of good ideas in your head or that there is only so much that you are capable of creatively. This is especially something you may be vulnerable to if you’ve already set some narrow boundaries of what you deem “on brand” for yourself —and even more so if you’ve had a bit of success doing that. Now, I’m not saying that you shouldn’t think about the cohesiveness of your work or that you need to try to reinvent the wheel with everything you do and make it impossible for you to market yourself —all I’m saying is that, when it comes to creativity, you truly have to have an abundant mindset where anything is possible.
As frustrating as it is, I’ve found that creativity is more something that comes to you than you go to it. It’ll come in moments and usually the most inconvenient ones at that —those days where you have like 9,000 things to do or at 3AM when you should be sleeping and all of a sudden you’ll get an idea. I don’t know how other people feel but for me, when I get inspired, it’s a feeling that almost seems bigger than me and I have no choice but to surrender to it. I really don’t mean to sound pretentious as I say this but truly, with a lot of the best songs I’ve written, it almost felt like I, the artist, was just the vessel and the idea was the captain and I just happened to be at the right place at the right time when the idea came and I was lucky enough to deliver it to the world and call it mine. I find that it’s more the idea/vision that navigates me and informs every decision I make; not the other way around. That’s the magic of ideas —and I know that they’re magic because there have been so many times where I wasn’t inspired and tried to grind out a song or an idea and was completely and utterly useless.
There have been times where I’ve sat down and been like, “Honestly, how did I ever make anything?” —and that’s when the imposter syndrome would set in, but then I’d realize that that’s just not how creativity works. It really does feel like if you go into it with the right mindset, anything is possible and if you go into with the wrong mindset, nothing is possible. That all goes back to that scarcity mindset. Instead of thinking something like, “How could I ever possibly top my best work? I already used up all of my best ideas”, I now think, “Forget everything I’ve done before —this one is gonna be on a whole new level.”
When you’ve got that headspace and you’re in the heat of the moment and sparks are just flying out of you, the most important thing you can do is be fully in-tune with yourself because that’s when that raw, untainted YOU is coming out. It’s also when your vision is the most crystal clear —that moment when you’re just fully feeling and not thinking because the second you start thinking too much, all of a sudden, you’re in the thinking room and you can’t always necessarily go back in the way you came. Sometimes you accidentally get yourself locked out —I’m guilty of it too. I always try my best to strike while the iron is hot and get everything I can out of the moment before it’s gone. As part of my creative process, I find it helpful to vomit out all of my ideas (good and bad) without restraint or second-guessing myself —and then afterward, I’ll go and edit.
One of the songs that I’m most proud of to this day, “Summer Fog”, I wrote in literally five minutes. I wrote the chords, melody, melodic hook and mapped out the entire song structure in my head all in like five minutes. I later consolidated the lyric ideas and made some slight revisions to perfect it but the entire vision was pretty much fully realized and captured within those first five minutes of its fruition —and it rivals many other songs that took me weeks or even months to write.
That leads me to my next point which is: trust your intuition. I remember when I used to write, I would often think “Is this too obvious?”, “Is this too simple?”, “Is this corny?”, etc. —I would second-guess myself and let my ego get in the way. I was always so concerned about what other people would think about me and my writing. I used to feel the need to try to be different and more inventive than other people but that just pitted me against my own intuition in the end. Looking back now, I remember there were times where I would make musical decisions that I thought would make me appear “cooler” or that would show off my capabilities rather than choosing something that sounded better or was more meaningful/fit the song. I realized that I was subconsciously valuing my own ego over making good art. One of the most important things that I’ve learned throughout my creative journey is that whatever feels the most familiar and natural is almost always the answer because that’s what’s the most YOU ––and what’s the most YOU is inherently what’s the most special.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
I am Christopher Kenji: an LA-based independent, pop-rock artist/producer and award-winning fashion model. After many years of traveling from the San Francisco/Bay Area to play shows in LA, walk LA Fashion Week and do a bunch of LA industry stuff, in mid-December 2023, I decided to finally bite the bullet and move down to Hollywood (the devil’s playground) —and honestly, I haven’t felt this happy and inspired in a long, long time.
Since my artist debut in July 2020, I feel lucky to say that, so far, I’ve garnered over a million streams, been featured on national television and been published in Vogue, Harper’s BAZAAR, Elle, L’Officiel, Vanity Teen, Earmilk and many more. Additionally, I’ve received multiple awards and nominations for my music videos at film festivals all over the world as well as gotten the pleasure to walk the runway for popular fashion designers and perform at various fashion weeks, music festivals, burlesque revues and many other shows all around the country.
I recently performed at House of Blues for the 2nd time, The Troubadour (which I’d been dying to play ever since I was a little kid) and also, the Hollywood Burlesque Festival which was definitely a trip. In 2024, I’ve already released three singles including both “Desert Queen Fever Dream” and “El Toro” which were collaborations with music artist, jawnmo as well as my most recent single “It Was Perfect” in collaboration with That Other Girl. I’m saying it right now: 2024 will be the year of the MOST Christopher Kenji music releases to date! I have a few more collaborations coming soon as well as some new music videos but most importantly, I’ll be finally releasing my official debut album later this year. I’ve poured my blood, sweat and tears into this and have never been more proud of a body of work that I’ve made —more to come on that!
I also have some major career developments in the works right now that will be changing my life in some pretty crazy ways these next couple of months, so I’m super excited about that. Right now is one of those times in my life where everything is happening so quickly and I feel so alive in a way that I haven’t felt in years. I know I’ll look back at this period many years from now and remember how vivid it all was. Anyway, I’m very grateful for everything and very eager to see what this next year will bring!
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
I would say, first of all, you have to be SUPER driven ––or in other words: be crazy. I remember in my 3rd grade class, the teacher went around and asked all of us what we wanted to be when we grew up. One kid was like, “I wanna be an astronaut”, another was like, “I wanna be a football player”, and another, “I wanna be a famous movie star”, etc. ––when we’re young, we have such big dreams but then when we grow up (which, I guess I didn’t) ––most people realize that, at the end of the day, they’re not willing to risk everything they have for those dreams because those dreams aren’t as important to them as their own comfort and stability. A lot of people can fantasize about being a rockstar but hardly anyone is crazy enough to actually try to do that. Like, are you out of your mind? ––and to that I say, “Yes, I am”. Oh and by the way, I’m just going to continue using the words “driven” and “crazy” interchangeably here because they’re basically the same thing at this point.
You have to have that little bit of crazy inside of you because you have to BELIEVE that you can actually do it, otherwise you’ll never do it. I’d been told my whole life that there was almost zero chance of me making it in this industry. To me, in my delusional head, that just meant, ”So, you’re telling me that there’s still a chance though?” You see, if every great artist, performer, olympian, etc., all just gave up after hearing that their odds of making it were so low that their days would be better off spent trying to hunt down Bigfoot, we would have no idols. Imagine that! Anyway, my point is that you have to be so driven, so hungry, so crazy and want it so badly that you’re willing to make the necessary sacrifices and take the risks that you’ll need to take to get there. From a success standpoint, even if you have just an average amount of talent but you have a disproportionately insane amount of drive, you’ll beat the world-class virtuoso with an average amount of drive every time.
Secondly, this goes hand in hand with drive ––you really need to have a great work ethic because, most of the time, you’ll have to do everything yourself. Unless you have crazy connections, tons of money and very skilled people in your life that are willing to go out of their way to help you achieve your own visions for you, you’re going to have to learn how to do a lot of things yourself. That means probably figuring out how to make your own music and music videos, how to book your own shows and get people to come to them, how to build your own website, how to do your own graphic design, how to model in your own promo shots and cover artwork, how to make engaging content that makes people excited about your music, how to market yourself and build a fanbase, and the list goes on and on and on… but the good news is that there are these things called “YouTube tutorials”! Even if you don’t do end up doing all of these things yourself, if you at least know how to do them yourself, you’ll be able to effectively communicate with the people that you do hire to do these jobs, otherwise, most likely, you’re just going to have no idea what’s going on and end up not getting the results that you were hoping for.
Personally, I do everything myself nowadays and I wouldn’t want it any other way. I make my art the EXACT way that I want to make it without having to have anyone else try to read my mind or interject their own personal biases or ego into my work. Additionally, I don’t have to worry about other people’s schedules, lives or laziness getting in the way of my deadlines, I don’t have to worry about other people not being as committed as I am/not following through with projects and, best of all, because I do everything myself, I’ve saved god knows how many hundreds of thousand dollars worth of studio/mixing/photoshoot/video editing time over the years. If you always go into things with the attitude of “I can figure out how to do it” rather than “I need to find someone else who can do this for me”, you’ll go SO much farther in life. By the simple nature of just being willing to out-work the people around you, you’d be legitimately shocked at how infinitely more you’ll be able to achieve than everyone you know.
Lastly, as cliché as it is to say, one of THE most important factors in determining your success is just the sheer ability to not give up. If you watch interviews with almost any ultra successful, influential person in any industry, you’ll rarely ever hear: “Yeah, so I just made it all the way to the top on my first try and never had any failures or had to deal with any rejection.” Most of the time, it will be them talking about the years and years of struggling and figuring it out before anyone gave them the time of day. So much of it is being able to endure all the ups and downs and not give up for long enough until you finally figure something out that does work for you. The thing is, there will be so many times in your journey where it feels like no one notices that you even exist. It really sucks ––it felt like that for years for me, but I always believed. From time to time, I would get discouraged and unmotivated but, at the end of the day, I’d always pick myself up because I had my own back. I had to be my own biggest fan because who was going to believe in me if I didn’t even believe in myself?
I could go on and on about this topic forever but I think these three qualities are the non-negotiables in my opinion. Almost everything else can at least be worked on or learned, for example, super, incredibly important things like networking and building connections or becoming more skilled at your craft, etc., but if you have no drive, a terrible work ethic and are a quitter, you’re basically going to need a real-life MIRACLE to get absolutely anywhere in this industry, so anyway, those would be my top three most important qualities.
Any advice for folks feeling overwhelmed?
Both music and fitness are my therapy. I think a lot of the time when I feel overwhelmed, it’s this feeling of intense pressure that builds up inside of me like a balloon being pumped up with more and more air, and the longer I don’t do anything about it, the more it continues to swell and squeeze. It needs to have some outlet; some release ––and I swear, to me, there’s no bigger release in this world than the feeling of just screaming into a microphone that’s being blasted out through towers of huge speakers into a crowd of screaming people. There’s just something so animalistic and raw about it ––it’s like no feeling in the world. It’s the same deal with songwriting but just in a different way. Songwriting is the release of being able to take all of your past experiences and (the sometimes difficult) things that you’ve been through in your personal life and turn them into something beautiful and positive to be thrown out into the world and celebrated. It’s a crazy phenomenon but once you set those things free to the world, it almost seems like you don’t have to hold it all in to yourself anymore.
Additionally, I work out like crazy. It’s probably the most immediate form of release out there in my opinion. Whereas in the past, I’d turn to alcohol and drugs, now I turn to dumbbells and barbells. If I go more than a week without the gym, I start legitimately losing my mind ––it’s my favorite addiction I’ve ever had. This might be the most gym bro thing I’ve ever said in my entire life but I truly think working out is one of the most spiritual things in the world. I think for me it has to do a lot with the focus aspect of it. When you’re trying to push up some heavy weight, for one single moment, your mind isn’t able to think about the typical day-to-day things or the problems you have or anything else that’s going on in your life; all that matters in that moment is you pushing up that weight. You don’t even have a choice frankly ––you have to be fully in-tune with your body and mind to make that happen. It forces you to be fully living in the present moment. It’s something that is so simple yet so powerful —and don’t even get me started on mind-muscle connection.
Then there’s the whole physical aspect of it. As humans, we’re meant to use our bodies —and when we do use them, our bodies reward us for it ten fold. We’re rewarded, of course, in all of the obvious ways like physical strength, improvements in our health and a more fit physical appearance as well as some lesser touched-on benefits including better sleep quality, more energy throughout the day, good-mood endorphins, etc., but I think the most underrated benefit is not only the confidence it gives you in knowing that you look and feel great, but the confidence in knowing that, even though it was a truly tough challenge, you were the one who put in the hard work, you were the one who stuck through it even when you felt like giving up and despite everything, you were the one who ultimately saw it through all the way to the other side; where you are standing now. Working out shows you how incredibly strong you can be physically, but even more so, how incredibly strong you can be mentally. I could do a whole interview entirely on just how passionate I am about fitness but I’m not going to here. Anyway, those are my main two go-to’s when it comes to feeling overwhelmed.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.christopherkenji.com
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/ChristopherKenji
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/ChristopherKenji
Image Credits
Marlon Hurtado, Chawin Terk Piriyagagul, Ronald Fulcher, Tien Berny, Mariana Galusca
