We recently connected with Lawrence (Larry) Krayn and have shared our conversation below.
Lawrence (Larry), thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Do you feel you or your work has ever been misunderstood or mischaracterized? If so, tell us the story and how/why it happened and if there are any interesting learnings or insights you took from the experience?
When I first got into practicing law, I wanted to do public service work. I was drawn to becoming a prosecutor, because a prosecutor’s duty is not only to tackle crime, but to do justice overall, to be honest, and to serve the community. As a prosecutor working for my county, I was able to help many people, from victims of crime to the accused themselves. Sometimes it meant putting someone in an alternative rehabilitation program instead of incarceration. Other times, it meant being there to listen to and make a victim feel heard in the system. I even helped to get charges dismissed against people who had been wrongly accused. Still, it meant that I had to help put dangerous or nefarious actors into the prison system when necessary.
At the same time, I had been making music for a long time and was consistently in artistic circles. I did not have a history of being rigid or heeding boundaries. At first, I faced a lot of misconceptions socially in both my professional and artistic worlds. Society has a tendency to want to place us into easily-categorized boxes, and my colleagues in law enforcement were sometimes bewildered that I had a creative streak, and valued over-the-top free expression and pushing social and creative boundaries. Conversely, some in the creative spaces I’d been in or was trying to gain acceptance into had the conception that folks who put on a suit and tie and worked within the system did not share their values. Sometimes, I was placed in uncomfortable social situations, and at first, I was hesitant to mix the two worlds. The problem with that, is that I felt I was missing a part of myself wherever I was.
Over time, I began to outwardly own my multi-faceted existence as a person, and took the time to explain where my head was, and why my professional and creative identities were not mutually-exclusive, but made perfect sense based on my values and who I was. People in both arenas began to embrace me as a unique individual and someone who could offer perspectives that they might not have previously considered. I have to give a big shout out to my community in Newark, New Jersey for this one – It is a place that has allowed me to be myself in everything that I am, and has embraced me as a human being. Many people in Newark are a lot like me, and we are all working to make the world a better place, whether creatively or in the workplace.
Lawrence (Larry), before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I fell in love with hip hop music in the 1990s. Having already been exposed to Jazz, soul, and mid-century pop by my family, especially my mom, something about men expressing themselves intellectually over smooth instrumentals just struck an important chord with me. I was a strong reader from a young age and also loved literature, but in many ways I was a typical boy. I think that because of those things, I was drawn to an art form which conveyed deep thought, including reflection and sentimentality, while still allowing for expressions of anger and courage when warranted. I’d taken piano lessons as a child and had an interest in the saxophone, but I’d never stuck much with it, and so for me, the creative outlet that I found as a teenager, was writing rhymes. I was a child of divorce and financial uncertainty, and so it was a vital outlet for me. There were many nights, struggling as an adolescent and feeling alone, that my notebook and some of the most classic works of 90’s rap music were my lifeline. My Aunt, my Father, and my Mother, all fostered my creativity in their own ways, helping me to get a keyboard, a drum machine, and eventually a microphone over the years. I had a functional little setup by the time I was 18 or so. I named myself “IL Lusciato,” owing to the cultural dominance of Italian in my mixed-European second-wave heritage.
While I enjoyed school socially, and really loved English and History class, I was an angry and disillusioned teen, and spent a ton of time cutting class. I had a bunch of friends and I dated, but I marched to my own drum and wasn’t going to back down from anything. As a result, I was involved in a number of fist-fights and was generally combative. I also took up drinking at a young age. While I did all of the assigned readings and participated attentively in the classes I was interested in, I barely made it out of high school. I did two stints in summer school, which I found fun because I dominated there academically in a condensed format with other offbeat kids. I learned to parlay my abilities into business success when I started helping other kids with their homework in exchange for after-school money.
I didn’t take the SAT, and enrolled in community college mostly because my father had a rule: I was either working full time and paying rent, or working toward a degree. This was an interesting time in my life, and I learned a lot. I worked behind a deli counter, did landscaping work, did low-voltage electrical work at construction sites, did work at a chemical plant, and opened pools. Still, the primary focus of my early twenties was to pursue a career in the entertainment industry. I released several albums and mixtapes, and sold a few thousand by way of walking around malls, boardwalks, and Times Square. I started to promote shows of my own in partnership with late-night bars of, we’ll say, interesting repute. I noticed early that the people who ran these shows made a ton of money, but all that they really did was book a venue and hire artists to fill it. I was an artist myself, and had made a ton of connections through music. I could do it better. I used the internet, especially Myspace, as a promotional tool, and supplemented my twenty-something year old income with cash from successful concerts. I eventually wound up with a manager in Manhattan, who engaged in talks with Sony Urban and Def Jam, but was unsuccessful in getting any kind of career off the ground for me. During this time, I not only learned the possibilities of what I could do in life, but also realized exactly all of the things that I did NOT want my life to be.
As my late twenties approached and the dream was coming to an end, I lost a close childhood friend to suicide. He’d struggled with the trajectory of his life, and the two of us had long shared skepticism about the state of our society. I started to feel like my life’s path was veering from the tracks. It was at that point that I realized I wanted more than being a starving artist constantly running into slammed doors. I’d always had confidence in myself, and had believed myself to be able to achieve professional success, I’d just rejected that path in my youth due to a streak of rebelliousness and agitating against the norm. I’d been excelling in my college classes and had always had a gift for writing, reading, and speaking. Shifting gears,I thought about Law School as a way to battle the things about society that I saw as problematic. I quickly obtained an Associates Degree, transferred to Rutgers-Newark, obtained a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science, and applied to law school. Rutgers Law School gave me significant scholarship money and I financed the rest with student loans. Higher education came naturally to me, and I enjoyed the process and work. I took several years away from creative pursuits and became deeply interested in civic responsibility and politics.
Having very few contacts in the legal world, I interned relentlessly, and made my own connections. In a way, I reinvented myself during this time. The work ethic and aggressive pursuit of what I wanted, was a skill I’d learned working numerous jobs and chasing recognition as an artist. While most people were preparing for graduation and studying for the bar, I was volunteering every Friday in Paterson, New Jersey for an appellate prosecutor named Marc Festa. Marc was impressed with my work and ultimately helped me land a job with a Judge, that led to my first job as a Prosecutor, in Essex County, New Jersey.
I was just happy to have a salary at first, making about $46,000 per year, and eventually established myself and made a bit more. Still, the creative bug was nagging at me again. I can’t express enough how much those initial entrepreneurial experiences running music shows influenced my more recent life. I moonlighted on “The Logic and Larry Podcast,” talking politics and current events. Having already studied audio production in community college to help with making music, I had a good working knowledge of broadcast-style audio, and had dabbled in comedic and political podcasts previously with friends. That led to two more successful podcasts and YouTube shows: “Phin Addict Fury with Larry K,” discusses Miami Dolphins football, and “Knight Watch with Larry K,” discusses Rutgers sports. I’ve grown both these channels into profitable entities with thousands of followers, making a few extra bucks per year to feel like my creative pursuits can pay off.
Having long taken pictures with my cell phone, I’d never thought much about taking on photography as a serious endeavor. However, having had so much previous success marketing music and podcasts online, I started an Instagram page, “Xquisite_Grit” in 2021. At first it was just a place to display my cell phone photos, and was followed mainly by friends and personal connections. However, recognizing the potential in the work I had started to produce, I upgraded to a legitimate camera in 2023, and began growing the page into a brand. I now have thousands of followers on Instagram and Threads, have appeared in numerous galleries in New Jersey, New York City, and as far as Portland, Oregon, and have sold several prints to private collectors. I also curate a semi-annual exhibit of my own, called “Grit Gallery” in affiliation with Newark Local Beer, an upstart business run by a talented brewer, Steve Hughes. This gallery gives emerging photographers a chance to display their work and to learn the business.
Speaking of Steve, I wrote a profile on him and the brewery for a Quarterly Periodical called The Newarker. Having learned that long-form written pieces do eventually get done if you slog through them (given my time in law school and as a practicing attorney), I tackled my longtime dream of writing fiction starting in 2017. I completed a novel, “Perpetual Drift,” which is still going through its 4th edit and will potentially be self-published soon, and drew on personal experience to write a short story, “Her Name” which was published in the Newarker in 2021. My relationship with the Newarker grew from there, and I published several other pieces before officially joining the editorial board in 2024. Currently, I am heavily involved with other talented people in continuing to grow The Newarker as a hub for local journalism and as a mechanism for the creativity of the community. I’ve also recently served as co-editor on an issue of New Jersey Lawyer Magazine, and published my first article therein, entitled “Proactive: How New Jersey Law and Public Policy Guide Prosecutors in Public Service”
It all comes full circle with the fact that I plan to release a new music album early next year! After 14 years, I think it’s time. This was very long-winded, and I apologize for that, but its important to note that each of the endeavors I’ve successfully tackled was built on the back of several failed endeavors, and that each of the creative pursuits I’ve dabbled in has been derived of some knowledge or learned skill from a previous one. There is no parcel of experience, artistic interest, or personal or professional struggle that has not contributed, in the end, to all of the other things that I’ve done and continue to do. Most importantly – I’ve valued the people around me that support and have helped to make it happen. One of my proudest achievements is having officiated two weddings!
It is important to realize that to be successful, one must draw on their own lived experience, and there are advantages and talents you have that you may not think about much, but they’ve been developed within you from years of living.
I bring a multi-faceted level of experience and knowledge to each of the platforms and endeavors I participate in, and my personal philosophy is that there is no reason I should not tackle everything I want to in this life. I’ve only got one.
In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?
Our society needs to embrace a more expansive way of categorizing and classifying people, Humans will always seek to place people into boxes, as our brain has evolved over a very long time to do so expediently. However, we are noticing, especially beginning with the Millennial generation, that people are more often than not, multi-faceted. In some ways, our generation was forced into this because long-term career prospects are not as reliable as they used to be. However, I also think that after seeing two or three generations be defined much more by their professional path with little in the way of personal satisfaction or room for creativity, our and younger generations are taking a stand. We want more out of life than simple stability, especially if it isn’t promised anyway. We should learn to embrace more often, the beauty in being eclectic, and maybe being just a bit unsure about our paths and passions later into life.
Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?
I first learned the art of promotion in the aughts, when hanging posters and approaching people randomly were still the primary tools. Still, the emergence of social media has made promotion much more accessible. I will say that there are two main aspects of building a following: 1) Defining your brand, and 2) Relentless and patient growth. I’ve designed my social media pages to be lock-step with my personal style and the way I want to be perceived. For instance, each of my sports podcasts contains an introduction backed with the same audio: a track comprised of my keyboard strokes and vocals. This allows listeners to get a sense of who I am, and what else I might be about, even outside of that specific content or platform. My brand, careful editorial-styled objective takes, permeates all my podcasts and makes it easier to maintain from a branding standpoint. Taking my Instagram and photography as an example, I focus primarily on urban scenes. While I do take other types of pictures, they don’t all fit into the Xquisite Grit brand, and thus I find other venues to showcase them. The cohesion of a brand is quite important. When people hear from name, or see a post of yours pop onto their screen, you want them to tap into some type of overall feeling or perception that they have of you. This will both continue to attract those receptive to your style, and weed out those who have a less conducive preference toward your work or business.
When it comes to patience and growth, the truth is that contrary to stories about a single song, post, or reel going viral overnight, most content creators spent years building an audience and gaining notoriety. This is even more true in 2025, where an over-saturated market makes it hard to stand out, and where the options and distractions appear to be infinite. It’s important to realize that putting yourself in constant position to catch a break is the only way that breaks can be caught. For instance, I was a very small creator in the realm of Miami Dolphins football initially, but kept taking small victories and increases in subscribers as inspiration to keep going. At some point, while still a very small creator, I was contacted by one of the largest creators in that space, who just happened to be one of my subscribers! He loved my take on things, and so invited me onto his show a few times. From there, I garnered a much larger following, and while slower now, it’s still growing. I also got signed to a management contract for photography by promoting my images to a once much smaller Threads following just for fun. Someone saw one of my images, wanted to purchase a print, and after finding out that she had an art management company, we discussed representation. Just be mindful that any amount of social media presence is good, because you never know who, even of your small amount of followers, is your gateway to the next step.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.xquisitegrit.com (currently under construction)
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/xquisite_grit
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lawrence-k-19489338?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=android_app
- Twitter: https://x.com/larry_k_nj
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/illusciato
- Other: Phin Addict Fury – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCj6wak1IgFxBugsrzG7YguQ
Knight Watch – https://www.youtube.com/@knightwatch9712
The Logic and Larry Podcast (also available on all major platforms) – https://logicandlarry.podbean.com/
The Newarker Magazine – https://newarkermag.com/
Image Credits
Gary Sprengel
Camille Bowie
Myself