Kappa Style Lo-Fi, producer interview

Hello, Dear Music Lovers and welcome back to our Lofi Cottage! Our today’s special guest is Khal Kappa, lofi music producer in “Kappa style” (as you’ll find out soon).

He was kind enough to accept our invitation to The Cottage and

Khal Kappa Ghibli illustration holding his mascot, a kappa

answer our questions, giving us a little peek into his life.

We wanted to get to know him first so we asked how would he describe himself and he already told us how much lofi has helped him in his private life:

“I'm an introverted extrovert, I don't leave my house often aside work, but I truly enjoy chatting with people and being social. I feel since putting myself out there as a lofi artist I've learned to be more social again, and it's helped me grow as a human being.”

Before finding his path to lo-fi, Khal Kappa played in a grindcore (=a fusion genre of heavy metal and hardcore punk) band called “Barbecutioner”. After a pause of a few years and getting a new pc, he realized that there was something missing in his life so he got a midi keyboard.

“I love hip hop, so I wanted to make chill beats for myself to drive to work and back with. “, thus the creation of Kappa Style lofi, the words he uses to describe his personal take on the genre.

“I tend to like playing around in the genre a lot, especially my earlier releases. Nowadays I always need to make sure I've got crunchy snares, and I love making my bass lines a little more intricate. I grew up playing bass and listening to Les Claypool, I always want bass to have a little shine.”

When drawing the illustration for the article, a question popped into our head and we wanted to share it with both Kappa and you, guys.

So we asked him what exactly is his mascot, to which he shed some light over:

“The mythology behind Kappas has always been really interesting to me. In fact I even have one tattooed on my leg from 10 or so years ago. When I decided I wanted to start doing lofi I needed an alias, so I went to the kappa immediately. I had an artist commissioned to draw the kappa and I loved it so much I try to include it on everything I do. Also special shoutout to the best kappa in anime, Kawamatsu, from One Piece.”

And that led us to his sources of inspiration:

“I find my inspiration from where I live, I'm surrounded by the ocean, forests and tones of wildlife. As well as Hip Hop in general, I just love making music, it's been something I've loved since I was an early teen.”

…and influence:

“I find some of my biggest influences are actually my friends, people like crookedfoot, Yermo7 and Marley Angel to name a few people. I find sharing ideas or talking to them about music has really helped me work on my sounds and better my music. “

As always, we also wanted to show you the technical side of things and Kappa was kind enough to tell us his creation process and the tools he uses:

“I start by firing up Ableton then make a melody or set of chords on my midi keyboard (Novation Launchkey 37). Once I'm done that I usually export that into my Sp404 MK2 where I then create the drums. Once all that's done it's back to ableton to mix and add any necessary other instruments. I usually get most of my key sounds from the arturia v collection, bass is usually modo. I find my drum packs depend on my mood, but you can never go wrong with an L.Dre pack, or searching splice for one shot sounds as long as you give it some nice eq love.”

Other than the artistic and technical sides, there is the reality side when things don’t always go your way, so we asked Khal Kappa what are some challenges he faced as an artist:

“I feel that to grow as an artist you have to challenge yourself, or you're not going to grow. For example, it can be very discouraging when you get denied by a label you submit a song to. But then you must remember, music is subjective and everyone's vision of art is slightly different ! You can't let the challenges best you, instead use them as motivation! “

Songs like “Late Night Walks”, “Space Exploration”, “Blueberry Muffins” are very good and dear to us, but we also wanted to know which ones are dear to Kappa.

“My favorite song of mine has got to be Talking With Lofi Ghosts, it was a rendition of the song Talking with Ghosts from Luigi's Mansion. I have a soft spot for Nintendo.”

To end the interview on a positive and benefic note, we asked Khal Kappa for a piece of advice for the new lofi artists:

“The lofi community is amazingly supportive, if you have questions, ask someone! You're wondering what plugin an artist is using to get that sound ? Just ask!”

Thank you so much for asking me to be in this, I can't tell you how much it means to me. I appreciate anyone that took the time to read this -Kappa

We want to thank Kappa for accepting our invitation to be part of our blog through this post and for the amazing pieces of advice and kind words he told us and you, guys.

You can find Kappa on his Instagram at @khalkappa and listen to his music on all streaming platforms!

What do you think, lofi lovers? Who else would you like us to interview?

Until next time,

Chromind

"Kappa Style Lo-fi, producer interview" is an original post on "The Lofi Cottage" blog.