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

Kevin, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Do you wish you had started sooner?

I wish I started my career sooner. I got married to my first wife at age 19. Instead of pursuing my dreams I became a husband and father. Providing for my family became my sole focus. Ive learned that chasing a dream requires a lot of time and energy. Trying to juggle that while working 40 hours and trying to give a family enough attention is very difficult.

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.

Ive always been around music. My grandmother played the piano and my grandfather sang opera. I spent a couple of years at a performing arts school and discovered my love for creative arts. I began writing songs as an adolescent. In 2010 I begin producing music under the tutelage of a producer named Fred Waller. He taught me a lot about production and we created a production team. After some years it became apparent to me that our vision for the future didn’t align. As I grew as a person and as an artist there was a lane that I was interested in and that wasn’t the direction he intended to go.

Over the years Ive become close friends with many artists. Hearing their stories, seeing the hard work they put in but the lack of support they received. Watching as they made mistakes in their career either from a lack of knowledge or from trusting the wrong people broke my heart. I was once told that the thing that bothers you the most is what you were put on earth to change. I have a passion for indie artists and nothing upsets me more than seeing them be taken advantage of and/or under appreciated. During the pandemic I started a firm named Unapologetically Creative. Our goal and purpose is to be a one stop shop for artists. We are a network of independent creative companies who strive to support indie artists with industry standard quality but at an affordable price as we understand the plight of the starving artist. We offer production, song writing, artist development, photography and videography services and so much more.

My mission is to restore some integrity into the music business. I can personally vouch for every single person who is a part of my network. I set out to find people who are extremely talented, passionate but most importantly trustworthy and I believe Ive done that with the companies im aligned with.

In addition to that im also an artist. I am one half of the R&B group BLK Haku along with vocalist PHNXBLK (pronounced Phoenix Black). We recently released an album title “GENESIS”. We are currently working on a deluxe version of the album to be released soon.

Apart from that im currently working on a dance album that im very excited about.

Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?

I think often times people don’t realize the amount of sacrifice, hard work and money a lot of creatives put into their art. That 20 minute EP your creative friend is asking you to listen to might have taken them over a year to create. On average according to an article I read it costs indie artists at minimum 1700 dollars to record an EP. As someone who has done it multiple times that number is on a very low end. Each album Ive been a part of costs considerably more. That book that your author friend wrote probably took them over a year to write. That indie film on Tubi your director friend asked you to watch cost them over 10 grand and countless hours to make. If your creative friend asks you to watch, read or listen to something remember they poured their all into it.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

When I first started producing music I found out from one my friends were one of my favorite artists was going to be at. I made my way there with a beat tape and the mindset that I was going to meet this artist, hand him the beat tape and life was going to change. When I met him he gave me his intern’s email address and told me to send the beats to him. I raced home that night, attached the mp3s to an email and sent it off. A few days later I received an email from the intern. He told me how terrible I am. Told me I sounded like an amateur (which I was at the time) and how I need to improve (which was true). I woke up and read that email every morning for over a year. It drove me to put more time in perfecting my craft. I knew that I was determined to become better. I became obsessed with that email and it drove me to where im at now. I put in the 10,000 hours several times over and it shows in my art.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://linktr.ee/blkhaku
• Instagram: @kevin_thecreative

Image Credits
Photography: Michael Thompson of Cozy Captures