Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Kamil Ghaouti. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Alright, Kamil thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. I’m sure there have been days where the challenges of being an artist or creative force you to think about what it would be like to just have a regular job. When’s the last time you felt that way? Did you have any insights from the experience?
More than happy, I’d say I’m completely fulfilled as an artist. Music gave purpose and direction to my life and I often think about what else I’d be doing if I didn’t have that. It’s not the case though so I try not to dive too deep into these thoughts and focus on the passion. One thing that usually makes me wonder what it’d be like to have a regular job is the routine and forced discipline that comes with it that I sometimes envy. I’m grateful for the freedom I have when it comes to my working hours but part of me also wishes I had that structure where I know that if I don’t go to work at that time that day I’m gonna get fired. Another major difference is the financial side as it’s pretty rare to have a steady, consistent income with just music, there’s gonna be months where life’s smiling at you and everything’s coming at the same time and you make more money than expected and months where it’s just not working out no matter how hard you try. The main conclusion I always come to in the end is that I know I’ll never be as good in anything else as I am at making music, just cause of the time and effort I put into it for so many years so I don’t ever really consider switching careers, also I know nothing else will ever bring me as much adrenaline and fulfillment.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
My name is Kamil Ghaouti, I’m a 25 year-old music producer and DJ based in Los Angeles but born and raised in Casablanca, Morocco and I got into producing music 10 years ago when I was still in high school, which I’m grateful for every day. There’s a lot that I’m proud of in my career and young life in general, such as releasing a song with my favorite French artist PLK and watching it get played in clubs everywhere in Europe and hit the charts worldwide; releasing music on some of the biggest labels in dance music like Armin Van Buuren’s Armada Music, Nicky Romero’s Protocol, Lost Frequencies’ Found Frequencies, Selected. and many more; having my tracks supported by the DJs who inspired me the most growing up including Marshmello, Martin Garrix, Oliver Heldens, Jonas Blue and Malaa; and performing at some of my dream venues such as Carpe Diem Hvar or Club 585 in Croatia and all over Greece while I was a resident DJ for The Yacht Week, Bar Lis and Station Hollywood here in LA, Blackhaus and Serrano 41 in Madrid, Maxim’s and Sacré in Paris, etc. I launched my own record label Kameleon Records earlier this year too where other artists and I already released 15 songs and cumulated around 250.000 streams to date, which is another thing I’m really proud of. I also produce for other creatives and try to make it as easy as possible for them by always offering different options to choose from and being open to start everything back from scratch if needed. I’d say what sets me apart from others the most is my ability to start and finish the production of a song the same day, which makes all the difference when on a time deficit.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
Thankfully, I’ve always been able to handle rejection pretty well and never really took it personal since the early beginning when I started sending demos out to labels and reaching out to bigger acts for feedback. I always thought of it as more of a numbers game and knew that not all demos I sent were gonna get signed to all the labels I sent them to so I’d be happy if I just got an answer from a label saying they don’t want to sign my track since I didn’t have to worry about spamming them anymore. It’s always been a pretty normal thing to me and it’s probably what allowed me to work with so many of my dream labels ultimately, for example Selected. who I sent dozens of demos over the years and finally released my song ‘Saturate’ this past August.
If I had to choose one story to illustrate this, it would probably be the release of my song ‘Magnets’ featuring INÆS on Lost Frequencies’ own label Found Frequencies via Armada Music back in 2019, which was my first big label release and the one that I struggled the most to sign. Basically, when I was 18 one of my favorite labels at the time (which I ended up working with later on instead) asked me to remix a very emotional song from their catalog and I wanted to give it a more joyful, upbeat spin so I sent the original artist what I had made and she absolutely hated it and said some not very nice things about how it went against what she envisioned for the song etc. I still loved the beat though and thought it had potential so I reached out to INÆS to ask if she wanted to write to it and it ended up being what is now ‘Magnets’. However, a few minutes before I was totally done with the final mix of the song my laptop crashed and I lost everything on it forever including all my project files, so I had to get a new laptop and days later remake the song from scratch based only on the mp3 file I still had, which took me around 3 days but I ended up liking the new version better. For 6 months after that, I sent it out to all the labels that I thought might want to release it and all of them said it was too simple for them or not a fit, even the much smaller ones, to the point I started thinking the track sucked and I’d never release it until Lost Frequencies reached out to me directly saying he loved it and asking if he could sign it to his label Found Frequencies cause his manager who I had sent music to back then showed it to him. My apologies for the long depressing read but the way things turned out then really showed me that when you keep pushing, things eventually happen, they have to.
Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.
The main thing my non-creative friends get curious about is where I find the inspiration to make new music all the time and how I manage to be and stay creative and what I realized with time is that inspiration and creativity aren’t things you “find” or look for, it’s already in you and it only comes out when you’re 100% yourself, like if you feel pressure to come up with a melody or you’re working next to somebody you want to impress you’ll never come up with anything good since you’re not actually being yourself and allowing the creativity to flow through you. For example, when you’re kicking it with your childhood friends and you feel good and like yourself, you’re gonna be a lot funnier than when you’re talking to somebody you just met who you can’t be your totally authentic self with yet: inspiration works the same.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.kamilghaouti.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kamilghaoutimusic
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kamilghaoutimusic
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@kamilghaoutimusic
- Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/kamilghaouti19
- Other: Kameleon Records: www.kameleonrecs.com
