We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Kenny Keys a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Kenny, appreciate you joining us today. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?

Taking any risk is hard but being a creator and sharing your passion with the world can be thrilling but also scary. There is a lot of talented people in the world that hold their talents in, and I hope my story can help others share their talent with the world. My name is Kenny Keys, some also know me as Coach Da Keys. In 2018 I was hit by a semi-truck when driving in my SUV and received a traumatic brain injury that changed my life. The next couple years I had become someone I didn’t even recognize and would spend the next couple years trying to get to know this new me. In 2020 I took a risk and started my company Keys To The Castle. At first it was all about making some extra money because at the time I was a Maintenance Supervisor and I see how much money could be made in remodeling homes, so I wanted all in. I started my company and got my first contract and from there I was constantly getting work. After the first couple jobs I started bringing people in to work for me while also teaching them how to do Maintenance which many people I hired had little to no experience in Maintenance or handyman repairs but after doing jobs for me went on to have careers in the Maintenance field. Around this time, I really wanted to get in the studio and get back to doing my passion which is making music, so I started recording and releasing my music on YouTube, Facebook, and TikTok and started receiving love from people all around the world that were sending me messages and letting me know they enjoyed my music. As of now I am also a certified housing inspector and own my clothing line Kennywaynecollection.com. My story is about never giving up and always betting on yourself no matter the odds. Life is all about taking risks and believing in yourself. I hope when it’s your turn to take your risk you do it with all the confidence in the world.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I’ll take this time to talk about my music. I have loved music my entire life, but my passion really started out in doing poetry. My 8th grade English teacher wanted to enter one of my poems into a contest were the winners poem got published in a book. I rejected the offer but ever since that day I had this passion within myself to get my words heard. Around 14 years old is when my passion went from writing poetry to writing lyrics to beats. My first time I rapped I’ll never forget; I was at a house party around when I was 17 years old and a couple guys started rapping. One of the guys singled me out when he was rapping and at the end of his rap told me he’d hit me with a bottle to where I responded in my freestyle “Yeah you might hit me with the bottle, but your gonna feel messed up knowing you knocked out your role model” and the house went crazy. That adrenaline rush I felt from everybody liking my freestyle sparked my love for wanting to be a MC. I had a couple names I went by but finally settled with Coach Da Keys and my music journey was born. When I first started rapping Minneapolis didn’t have as big as a music scene as it does now, locating a place to record wasn’t that easy so as the years went on, I put my passion to the side and focused more on making money and supporting my kids. Around 2019 I just couldn’t ignore this feeling to get serious about my music and releasing it on every platform possible so that’s what I did. I received a lot of love for people all over the world and I’ll never forget the feeling when one of my songs reached 20,000 views, I thought I made it lol. I never really aimed to be a part of the music Industry, I just wanted to put my music out to as many people as possible because I believe my music has a message in it that people need to hear. I make the type of music I call “riding music”. What I mean by that is I make the type of music you can turn your car on, turn up my music, and just cruise. I’m not just into music. I also own Keys To The Castle, a company that deals with remodeling homes. I’ve remodeled many homes that were passed by the city and public housing. Some would call me a specialist in passing city and public housing inspections. I’m also a Certified inspector for Minneapolis Public Housing. I am called a jack of many trades but if you ask me, I’m just someone that loves to learn and loves to share what I’ve learned with others.

Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?

A good leader is a good listener. Leading your team to success is knowing your teams’ strengths. When you’re a team you win together, you lose together, but you always stay together no matter the outcome. Your team is going to fed off your energy, that’s what made the Chicago Bulls great when Jordan played. They fed of his energy until they all became Champions. There is no I in team.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

Overcoming a traumatic brain injury and finding the strength Within Myself to not only go forward but to better my life and the people in my life. Imagine one day waking up and you can’t think straight, your thought are everywhere and uncontrollable. Not only that but you don’t feel like yourself, you feel like it’s your body but someone else is controlling your brain. Many, many days I sat in my bedroom in the dark because any light hurt my eyes but also because I couldn’t even do simple things any more like keep up with what’s going on when watching a TV show. I had literally felt like I lost my mind at the same time within that year I lost some very close friends to victims of murder and one very close friend to suicide. Around this time my doctor diagnosed me with traumatic brain injury, PTSD, severe anxiety, and severe depression. Not only was I dealing with effects from a traumatic brain injury but now I also was dealing with severe panic attacks which made it hard for me to be in public even doing something as simple as picking out a couple things at Cub Foods. That was the toughest time of my life, but I made it through, and my biggest support was my best friend/wife that to this day is still here supporting me 100%. Life has taking me on many journeys and I hope my story can encourage anybody that has been through a traumatic situation that there is light at the end of the tunnel. We all have had times in our life where it felt like things couldn’t get no worse but in them times is where you find your strengths. To anyone reading this that has a talent they are scared to let out, face your fears and let the world know your name. My name is Kenny Keys aka Coach Da Keys and this is my story.
Anybody looking for my services can reach me through my email. Any music Produces or Artists looking to collaborate I can be reached through email or social media. Also visit kennywaynecollection.com to shop for my latest designs and merchandise.

Contact Info:

• Website: Kennywaynecollection.com
• Instagram: Coach Da Keys
• Facebook: Coach Da Keys
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcyLSOfsuOZ8PQcpwwjs86NC7GfF975fn
• Other: [email protected]

Image Credits
Kenny Keys