Rewinding to 2003, when friends would ask me for a music recommendation, Kenna’s New Sacred Cow was always near the top. The Ethiopian-born singer-songwriter’s debut album, co-produced by Chad Hugo of The Neptunes, was a captivatingly fresh mix of electro-pop, New Wave, and hip-hop, with Kenna sounding a lot like Simon Le Bon in spots (take “Vexed & Glorious,” for instance). I couldn’t get enough. (On paper, Duran Duran’s hookup with Timbaland for 2007’s Red Carpet Massacre should have delivered similarly winning results, but instead proved how tricky such a marriage of styles can be, and just how ahead of its time Kenna’s New Sacred Cow was.)
But for an artist with outstanding material, complications seem to follow Kenna wherever he treads. New Sacred Cow suffered several delays and a label switch, as did his follow-up, Make Sure They See My Face, which ultimately didn’t surface until October 2007. And while Kenna’s music has been critically acclaimed (even garnering him a 2009 Grammy nomination), neither set really clicked with the public at large.
On a personal level, Kenna’s first attempt to climb Africa’s Mount Kilimanjaro in 2005 was stymied when he fell sick about a thousand feet shy of its 19,340-foot peak. Undaunted, he was inspired to try again, and aimed even higher, organizing Summit On The Summit to bring attention to the world water crisis. Kenna corralled Lupe Fiasco, Jessica Biel, Santigold, Emile Hirsch and some other famous names to climb to the top of Kilimanjaro in January 2010, five years after his aborted attempt. The experience provided inspiration for Kenna’s third album, Songs For Flight, to be released in 2012 (fingers-crossed), preceded by three 3-song EPs comprising the Land 2 Air Chronicles (how very Robyn of him).
Perhaps not surprisingly, all has not gone according to plan thus far. Kenna suffered a setback when the hard drive containing the tracks for the EPs and album failed. Though the news sounded absolutely devastating, somehow he and his team pulled it together and the first EP, subtitled Chaos And The Darkness, appeared on April 26, just three weeks late of its original date. A music video for lead single, “Chains,” out since March, premiered a few days later.
“Chains” was co-written by Interpol frontman Paul Banks, and features Kenna’s longtime pal Chad Hugo (in his Shimmy Hoffa disguise). Describing the dance jam, which shares a cowbell in common with The Rapture’s “House Of Jealous Lovers”, Kenna tweeted, “To get a dream to reality, you have to slide off the chains that hold you back.” Somehow, and quite amazingly, Kenna finds a way to loosen them again and again, whatever the obstacles the universe might place in his way.
Purchase Kenna – “Chains” via iTunes, Amazon MP3.
