Sapphire in the Rough x Kidday

"Learning that, I had to find a gimmick or something that would attract eyes and get people to pay attention."

- Kidday

Behind the Artist

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Growing up in a home with a mixture of West African and Vincentian culture, Kidday was exposed to a lot of Dancehall, Reggae, and Soca. In a sense it held a lot of influence on the music that he makes today. Throughout the years, Kidday moved around from his hometown of Brooklyn to the city of Culpeper, Virginia which is where he resides currently. Kidday will touch on the hardships of being a musician in a small city and the efforts he's taking to break the small town narrative.

Interview

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Who is Kidday and where are you from?

Kidday: Kidday, pronounced Kidd-aye, is a multi-talented artist out of the small town of Culpeper, Virginia. I was born in Brownsville Brooklyn, New York City, but I grew up more there in Crown Heights are. I was born on May 19th, 1998 making me only 20 years old. I got my stage name from taking a simple childhood alias, Kidd, and adding the word "Aye" to it. I had to chose between AyeKidd or Kiddaye, but i personally liked how Kidday sound so used that and took the E off the end to give it a more clean look. However, it resulted in a lot of pronunciation issues.

Where exactly is Culpeper? I've never heard of it.

Kidday: Culpeper is actually in the middle of Virginia. It's a place that a lot of people in Virginia don't even know exist because of how small the town is. There's really nothing here, like if you really wanted to do something simple like go to a mall, you're driving over an hour in any direction to get to one.

What's your story? What makes it unique from the typical "come up" story?

Kidday: Come up story? There's a lot to my story. I was always the stand out growing up. When I was in Brooklyn I stood out, when I came to Virginia I stood out even more, so I was never able to really just feel comfortable because of how different I always was. My life was like a roller coaster socially because of how often I was moving around so there were periods where I'd have lots of friends, then there would be periods where I had no friends. I just learned to stay to myself more after a while until I started doing music. Within my sophomore year in high-school I began to make music. I'm pretty sure you can find some of my old music and mixtapes if you look hard enough on the internet. By my senior year, I realized that it's harder to gain a following or any type of audience when you are an introvert; especially with music. Learning that, I had to find a gimmick or something that would attract eyes and get people to pay attention. So I did what I had to do and got a 2008 Chevy Corvette and put "Kidday" on the license plate. From then on I started watching listeners grow.

How did music come into the picture?

Kidday: When I was living in Fredericksburg, I turned to writing whenever I was stressed and needed to get something off my mind. I've always been a real private person and tend to keep everything to myself until I met a friend in high school who encouraged me to try taking music more seriously. He was a super talented singer and I was a rapper. We were the typical rapper,singer duo making music. We invested in our own equipment since we didn't have access to any real studios back then being that we were so young. He still makes music til this day but we both took different routes. We're still really good friends and talk on a regular. He now lives in Detroit goes by "GloryTye", he's actually the singer on Oh NaNa.

I know that I mentioned before that I enjoyed your music, mostly because it's not typical to what I hear from the VA music scene. In addition to this it's not overly pop and can appeal to various audiences. How would you categorize your music?

Kidday: Like I said I always managed to be the stand out. I was always self conscious because my music stood out from what you typically hear from the other artist in Virginia and those in New York. I just never knew what category to put myself in so I just let other people decide what they want to call it. I just know that it would be a rap or hip hop subcategory.

What artist would you say influenced you?

Kidday: I grew up in Brooklyn so I listened to Jay Z and other New York artist. I also grew up in a multi-cultured household being both Caribbean and African, my father being from St. Vincent and mother from Sierra Leone, I was exposed to a lot of Reggae, DanceHall, and Soca. As artist that influences the music I make today. I'll have to say artist such as Childish Gambino, Lil Uzi, A Boogie, Logic, and more had an influence on as well. Juice World and I make closely to pretty much the same music so I'm not sure if that counts as an influence because whenever I listen to anything he puts out, I literally feel like I'm listening to myself. I didn't find out about him until last year but our styles are so similar.

Culpeper or not, I believe that the Virginia music scene can be rather overlooked. How would you describe that VA scene and do you think that it has potential to receive light in years to come? What are some pros and cons in your eyes?

Kidday: Virginia itself seems like a rat race. There's so much incredible talent in the state itself that is often overlooked. I can't even describe the music scene because of how almost invisible it is. You can feel it's presence but you can't see it because of how broken it is. There's not much local support to artist except for the already popular ones like such as Chris Brown, Missy Elliott, Pharrell, Pusha-T, etc. Not even the artist who made it from here really attempt to shed any light on their state. It may be that I just haven't found out how the system is exactly yet as an outsider but who knows.

Let's shed some light on your recent EP, Sapphire: I'm Over It, I enjoyed because it gave you a mixture of vibes from So Done to The Last Time. However, I must say I really enjoyed the project for it's skits. It's rare that you find underground projects with skits. Where was your head when working on this project?

Kidday: Sapphire, this was a step into a series that I'll be doing with music as far as naming projects after gems to reflect the mood. Creating Sapphire was pretty deep to me because it was me stepping into some issues I've been dealing with internally for some years but was afraid to come out about. I can say my head was in the past because how long I've been dealing with that break up. The songs were in reverse chronological order in where my mind was in each event along with the skits.

Did it receive the turnout that you were expecting?

Kidday: I'm not sure exactly what I was expecting of that project to be honest. I didn't really set any goals or anything for this one particularly but I can say I really did receive nothing but positive feedback from my listeners. So Done was the track I noticed fans took more interest to and enjoyed the most out of everything else.

I was listening to a few of your tracks and one that stood out the most was "Oh Na Na", I could hear some Caribbean vibes in there. What inspired you to take on a reggae themed track compared to your other singles or projects.

Kidday: Oh NaNa! My dad is from Richland Park, St. Vincent which is a small island in the Caribbean that just like Culpeper a lot of people overlook because it's not one of the big name islands. Unless you live by it you don't really notice it exist. I grew up around a lot of Soca, Reggae, and Dance Hall music when I was young and I've been there plenty of times growing up to visit all my family out there. However, I went there last year in May, and most of my family are aware that I make music so they requested that I make a song with more of a Caribbean vibe for them. When I came back to the U.S, I went straight to Detroit to meet my friend GloryTye and we came up with the song the first day out there and recorded it on the spot.

Are there any dope VA artist outside of yourself that you think deserve some light too?

Kidday: VA Artist who really deserve some light!? I'd have to mention a really close friend of mine, Lanchaboi, but I call him Lancha. He's rapper who is super dedicated to what he does. IslandMike is a producer, audio engineer who runs a studio in Fredericksburg who also has crazy work ethic. And lastly, Nic D is a super talented artist out here too!

What should we be expecting from Kidday next?

Kidday: March 1st. I'm dropping my first single off my upcoming EP, Emerald, that will becoming in the Spring during Taurus season. Working more on music videos so I have more visuals to go with the music.

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For more on Kidday, tune into Twitter, Inastagram, and Soundcloud for more:

Twitter and Instagram: @Kiddayfx

SoundCloud: Kidday