Koncept Talks Building a Career Overseas, His "Champagne Konny" Album & His Marketing Strategies
In just a few years New York's up-and-coming artist, Koncept, moved overseas, dropped his best album of his career and is continuing to gain popularity through consistent content creation.
Since 2012, New York emcee Koncept has been releasing project after project showcasing a unique versatility in delivery. Eight years later and Koncept has flown overseas, toured in numerous countries, spent an extensive time in both Asia and Europe. In what was a once in a lifetime opportunity for the artist, Koncept harnessed the opportunity and released his best album to date. I’m blessed to have a chance to sit down with the talented artist and talk about his journey up to this point and the importance of sticking with your project for over a year.
For those who somehow still don’t know, who is Koncept?
Aside from being your soon-to-be favorite Artist (search Koncept on all music platforms), Koncept is himself. Each and every time. Doing the best he possibly can to improve and do better.
Not to make assumptions here but it seems you've entered a second phase of your career as Koncept. Can you talk about that a bit?
Yeah for sure, I have to agree with you there. With everything you go through and/or experience, you learn and grow. There’s steps to it and there’s also no rush to any of it.
I started touring overseas a lot and I spent a lot of time in Asia. Everything about it opened my mind; from a creative and business sense. I came back to LA, locked myself in the studio and created my Champagne Konny album which has been some of my best work yet. We need to celebrate everything that got us here. The successes and the failures along your journey all matter. For me, everything before this contributed to the development of who I am and what I am as a person and an artist. I’m ready now!
Now I remember hopping on social media and hearing you were now overseas, a lot of artists believe they can just pack it up and bounce. Can you go into everything that made you decide to take this risky next step?
Well, I’ll start by saying that as an artist, and as an entrepreneur in general, everything is a risk in a way.
As an artist, your job is creating art that becomes successful off opinion.
With that said though, when you’re so passionate about something, the risks are well worth the rewards. Unfortunately, it will also come with failures and sacrifices. Being an artist definitely comes with a lot of sacrifices.
In regards to my steps deciding to go to Asia, it was more of a leap the second I saw a window of opportunity to go. Initially I went to Asia for a two week tour. The tour got extended for another two weeks, then another month, which lead to me partnering with Sony Asia and touring around the continent for a year and a half straight without leaving. The great thing about being an artist is that we work from our phones, computers, and studios. So when I saw the opportunity to build my name over there, I had to take it.
Both the risks and the rewards were endless, but at the same time, I love what I do so much that all of it was worth it.
I ended up building the foundation of my brand, and some extremely strong relationships over there. It will be a place that I not only tour, but will always consider another home of mine.
With going overseas you've also upgraded your sound. Bringing catchy production but I never want to get it twisted, this is still Koncept, you're still tearing beats to pieces, can you talk about that?
I appreciate it. I think for me as an artist, but also me as a fan, I never want or need to make or hear the same music twice. I think art and life is about growing and developing. So my music will always do this. As I experience new things it will go into my art. The experiences of traveling, the experiences of all the things that happen to me and around me are put into my songs.
We've actually just passed the one year anniversary of "Champagne Konny" what brought that album about? Because you dive deeper into the sound introduced on "14 Hours Ahead" and with it came one of your most successful singles "Sheesh". Talk about that a bit.
Sort of like I briefly mentioned above, I came back to New York and LA after being overseas for so long and when I got back home, I was so inspired it just all hit me really hard in a positive and powerful way. I realized what I wanted, where I wanted to go, and more of who I was more than ever before.
I got into the studio with my brothers (Mark Keitel Jr Lowe, Wrist, George Reichart) and just got into a vibe and a zone. Being in this space, I feel I really found my pocket and my voice.
"Sheeesh" was one of those days, one of those vibes where we were having fun, feeling good, and excited. I love that record and I’m glad that people are reacting to it the way they are.
Sheeeesh.
Now I want to talk about the marketing side of things with this, because you just released “Tomorrow” as a single recently. “Champagne” dropped over a year, I feel like nowadays a lot of artists don’t stick with their albums this long. Can you talk about the importance of continuing to market the pivotal album a full year later?
Yeah for sure. I think that with any album, people tend to listen to the singles or the most popular songs, usually the songs that are being pushed at that time. A lot of the time, songs on an album get missed, and sometimes those overlooked songs can be the most powerful songs, but just don’t have the vibe of being a “hit single” or “radio friendly” etc.
Quite honestly, I feel that all the songs on the Champagne Konny album can be served as singles. So I think it is important, at least for me, to shed some more light on some of the songs that were possibly missed. “Tomorrow” is definitely one of those songs, where I feel was really strong but didn’t get the proper awareness it deserved sitting in the middle of the album. I’m glad we got to shoot the video in Spain, and it all came together the way that it did. I have to say thank you to my good friend Erin O’Neill for inspiring, producing and creating the whole arrangement of that performance and video.
And with that said, videos for Lit, Let Me Know, and Are We There Yet are on the way still too!
What advice would you give to artists looking to do what you’re doing?
Believe in yourself, be yourself, work hard, harder than you would ever imagine, take risks, and when an opportunity is there, do it. Do it now. Don’t say, “I’ll do it later”, “I’ll send this email later”, it might be too late and you could’ve missed an opportunity that could’ve changed your life.
With “Tomorrow” out and doing the rounds, what can we expect from Koncept next?
I’m dropping a new single every few weeks for the rest of 2020 and all of 2021. A lot of videos in between. Dropping new dope, fun merch constantly all year. You can peep all of it - music, videos, and merch on my website: www.iamkoncept.com and on my social media platforms @champagnekonny
Below you can check out Koncept’s latest Music Video for “Shoot”