Kaysha Reveals The Evolution of Kizomba, Zouk & Urban Kiz

TAKEAWAYS

• Kaysha's diverse background influences his music style.

• He aims to escape genre categorization in his work.

• Global cities have shaped his musical journey significantly.

• Kaysha's music is a blend of various cultural influences.

• He views music creation as a form of self-expression.

• The rise of Kizomba is linked to the dance community's growth.

• Kaysha's strategic approach to music distribution is noteworthy.

• He emphasizes the importance of innovation in music.

• Kaysha's sound incorporates elements from multiple genres.

• His journey reflects the evolution of Kizomba and Zouk. You cannot take your culture and protect it so much that you don't want to share it.

• Kizomba's global rise is a testament to cultural exchange.

• Dancing is a universal form of self-expression.

• The success of 'Diamonds' marked a turning point in Kizomba's popularity.

• A song can be a mine that waits to be discovered.

• The dance community plays a crucial role in cultural appreciation.

• Art transcends borders and should be shared freely.

• The pandemic highlighted the resilience of the dance community.

• Documenting cultural heritage is essential for future generations.

• Collaboration between artists, dancers, and DJs is vital for the ecosystem of music. As a producer, you must create a universe for the artist.

• Art should allow for personal expression and freedom.

• Music and dance evolve with each generation.

• Independence in music requires understanding the landscape.

• Artists must think like asset owners to succeed.

• The cost of producing music has decreased significantly.

• Competition has increased due to lower barriers to entry.

• Artists need to create catalogs, not just singles.

• Understanding the business side is crucial for artists.

• Success in music requires hard work and strategic planning. It's essential to balance passion with business acumen.

• Many artists struggle with the business side of their craft.

• Podcasting requires strategic thinking for monetization.

• Kizomba is an evolving genre that reflects cultural shifts.

• Building an empire involves multiple revenue streams.

• Social media platforms have different monetization strategies.

• Engagement on platforms like TikTok can surpass traditional methods.

• Creators should embrace their multifaceted identities.

• Trusting oneself is crucial in the creative journey.

• The music industry often overlooks the contributions of behind-the-scenes creators.

SOUNDBITES

• "I try to always escape the genre categorization."

• "I grew up listening to music from everywhere."

• "I can hear the group AAA in my beat."

• "Creating is not just making music."

• "I see myself like a bartender doing cocktails."

• "I want to do that."

• "My music is just my journey."

• "The Zouk brand is about to die."

• "You cannot take your culture and protect it."

• "Kizomba is just... rest is history."

• "Diamonds was the first viral song I ever had."

• "A song is like a mine that you put somewhere."

• "Art has no passport."

• "The dancers kept Kizomba alive during COVID."

• "The dance is as important as the music."

• "Everybody is in an ecosystem."

• "You have to create a universe for the artist."

• "The goal is for you to express yourself."

• "Art is alive because it's alive."

• "You need to put in the work."

• "There's no more barrier to entry."

• "You have to understand the landscape."

• "You need to create catalogs."

• "You have to think like asset owners."

• "Songs are money generating assets."

• "It's not just about the passion."

• "Now you're a business owner."

• "How do you make money in podcasts?"

• "I know how to make money out of it."

• "Instagram doesn't want us to make money."

• "I was living a great life."

• "I want them to feel appreciated."

• "Trust yourself. Be patient with yourself."

TRANSCRIPT

Victor (00:00)

Hello, Kizomba friends and welcome back to another episode of Kizomba Conversations. As always, I'm your host, Victor. Today, I am super excited because we have a powerhouse of a guest.

We have a music artist who is a writer, producer, singer, who is known for Kizomba hits, known for Kizomba beats, known for Kizomba bangers, like I like to call them. All right, let's welcome Mr. Kaysha to the podcast. Kaysha, how are you doing?

Kaysha (00:34)

it does I'm good hi Victor hi Guelas nice meeting you finally

Victor (00:39)

Finally, thank you for making it happen. And I just want to say we have DJ Guelas back with us, my co-host today. So together, we are going to be tackling Mr. Kaysha together on this episode. So thank you, Guelas, for coming back. So Kaysha, what we like to do at the beginning here is we, well, for the whole podcast, we want to find out about you. But our first question, yeah, is really all about finding out about who you are, all right? And it's really...

Guelas (00:55)

pleasure.

Victor (01:08)

especially for the people who may not have heard of you. Just tell us a bit about your background. You know, essentially who is Kaysha?

Kaysha (01:16)

Wow.

This is hard to do in a quick resume, but I can try. Let me try to condense,

Victor (01:18)

Condensed version.

Kaysha (01:24)

I was born in Zaire, in the middle of Africa, what you now call Congo. As long as I can remember, I've always been a geek and a musician, like from banging on...

on kitchen instruments to programming my own stuff to then making music and not like one genre in particular. I've always been like that since maybe I was eight when I programmed my first program and when I did my first beat on an Amiga probably.

And I'm a producer. I'm a writer, rapper, singer, engineer, executive producer, MTV award nominee, Cora awards triple winner.

multiple silver, platinum and gold releases. That's for the hoopla's And I make music, all type of music without never actually... I would say trying to always escape the genre categorization. I try, even if everybody has a box where they put me in.

My goal is always to leave that box and go to freedom. There you go.

Victor (02:47)

Yeah.

Yeah. And that's, that's great because it makes you versatile, right? Like you say, not staying in one box, you can do different things and people can see you in different ways. So I think that is, that's great So you said you were a bit of a geek.

Kaysha (02:52)

Mm-hmm.

Not a bit. I'm a pure, full geek. Like, I get excited by technology as much as get excited as using the said technology to release, create, and divulge my art and my creations because I'm not just into music. I'm really into...

Guelas (03:04)

Full.

Victor (03:06)

Okay, so you like

Kaysha (03:26)

art in general and self-expression. So yeah, I use technology like usually 15 years before everybody.

Victor (03:28)

tested. Yeah, no, great.

Okay, a head of a curve. No, listen, thank you for sharing that and it's great to hear and a great insight as well. So in terms of you then, in terms of your past, I believe, correct me if I'm wrong, but obviously you've been in Paris for some time, maybe over 30 years if I'm not mistaken, yeah? 32, okay. Then you moved to Lisbon, yeah?

Kaysha (03:49)

Mm-hmm.

32, yeah. ⁓

Mm-hmm.

Victor (03:59)

And obviously,

because this is a podcast about Kizomba, obviously Lisbon is quite connected with Kizomba's global spread. Okay, so you've been Paris, Kinshasa, Lisbon. So how have those three cities shaped you and your music, you know, being from different, those three kind of areas?

Kaysha (04:06)

Mm-hmm.

Well, actually it's not three cities. There's a little more. So first it was Kinshasa. In the middle of Kinshasa there was China, Beijing. Then I was in Tokyo with my parents, a politician and a businesswoman. Then it was Paris, but Paris with Brussels every weekend.

Victor (04:21)

Okay. Yep.

Kaysha (04:40)

So was Paris studying and usually going on weekends in the Brussels house. And I would spend my summers either in Kinshasa or in Waterloo, in Brussels. Then I stopped going around the world because of music and...

Then it was Lisbon. Lisbon has been, I lived in Lisbon since 2012, but I started going in Lisbon in 2003. And I also was a lover of New York City. I used, since 96, I was always in New York as well. That's where I created my Kaysha.com. That's where I also, because I was a hip hop head. So.

Victor (05:25)

Okay, yeah.

Kaysha (05:27)

New York was the Mecca. So those places are, so all these places are important. And I also lived in the West Indies. I can't forget that. I also lived in Martinique, in Guadeloupe, and for the longest time in French Guiana, which made me at the crossroads of the Caribbean, South America, and North America.

Victor (05:29)

Yes.

Kaysha (05:49)

and the French culture plus the Caribbean culture and a lot of African and Chinese culture that is there. So I actually fit in places where all the misfits fit like places where people are just mixed with everything. Because when you think of most European cities like France, it's always a mix of the people who

who have been there for hundreds of generations and they are mixed with arrivals from every century, every decade of old colonies, new people, new people chasing new dreams. you had waves of North Africans, Sub-Saharians Africans, Caribbeans.

Chinese, et cetera. So I grew up actually listening to music from everywhere because first of all, had my parents are music lovers to begin with. So my dad having a lot of money early built Kizomba own club. He built Kizomba own club in the house. So he had like a club that could fit, I would say 50 people in the house.

Victor (06:57)

wow.

Kaysha (07:06)

mimicked under a club in Paris that he used to go with Jacob des Varieux from Kassav. So it was a club that they loved, both of them. So my dad built a replica. And in there, my mom herself had 8,000 vinyl collections of funk, soul, R &B. My dad was more into Congolese music.

Victor (07:14)

Yeah. Yeah.

Kaysha (07:29)

plus rumba. Congolese rumba, also Cuban, Latin. All types of African music that went away. That was my first exposure to Kassav, Celia Cruz, at the same time, Shalamar, James Brown, Michael Jackson. It was already mixed and then...

Victor (07:32)

Hmm.

Guelas (07:34)

Thank you.

Kaysha (07:55)

When we arrive in France, I'm seven, and all of a sudden the music changes because now it's the 80s, and in the 80s it's the rise of the Europop. So from the UK you have groups like Pet Shop Boys, all these groups. Don't leave me this way. Like all these...

Victor (08:08)

Yes.

Yeah. ⁓

Kaysha (08:20)

Old, old, you have Duran-Duran, think it's the, I think they're from the UK as well. You have Italian, not Italian disco pop. You have, you have French music, French variety as we say. So, Partenaires Particuliers, Milan Farmeur.

Guelas (08:34)

.

Kaysha (08:38)

all this music and then at the same time you also have the music that is coming from South Africa and everything that is playing on TV. I'm just drinking everything and at the same time I'm fascinated by Jean-Michel Jarre who is somebody

who was really a pioneer in electronic synthesizer music. So I start buying CDs from all these heroes at the same time. So this is also the rise of Michael Jackson, of course. So

I'm a fan of everything. I was not really a fan of Congolese music, maybe because I grew up listening to it and I grew up seeing them play in my backyard. So I didn't really feel connected to it the same way I felt connected to Bobby Brown and all the guy, Teddy Riley, all these...

Victor (09:08)

Mmm.

Kaysha (09:29)

the R &B from the 90s and then as I grew up. So I think I'm probably when I'm 12, 13, I'm really obsessed with the pop from Europe, like Def Leppard, Final Countdown, and at the same time groups like Toto. And from my mother's listenership.

Celia Cruz and et cetera. then when my mom listens to the Shalmar, the Pointer Sisters, like I'm also...

Guelas (09:56)

Okay. Okay.

⁓

Kaysha (10:01)

I have disco entering. So I'm just like a sponge. Everything is just going in. And it's probably at 15 that I discovered the Beastie Boys. That's the first hip hop cassette that I buy. And

that's when I'm hooked and I become really... I would not say that I become full hip hop because I still listen to R &B and...

And I also listen to cock-robin and all type of music, but I really become focused on hip-hop and I'm actually more interested in how the beats are made. And so by the time I already went from having my first synthesizer when I was seven to now have big machines, because every Christmas and every birthday I would ask for a machine. So now they get bigger.

And at the same time, I go from trying to play music from series or Euro pop or... It was not house music at that time. was more like from Kraftwerk to the Depesh mode. So I'm still at the same time, very pop, but at the same time, I'm really drawn into hip hop.

I don't want to be a rapper because I'm way too shy, but I want to make music for rappers. So I start making a lot of hip hop beats. By the time I'm 16, 17, now I'm in the, so it's the same time as the first wave of French rappers. So I'm in this wave as a beat maker. I make beats for a lot of people, but every time I go to shows, usually I go.

Victor (11:36)

Mm.

Kaysha (11:40)

to supply beats for people. I come with cassettes, so when people want to do freestyle, I have beats. Or when people give me a floppy disk, they can get a beat for free. And I start making beats for all these rap pioneers from France. And my goal is to make beats for my sister, who was a French rapper as well. But me and my sister were rapping in French and, I mean, she was rapping in French and English.

Me, I only wanted to rap in English, because I only listened to rap in English. So rapping in French made no sense to me. I was like, That's rap is in English. But I understood. But I, I start to write some raps as well. But again, I'm way too shy and I like being in the back in the obscurity, making beats and.

Guelas (12:24)

you

Kaysha (12:33)

writing, but just writing for me. When I get 18, I'm already completely submerged with influences from the whole world because of traveling with my parents as a kid, traveling with my parents as a teenager, and just having access in... So in Belgium, we had access to MTV.

Victor (12:37)

You

Kaysha (13:01)

So there was MTV, MTV rap. So we had access to R &B music videos and hip hop music videos. And at the same time in France, we had all the French culture plus the French underground. So I was like kind of everywhere and liking everything. So when I get 18, we go to Brussels for the summer and my cousins are participating at a...

in, you know, Mr. Something in the club, like, who's the most beautiful guy in the club. I was really not interested in that. But my cousins were like, yo, you have to show up, you have to, yeah, you have to compete with us, it's fun, come on. People don't know you anyway here, like, I was like, I'm not interested in.

Guelas (13:31)

Okay.

Victor (13:33)

Hahaha

Guelas (13:43)

you

Kaysha (13:49)

I end up participating and winning. all the girls are like, he's amazing. Now the DJ, who was also the son of a politician from Congo, I mean, all of us were, but the DJ...

Guelas (13:53)

Impressive.

Victor (13:58)

You

Kaysha (14:07)

grabs the mic from the presenter and says, yo, not only is he good looking, but he can rap too. And he plays OPP by Naughty by Nature instrumental.

and all the girls start yelling and

Okay. And two guys come to me. They're like, yo, listen, what you did was amazing. I have a club in Germany on Sundays. Like, do you want to come? Hey, I have a club in Holland, in the Netherlands. Like, can you come tomorrow? Do the same thing? Do you have your own songs? I'm like, not really. I mean, I write my stuff, but listen, whatever you did, do that.

Victor (14:49)

Okay.

Kaysha (14:49)

So the next day, I'm in Holland and I'm doing the same thing. And then the next day, all of us, was me, my sister, my cousin, we all go car. We arrive in Germany and now we are all freestyling with the soldiers because there was a lot of American soldiers. So now you have all the Black Americans that all take the mic, they start rapping. And then me, I'm like, my God, that's going to be a...

Guelas (15:08)

Thank

Kaysha (15:18)

I'm going to ridiculize myself. I go, I put a beat, I start rapping and then everybody's like, yeah. And all the soldiers, they come to me, they're like, yo man, where you from man? Hey, I'm from Mississippi. I'm from New York. Where you from man? I'm like, I'm from Paris. Paris? You from Paris? People rap like that in Paris? So that's how I come back in Paris with the confidence to start.

participating in the French rap tournaments because in the French tournaments, people were hating on anybody doing rap in English. yeah, listen, soon as I started, all the women started yelling every time I would perform. You know, I dreadlocks young like,

and yeah, men were hating, but

Women were happy and I ended up performing. So that's 92. So I ended up performing for free every Friday, every Saturday, every party, everywhere there was a microphone. Me and my crew would show up. We would sometimes rap songs in the afternoon. I mean, I would make the beats for everybody and we would all go and rap.

and freestyle. we freestyle with the Fuji's, we freestyle with the Horace Brown, Father MC's. Like every time there was artists that would come from the US and they would have shows in clubs, we would come and freestyle at a point. They would always say, hey, who can rap here? And whenever I would show up, crowd would go crazy. And that's how seen until 96. I was just performing all the time and

Everybody knew my songs because I had some songs that really became famous, like Give Me The Mic So I Can Rock, for example. There was a super famous underground sound, but I had no clue how you do a CD. So a few of the people we grew up with ended up being at Universal, Sony Music, Warner, EMI, all the labels.

Guelas (17:12)

Yeah ⁓

Kaysha (17:28)

But we didn't have a...

Like every

time we would go in the different places, wouldn't have... People would say, listen, I love how you rap, but it's in English, we're in France, you know. If you could do the same thing in France, it would be amazing. And so for a long time, I would just do demos and nothing would happen until I reached... I went to New York.

Guelas (17:43)

you

Kaysha (17:58)

And that's when really people told me, yo, listen, like, what you do is amazing. Don't stop. And when I came back from New York, before going to New York in 96, a friend of mine told me, I want you to meet my boyfriend. He's a Zouk artist. I was like, a Zouk artist? Like, and like, he's like, yeah, Kizomba name is Jean-Michel Rotin. I'm like, I have no clue who that is. And he's like, yo, listen.

Victor (18:25)

Mm-hmm.

Kaysha (18:27)

He's the Michael Jackson of Zouk I was like word. Yeah, that's my boyfriend. I was like, OK, but what does what does he wants to meet me like? He's like, no, listen, he wants to come to your show and. Yeah, listen, he has a proposal for you. So me, I'm like, well, listen, I'll tell him to come to the show, you know.

So we perform in center of Paris in a club called Luna 37. It was like Chatelet, center of Paris. And Jean-Michel Rotin shows up with Kizomba girl. So after the show, he comes, he's like, yo, guy, you were amazing, et cetera, et cetera. Listen, I'm doing my solo album. I've been looking for somebody to rap on my album. Would you be interested? I mean, I'm like, rapping on Zouk?

This makes no sense, bro. And he's like, now listen, have this, sound is different. I'm like, well, listen, since, yeah, listen, since you, I know your girl. Yeah, let's go, let's go. So we all went to Kizomba crib. And when we arrived to Kizomba house,

That's when he blows my mind. Because he is like, you listen, this is is Zouk, but it's R &B at the same time. And he's like, I'm like, whoa. And then you have like all the Teddy Riders that are like, like, I'm like.

Victor (19:43)

You

Kaysha (19:49)

And they sing like R &B, like they have R &B harmonies on Zouk tracks, but they sound like R &B. I'm like, bro, all right, what do you need? It's like, listen, I need eight bars here. I need eight bars here. I need eight bars on that song. It's like, okay, listen, I'm going to New York in two days. So it's like a...

Can you record tonight? I'm like, yeah, I just need to listen to the songs, write them. He's like, okay, can you be in the studio in two hours? Yeah, sure. So there's a legend in the Zouk industry called Ronald Rubinelle and he had Kizomba own studio. So we go to Kizomba studio, Latitude 101. We arrive there. I'm like, hi, play the songs. So they play the song. I take a pen and a paper. I'm listening, I'm like, okay.

And after 10 minutes, I'm like, I'm ready. So the engineer's like, yeah, mic test. Okay. says, well, whenever you're ready, I say, right, let's go. You put the song, one take. He's like, you want to hear it? He's like, no, I'm going to double. Put the second track, put the third track, finish the track. I'm like, I'm done. Next song. And in, yeah, 30 minutes, 30, 40 minutes, just.

Because at that time when I was rapping, was proud of the fact that I didn't need to re-record. I would just write and record one take. So then I told them, guys, I'm sorry, I would love to stay for the mix and et cetera, but I have to go because I'm going to New York tomorrow. Next day I'm in New York. I go to New York for three months. There I work for Vibe Magazine, I work for...

Street Sound magazine, I just mingle in the hip hop scene in New York. And then when I come back to Paris, Jean-Michel tells me, hey, I have a show. Do you want to come with me? I'm like, to do what? He's like, to perform. I'm like, yeah, but I mean, perform in the Zouk show? Like, what? Like, people don't know me. What's the point?

He's like, no, listen, the songs where you rapped are quite popular and it would be great if, listen, just come and sing along. I was like, all right, cool. so I fell asleep in a car and by the time we arrive in a parking underground, so we go backstage, et cetera. And I'm hearing like some...

noise like I'm hearing like people screaming, but I'm not hearing like a normal club like doesn't seem like it's like 500 people or 200 people. Seems like there's a lot of people and I'm like. I'm like. So I asked Kizomba manager, I'm like, how many people are here? Because like around 10,000, I'm like. Wait, what? What's going on is like.

The manager is like, this is a superstar of Zouk. Like 10,000, these guys are crazy. Anyway, so when we backstage, Jean-Michel is like, okay, you entering at the eighth song. But don't worry, right before it's your turn, somebody will come and tell you you entering in this song.

So I can hear like the excitation. So when he gets out the door to go on stage, you can hear 10,000 people. But you don't because you on the other side, you have no clue that you are actually in one of the biggest venue in Paris and it's full. So. When it's my turn, I said, OK, I'll enter, say no, no, listen, when the song start to enter, I'm like, no, no, no.

I'll enter exactly when my rap starts.

So when I entered, at the same time, I got shocked because of the noise, like all, like the probably 8,000 women yelling. I got shocked at that. I got shocked that...

Victor (23:56)

Listen, a question,

How did that feel? All those, how did that feel? Okay, okay.

Kaysha (24:03)

It felt strange.

It felt strange because I, listen, I had no clue. And I had no clue that performing for all these years in the underground, a lot of these women were actually from the West Indies, of course from Africa. Because to me, was like, listen, I just make music. I never thought about music and nationalities. And if you're from here, you have to do that. I never thought this way. To me, I was just like, hey, I'll rap. I like to rap.

But most people, even if they listen to rap, when they go home, because most of them were the sons and daughters of first-generation immigrants in Paris, so they were still listening to a lot of the music from home at home. So when I arrive in reality, it's the best of both worlds for them. They love the rapper, but they also love the Zouk guy. And when I come back from the stage,

His agent is like, that was amazing. So himself after the, the end of the show, comes to me, he's like, yo, that was amazing. Did you see how they yelled for you? I'm like, that's crazy. What happened? He's like, yo, listen, what are you doing? What are you next week? I'm like, nothing. Why? Me, I go to university. I'm studying economics. It's like, bro, you need to come with us. Like, and that's how I start going on tour with them all around France.

And that's how I get into the Zouk world as a performer. I did a track with Nichols. I did a beat for him. That was my first entry. But that's when I really put my two feet in there. But I get there as a rapper that performs and dances for the biggest superstar at the time, in the early... I think it was the end of the mid-90s.

We're talking 95, six, seven, eight. And that's how I go to the West Indies for the first time as a performer. I didn't reply to your question, but it is what it is.

Victor (26:03)

Yeah, no, listen. Hey, look, well,

look, you're giving us a full story there, and that's great. And then just going back from what you said, if I can remember, you, first of all, it's like, you your start and then finding out about the beats and soaking up everything like a sponge. So you've got all that, then your background with your mom and your dad and all that. So now when obviously we hear your sounds, listening to what you've just said,

Kaysha (26:09)

You

Victor (26:31)

kind of makes me understand a little bit more about where that evolution has come from, where you are in terms of the beats, because you said you like the beats. ⁓ Say again.

Kaysha (26:39)

You can hear ah-ah in my beat.

You can hear the group ah-ah take on me. You can hear them in my beat. If you listen to my beat, you can hear like the... And it's interesting because it's a mix of... Euro pop because I use a lot of synthesizers from the 80s. I use that sound because that's the sound I grew up on.

Victor (26:44)

Yeah.

Guelas (26:50)

Yeah.

Kaysha (27:05)

And so you can hear like, at the same time, I'm using sounds from the pop from the 80s, but then I play them like Manu Lima or Filipe Patero.

Victor (27:15)

Yeah.

beat making and that you're going back from where you started and everything. So definitely an influence in terms of when people listen to you now, Kaysha.

So listening to you talk now, we kind of get it in terms of where you come from. And you dropped some old school names there, man. Aha, Gerand, Gerand, what was it? Some of the other people. Making me feel old, But no, and it's great. And thank you for sharing that. And obviously, you've been on the journey, And obviously, after all that, it grew even bigger. But I'm going to hand over to Guelas to ask you some other questions there, So go over to you, Guelas.

Kaysha (27:33)

soul to soul yeah listen

Guelas (27:34)

the plush

Kaysha (27:45)

Yeah.

Guelas (27:53)

What up, homie? What's going on? ⁓ So listen, piggybacking what you just ended your journey thus far up to the mid 90s and starting the journey with Jean-Michel Rotin and the Zouk world and kind of like landing with the whole R &B hip hop and that mixture that Jean-Michel Rotin also started. You, Kaysha,

Kaysha (27:54)

What up,

Guelas (28:18)

Born in Zaire, raised in France, been all over the world, started to gain some notoriety in the Zouk world. Were you celebrated across the board or was there any resistance? And that question also stands for all the other genres that you also delve into over the years.

Kaysha (28:27)

Yeah.

When you don't respect the boundaries, you will always create at the same time the excitation of revolution and at the same time the resistance of people who don't like their habits being shaken, shaken off.

There's always be voices of, that's not the way Zouk is supposed to sound, or that's not the language Zouk is supposed to be performed in. But at the same time, when you're in your 20s, you don't care at all, because you're doing your thing and yourself have been...

dreaming of your heroes, like other trailblazers, from Madonna to Michael Jackson to Stevie Wonder to James Brown, like you are drawn to creating. And creating is not just making music. Creating is creating subgenres. Creating is listening to

Fado from Portugal and listening to Zouk and to R &B and being like, how would I mix that? Because I see myself like a bartender doing cocktails. I cannot serve you orange juice, water, or I need to always, if you ask me for orange juice,

I'm going to put some grenadine in there. I'm going to put some vanilla. I'm going give you something that has a rainbow. I don't know how to do it differently because the way I receive the world is I receive all these information, emotions, music, and every time I hear something that I never heard before, I get excited. I'm like, what is this? And when I this is kuduro.

The first time I went to Angola. What is this? What are they dancing? Oh, this is kuduro. I want to do that. That's how I did the dollar.

Guelas (30:38)

Yeah.

Kaysha (30:42)

And instead of doing it the way they do it, then I like to deconstruct and then reconstruct, but my way. So some people might take it as a lack of respect for the norms that are the boundaries of a genre. But me actually is a form of respect. I'm like, okay, I'm going to take what you do and I'm going to incorporate it in the rest of the things that I'm doing.

And the goal is for the public, when you do it well, for the public, it's just a great song. But then for other scientists, beatmakers, technicians, people who understand, they will be able to, oh, I hear a little bit of, oh, OK, you put a... That's a cocktail. Somebody who have no clue how it's done, I want to sex on the beach. Oh, it's great.

And somebody who has the knowledge or who in French we say papi gustatif, so that's the things on your tongue, are going to be able to see, there's a little bit of mint, there's a little bit of this, I can see. And so those people would be more excited about what is the mixture.

Guelas (31:48)

Yeah, your palate.

Kaysha (32:00)

then what is the end result? And me, I think I'm a great mixer of everything because if I give you a song like One Love, for example, One Love is considered along with Question My Heart, Deeper, Rebound Chic, and a lot of the songs that I did, but One Love,

has been considered for a long time as one of the most iconic and greatest kizomba song ever. But to me, it's never been a kizomba song. And if you go to France, for them it's a zouk track. For the Palop people, it's a kizomba track because a lot of the first generation kizomba dancers, they all learn on that song.

But if you go to Brazil, they call it Zouk, but they dance Lambada on it. But if you ask me, it's actually a mix of pop because of the way I played the guitar. didn't play the Zouk guitar.

Guelas (32:48)

Mm-hmm.

Kaysha (33:01)

If I would have played like a kizomba way would have been Or if I would have played the Congolese way like motem I would have been But I asked the guitarist I said listen I want you to play like if he was a Bob Dylan song I wanted like I was a That's what I told him and he was like

Yeah, but that's strange because your beat is like... I was like, yeah. And then that's the mixture that makes the pop lover say, I don't like kizomba, but I like this. Or the kizomba lover that says, yeah, I'm not really into pop, but wow, this kizomba has a different feeling. It's the mixture. It's the way that you can blend.

the different cultures together. And I really had less of the rejection to my music and more of the, I see myself in the music, but not in the entirety of the music. it's like a, it's like a prism depending on which side of my music you look at, you're to see yourself somewhere. And that's what, that's why everybody's always like,

Guelas (34:18)

Yes.

Kaysha (34:21)

I don't listen to Kizomba, but the Kaysha music is different because you can have the R &B, you can have the hip hop, you always have something from you in there. The best example is something going on. Something going on is everything. It is one of the biggest Konpa songs, the biggest Kizomba song, the biggest Zouk song.

Guelas (34:25)

Yeah.

Kaysha (34:44)

And to me, it's actually everything at the same time because there's elements of everything. You have the Konpa elements in the percussion and the... But you also have the... That's actually cape verdian passada. But the way I play the rhythm is actually kizomba. But the way I play the hi-hats is actually from the Zouk.

But then the way I sing it is actually R &B. This is R &B. And at the same time, as a singer, I still have the flow of a rapper. I think my music is just my journey. And you can hear it in the way I sing and play.

Guelas (35:28)

that.

I can definitely attest to that. And as a witness of what happened since the beginning of your solo career, I remember I was in Portugal on vacation and I was at Musulu. And the first time that I heard the Oule remix, ⁓ that bounce baby that just blew my mind. I ran to the DJ, I'm like, what is this? And the next day I went to buy your CD, which was crazy. Of course I'm from

Kaysha (35:48)

Mmm bounce baby.

Well.

Guelas (36:00)

We're from the same generation. I heard all of the same type of music and you know, all of the melange that you just spoke about, all of the music that influenced me also influenced the same generation growing up where they heard a little bit of everything that you just mentioned. But also piggybacking from what you just said a little while ago, as far as the first generation of Kizomba dancers that would dance into your tracks. Piggybacking on that, you know, your music has

stood a test of time, crossed many boundaries, and specifically, speaking of the dance world, when did you take notes that your music was being used as demos or at dance festivals, you know, and did that ever influence your music production?

Kaysha (36:44)

So as I told you before, I've always been a geeky and I've always been a strategist. So.

way before the Kizomba revolution. would say not the Kizomba revolution as music, but the takeover from foreign lovers of Kizomba the dance. And Kizomba the dance is an umbrella to Passada, Tarraxinha, Kizomba, Zouk, Konpa.

Victor (37:07)

Hmm.

Kaysha (37:17)

Semba, Kuduro, usually was, it's just like salsa, we just, kizomba was the good word, right? And by 2000 and...

Seven

I see, so because I'm a geek and I'm a strategist, I tend to look every day at midnight. I go to the dashboard of where my songs are sold. So back then it was very iTunes. So you could see real time, all right, you sold five songs here, 20 songs here, 100 songs here. everything used to be centralized in France, Belgium.

Switzerland.

Portugal was starting because the more people had Wi-Fi at home, the more they would. And me, I was always watching because my goal was, when everybody in Africa has internet and iTunes, that's when I make money. That's what I was saying to myself. But one day, I started seeing a lot of dots everywhere. I'm like, Madrid? I'm like, hmm.

Then I see Odessa, Ukraine. I'm like, huh? Then I'm like India. Then I'm like, okay. Something is going on that either people are discovering me on YouTube from everywhere and the algorithms are just taking them to my music or something else is happening.

Victor (38:29)

You

Kaysha (38:45)

So in 2008, I come here in Lisbon. So I was still living in Paris. I come to Lisbon for a show and usually would stay three, four days after the shows. And somebody takes me actually to one of the first Kizomba festivals, which was probably Afrika Dancar, I believe. that's when, so me, that's the way I am.

to explain to you the way my Aquarius brain functions. If I see this thing and this thing, I can know what this will create in five years. I just know, like, for example, when I read about the MP3s and I read about Wi-Fi, about

ADSL, which was the first generation of fast internet. I was like, okay, wait. If we are able to download at 100 kilobyte per second and music files go down from 40 megs to four megs with MP3s, the CDs are dead. That's the way my brain functions.

When I say this to people, usually they don't believe. And 10 years later, they're like, oh, you were right all along. So when I arrive in Africa, it was in Olais, I remember, in Hotel Ramada or something. I go in there.

and I see a bunch of white people.

dancing, doing representation, dancing Kizomba And I'm like, okay. And I was like, this is what, so I go talk to a girl. I'm like, excuse me, where are you from? And she's like, I'm from a little city in Ukraine called Odessa. I'm like.

That's the point. That's her. Where are you from? I'm from, I came all the way from India. Wait, you travel to dance? Yes, I travel to dance. I was like, I went back to France and I told everybody, listen, if you guys don't create Zouk festivals where people learn to dance Zouk, it's over. For the brand Zouk, it's gonna be over. And that's exactly what happened.

the brand Kizomba took over because organizers like Olga from Ukraine came to Madrid and started creating the Sensual, the Cleola Beach Festival and her other festivals. I don't want to say the wrong name. You had the Kizmi Festival in Budapest. had, all of a sudden it started.

going everywhere. that's, I was like, okay, Zouk is about to lose the brand, the brand power, because before that point, everybody used to say, Zouk. People would not say Kizomba, they would say Cabo Zouk. They would say, they would call Nelson Freitas and then Ghetto Zouk.

Guelas (41:43)

Mm-hmm.

Kaysha (41:49)

my music, they would call it R &B Zouk. So everything was something Zouk. In Africa, you had Monique Seca, Oliver N. Goma rest in peace, it was Afro Zouk. So everything was a flavor of Zouk. And that day I went to that festival and I was like, okay, the Zouk brand is about to die. I knew it. And I said, it's going to be because of the dancers, because

Guelas (41:59)

I froze it.

Kaysha (42:15)

What the Zouk community didn't understand was that you cannot take your culture and protect it so much that you don't want to share it with other people and you don't want other people to do it. That's exactly the same way that the Congolese culture after 30 years of rain also lost power to coupé des calais and Afrobeat.

because they did a music that only the Congolese could do and they would only accept if it was done in Lingala and you had to... And only the people who understood that you had to do a watered down version in a language that other people would understand and dances that people could all repeat. That's how you do what the Koreans are good at. The soft power through K-pop.

And that day I was like, okay, it's going to be through the dancers. And that's exactly what happened. And then I think four, five years later, you had one Kizomba festival every single day in the year.

Victor (43:21)

And now Kizomba is just, yeah, Kizomba is just global.

Kaysha (43:22)

The rest is history.

Yeah, now it's in China, India, everywhere. it's

actually the fact that...

it was not gate-kept because, well, I guess the Angolans themselves just came out of a war at that time. And most Angolan artists were actually more interested in doing reggaeton and hip-hop. There was a lot of hip-hop there until Anselmo Ralph went from R &B to Kizomba.

So there was no gatekeeper of the culture. And because it's dancing, dancing is just a self-expression through movement. And nobody can actually really gatekeep dancing. so you can just see the... And so it's funny when I see the first generation of Kizomba trying to gatekeep and say, no, Urban Kiz, no, no, no, not here.

The center is here, it's not here. was like, guys. So, but it's you can see that the music, you used to be the music making the dance and all of us artists go around the world through the music. But then it went through the dance. And that's when I was like, OK, I have to create.

to answer the last part of your question. That's when I said to myself, okay, I have to create music for the dancers. I already had songs that they were learning on, but then I started doing some tracks with them in mind as well. I was like, okay, depending on how I'm gonna make the beat, they're gonna be more or less comfortable to dance. So some songs always had that dance factor in it. And...

That's when I did actually, that's exactly the time where I was like, okay, if I take a popular song and I do it for the dancers.

I it might work. So I took the Rihanna song and I made Diamonds Kizomba and I directly sent.

Ten days before release, I sent one email to a DJ in Atlanta called DJ Guelas. I sent one copy to a DJ in Brazil called Israel Zerman. I sent one copy to a DJ in Portugal and a few DJs in France. Guelas sent me a video of him playing it right away the same night.

Victor (45:24)

you

Kaysha (45:40)

And the guys in Brazil showed me people dancing lambada on it. Guelas sent me videos of people dancing kizomba on it. And the French people show me videos of people dancing Zouk on it. And I was like, there you go, the strategist did it again.

Victor (45:56)

goes back to what you saying,

right? You you blend everything and it just goes, goes well. Yeah.

Kaysha (46:00)

Yes.

Yeah, Diamonds was crazy. Diamonds was the first viral song I ever had because when it came out...

I just put it on YouTube. Like I think I put it, sent it, I finished mixing it. I recorded it at home. I finished mixing it, mastering. I remember sending it at night to Guelas and them. And then I was like, yo bro, I just did this. I probably have the email somewhere. And then I upload to YouTube, the cover art was taken with an iPhone 4.

Cause I had nothing. just went in front of a mirror undressed just to, I just did that and took a picture with my iPhone. So just to see you how much I was like, Hey, listen, let's just put out music. And when it's the next day, when I had like hundreds of YouTube, Facebook and Twitter comments,

And I was receiving videos of people and Guelas was in, you were in Atlanta playing in a, I don't know what club you were at that time, 2008. But I was receiving videos from, I was receiving videos from everywhere. That's when I called my distribution. I was like, yo, I need this on iTunes yesterday. Like, can we have like, can it be on iTunes today?

Guelas (47:08)

Yeah, I don't remember, yeah.

Kaysha (47:25)

And that's when they said, yeah, listen, we can see what's going on. It was on iTunes the same night and boom. And all of a sudden I got called to go perform in all those Kizomba festivals.

Victor (47:40)

Yeah.

Guelas (47:41)

And if I remember correctly, I think timing also was of the essence for that particular perfect storm to happen because I think Diamonds had just been released not too long ago and you jumped on it immediately and stuff.

Kaysha (47:55)

Yeah, I heard it. Because you

and me met in Miami. and probably the night after I went to a club and they played diamonds. And I was like, I love this song. But then after two days, I went to Paris.

And I heard the same song again, I asked to the DJ, who's singing this? And he was like, that's the new Rihanna. I was like, wow. So I came home from the club straight away. went to, as he was playing in the club, I was hearing my version. I went on YouTube. I found out the lyrics. I went to play it on YouTube. Then I just replayed the kiz and then I just did my version and then I just performed it straight away. then this

Probably I saw you maybe a week before and a week after my version was out. I was just like, I put it out on no album because back then we were coming out of the album world where you had to release music inside of albums of 15 songs. Me, I'll just put it on YouTube. And it just blew up. then after that, Al bir and Sara just...

sent it to the moon with their video. That's the video that made them, both of them also like the first generation of Kizomba dancers, superstars. I think it was them, first two really big dancers with Tony. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And on YouTube, their video like, and so this also made the song, the song of the Kizomba festivals.

Victor (49:06)

you

Guelas (49:17)

Yeah, that went viral and took millions. Yeah.

Kaysha (49:30)

So it's an ecosystem where everybody needs each other. It's interesting. I mean, now the dancers don't even need singers. They prefer dancing on beats. So that's me. All the singers are like, no. And me, I'm like, I'm a beat maker. I don't care. I make beats too.

Victor (49:32)

Yeah.

You

Guelas (49:41)

Yeah.

Victor (49:48)

Yeah.

Guelas (49:50)

Let's work for you.

Victor (49:51)

Exactly. Okay, so.

Kaysha (49:52)

Yeah, it it's

crazy. I think the, I think in music, to me, the kizomba, the kizomba dance, to me is the most interesting revolution for music. Because the people who dance kizomba,

I've been in a few festivals as a performer, but I've also been invited a lot by the like festival. example, when it was here, I used to go a lot. Olga invited me all the time in Spain to her festival. been in some festivals in Brussels, in Paris.

What I like the most about the Kizomba dancers is the love they have for the culture. Even if sometimes they don't really know nothing about it because there's no information, sadly, because we Black people don't like to write things. the way they love it...

the way they will spend for the culture, the way they will organize themselves in festivals and they will travel, like they will spend like fortunes just to go dance and they just want to dance, dance, dance, dance, dance, dance and dance some more. And when they go to sleep at six, they wake up for breakfast at 10 and they're already ready to dance. And you look at them like they see each other, they start dancing. You're like, yo guys.

Victor (51:11)

You

Yeah.

Kaysha (51:20)

Like, list, take even like, are we waiting for the plane and somebody has like a phone with some songs playing and they start dancing and they start crying sometimes. you're like, these guys are.

Guelas (51:20)

of Rick.

Victor (51:33)

Not one of that, not any part of that is lies, man. That's all true.

Kaysha (51:33)

Yeah, they into it.

Listen, these, they, they live it. They, they like.

Guelas (51:37)

Yeah, yeah. It was the first thing that also caught my eye. They were

appreciating it sometimes more than we were.

Kaysha (51:46)

Listen,

exactly. It's something where I, me, I'm I observe a lot. I'm actually somebody who I look a lot of details in stuff. When I go to Kizomba Festival, because I don't really like to dance, I love to look at people dance and to look at the way they bond.

around. They don't bond.

around the music. They bond around the dance. And of course, they're going to have their favorite song and stuff, but it's really about the dancing, the movements. And you can see people from all over the world who are really wanting to learn these steps, whether it is the passada steps, the Konpa steps, the kizomba steps, the Zouk steps, the...

Urban kiz whatever it is, like you have these communities that form around a sincere. It is really a sincere appreciation and love for the culture and what it does for them. And when you are a creator of the music, you can only appreciate like, you know, a lot of times I remember

There was a point around 2014, 15, where the Angolans of Portugal started getting angry. every time you would post a video of people from Ukraine or from Russia dancing on your kizomba songs differently from the way that we would dance them.

you would have like plenty of hate comments. And even you just from posting, you would receive backlash. And me, I remember receiving this video from a couple from Ukraine, they're in the snow and they're dancing to one of my songs. And of course, yeah, they're dancing differently. are urban kiz it's a lot of strange moves. But listen, I come from breakdance hip hop. So for me,

Guelas (53:34)

Yeah, a lot of backlash, yeah.

Kaysha (53:59)

There's nothing like I can see the elements of this. can break it down and be like, some, some, some break dancer probably is at the origin of that. And me, I post a video and then I receive a comment of somebody saying, yeah, you see, this is why we don't support you artists. You are set out. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And me, I reply. All right. First of all, as a creator,

There is nothing beautiful as seeing other creators being invested and inspired by your creation and seeing them create something out of your creation is actually the most beautiful thing in life. That's number one. Number two, where's your video?

No, but where is your video? You and all my brothers, where are your videos? Because these people, take the time. Sometimes they shoot a whole movie on the song. They're going to do like, they go, they're going to, they're going to cut the St. Petersburg bridge and they're going to do like, like those people we're going to do like, they're going to be like, they're going to have 200 people doing a Kizomba choreography for Christmas.

Guelas (54:58)

Yeah.

Kaysha (55:14)

in Italy, where is your video? If it's your culture, when are you supporting it? been in your... I went to your page. Where's your video? It's okay. When you have a video, when you can show us how it is danced, you're to let me appreciate those who are spreading my music through their steps. Until you can have a video.

I suggest you leave my comments and shut the fuck up. Pardon my French.

Victor (55:47)

Indeed. No, Kaysha, listen, man. yeah, real talk, real talk. everything you said, they're very insightful and very, educational as well. And, you know, just the last part about Kizomba. Yes, absolutely. People love the dance, man. They love it. They make, community that make friends.

part of the reason why I love it so much as well.

Kaysha (56:07)

Babies.

Like you have kizomba babies now.

Victor (56:11)

Yeah, well that too. Yeah. Some of your music might've helped with that as well, but anyway.

Guelas (56:12)

Yeah.

Kaysha (56:14)

⁓ Listen,

I know, but you know how beautiful, like people don't see these details, right? How beautiful it is to go to a Kizomba festivals, the same festival, five years in a row, right? And the first year you see two people were just dancing. The second year you see them dancing together.

And then the third year they come together as a couple. And the fifth year, the fourth year she's pregnant and the fifth year she's with the baby. At the festival, that's moving to me. That's the most beautiful and the most sincere form of appreciation for what we do as creators to see people who really like

appreciate the music and

You have so many artists that are struggling because it's hard to perform in the clubs. The scene is so crowded now and you have one million DJs. It's so easy to be a DJ now. It's so easy to be a dancer. It's so easy to be everything now. But when you can create something out of your own emotions and turn it into a song and then...

you have people telling you, this is my wedding song. Or, listen, that's, I learned, I remember the first generation of Kizomba dancers, a lot of people had either deeper, rebound chic, question my heart, one love, Motema, Fiona. One of my songs as the song where they learned to dance Kizomba.

Victor (57:39)

Yeah.

Guelas (57:40)

Yeah.

Kaysha (58:00)

That's an honor for me. That's beautiful. don't like, that's one of the things I appreciate the most about the dancers. Like, they will never forget that your song is, it's just like when people get married to your song or they kiss for the first time on your song and it then becomes the song of their wedding. Like, if the first time you learn to dance the...

the music, he was on diamonds or one love, then it's over. It's always going to be a song as a dancer. And that's beautiful because dancers are creators. On the contrary to, and I appreciate the listeners as much, but the listeners are listening. The dancers are creating as they listening.

even if they learn the steps by somebody else, once they have the steps locked in, then they start creating themselves with their partners, their own little moves and stuff. And when you look at them and you listen to your music at the same time, you like.

Victor (59:07)

Beautiful.

Kaysha (59:07)

Like, that's the reason why we do the music. I mean, me. Some people it's for different reasons, but me, that's the

Victor (59:10)

Yeah. Well, we, we, we love, we love you

doing the music. So keep doing the music, man. That's exactly what we love, man. Kaysha, I wanted to ask you something though, because you, you've talked about, you know, a number of your songs, I wanted to speak, but you spoke about them, which is great. So you talked about something going on. You know, we have that as a global dance anthem. You talked about one love, diamonds, all these

Kaysha (59:18)

Once a week.

Hmm.

Victor (59:37)

hits like I said at the beginning, hits and beats that you make, right? There's one song, Havana Bossa Nova. Yes, so yeah, that track is more about Latin rhythms, isn't it? Mixed with the kizomba. So you kind of, again, like you were saying, you create and you kind of blended those two together. So with that particular song, you know, what were you thinking? you know, did you imagine it would be really successful?

Kaysha (59:45)

Ooh.

So it's very interesting. Havana started as the Kizomba version. So first I released the Kizomba version because I saw that there was a commercial avenue for turning successful songs into Kizomba versions. So I started doing that. was Drunk in Love and other songs that I did. Even Sexual Healing from Marvin Gaye, et cetera. So I did the...

Kizomba version of Havana with Jacira and...

Then it was time for me to do some remixes. And I had a friend that told me, yeah, I want to do boss another version. I was like, he's the acapella. Do your thing.

And then just like every other.

major hit that I did, I had no clue that it would be this one that would explode. I thought that the Kizomba version was actually, the Kizomba version was good already. The Kizomba version in terms of streaming, once you do like...

15 or 20,000 streams every month from a song, you are actually, you have a song that's generating money every day, so you're good.

But the Bossa nova version, it was actually because it was placed in the Bossa nova covers playlist from Spotify. And that playlist had one million followers. So we went from just releasing that song, just, oh, let's do a Bossa nova version, why not? To instead of doing 10,000, 20,000 or like.

At that time, a hit for me was Diamonds. Diamonds was making 40,000 streams every month. That was great. It meant that every two months, it generated 300 euros forever. So to me, was like, yeah, that's the best. I was like, I wish I had like 10 diamonds. That was my wish at that time.

Havana comes in and does 10,000 streams a day. I was like, And it's funny because I was already at the point in my career that I had so many hits that I could not perform new songs on stage. Because when I come on stage is to perform all the legacy hits. Because my name is associated with those songs. So if you have half an hour,

Victor (1:02:09)

you

Kaysha (1:02:32)

You have to put one love within my question, my heart, like all this. There's no way you can do new songs. There's no space. People are not here for this. They're to listen to their songs. So to me, I'm I was more back into the freedom part where you just do music to do music because you're already making money anyway. And that song blew up in a way and it became my number one song until TikTok arrived and

blew it out the water with something going on that generates numbers that makes no sense. Like something going on makes, I think...

Victor (1:03:07)

Yeah.

Kaysha (1:03:09)

Something going on makes...

one, almost 200,000 streams every day, which is, you know, a lot of songs, they only do like 50,000 streams in their whole life. So when you have like, when you make 200,000 streams per day with one song, and I was looking at TikTok today, the song has around...

Victor (1:03:20)

Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Kaysha (1:03:35)

Every year there's 250,000 videos of people dancing on the song. And it keeps re-blowing up. These days, since last month, it just blew up again. I don't know what country. I have to look at the numbers, but I have 500,000 new listeners because of that song. It's one of those songs where...

And the crazy part is the song that got released in 2000.

Seven or five? It's from Legendary. Yeah, listen, that song...

Guelas (1:04:08)

the gift that keeps on giving.

Victor (1:04:12)

Yeah.

Kaysha (1:04:14)

I don't know. It's just, and it's interesting because it blows up on the platform that was not even an idea when it came out in 2005. Nobody ever heard of, or listen, a Chinese social network called TikTok. was nonexistent and Spotify as well.

didn't exist. Listen, when it came out, the iPhone didn't exist. So it's very interesting. It's something I love to say. Sometimes a song is like a mine that you put somewhere in the field and you wait, you can wait 20 years and one day somebody is going to step on it and boom. And that's exactly what something going on is, just that song that just, and it changes everything because

I have a monthly listenership of 150,000 people in the US and another 150,000 people in Brazil and another 150,000 in Indonesia.

Victor (1:05:23)

Wow. Yeah. Yeah.

Kaysha (1:05:23)

three complete different parts of the world.

And then you have a bunch of 50,000 here, 80,000 here, 10,000 here. Like you have the whole world listening to one song in places where you never ever performed, where you never been. And you have all these kids who are like, oh my God, I love you so much. This is the best song I ever heard. And you look at their profile, they're 14. And then sometimes somebody goes on YouTube, they find an old YouTube video and they're like,

Victor (1:05:46)

Yeah.

Kaysha (1:05:53)

Wait a minute, the song is older than me? It's crazy.

Guelas (1:05:57)

Yeah, and I remember

you recording that video in Brazil for something going on. Yeah. And I think you did the video yourself, actually, or something like that.

Kaysha (1:06:02)

Yeah, 2007. Yeah.

Yeah,

I produced, I had a higher camera crew from Brazil, Taquino, and I had my own video in my head.

when it came out everybody from the Zouk world and the Kizomba world complained about the dance because everybody was like what are they dancing in this video why are they all and I was like yeah it's called Lambazouk and because I was like I arrived in Brazil and everybody was telling me listen

We love your music. We love Zouk. And we dance Zouk here. was like, what? They dance Zouk in Brazil? So they took me to a school where everybody was in Brasilia.

First of all, the owner of the school, when he meets me, he cries. Because that's the first time in Kizomba life that he sees a Zouk artist, Kizomba artist. And for him, it's like the completion of something in Kizomba life. So it is strange already for me. And then they take me to the school.

Victor (1:07:23)

Yeah.

Kaysha (1:07:28)

And so they explain what is Zouk, who created Zouk, et cetera, et Some things were accurate. Something, I didn't have the courage to tell them, it's not really, but I was just listening. And now they're like, OK, so all right, let's dance Zouk. And they start playing kizomba.

I mean, I'm like, okay. And they start dancing lambada. I'm like, wait,

Victor (1:07:56)

You

Yeah.

Guelas (1:07:59)

Ha ha

ha.

Kaysha (1:08:00)

And yeah, listen, we work on the other side of the world. So then after that, we went to Sao Paulo and same thing, Felipe Mijá was very emotional when I did my first show there because same thing for them, was the first time that, and then I realized that in every city in Brazil, you had a Zouk community, but for them, Zouk was Lambada dancing on Kizomba songs, but they call it Zouk because nobody told them and it's too late.

And so when I so when I we went to Goyania, which is more in the in the center, it's more like near the Amazon. And it's actually one of the places with the most beautiful women in the world. I went there and I was like, I kept looking everywhere. was like, Lord, everybody, everybody is beautiful here. I have to shoot a video. And I was like, I'd love to shoot a video and oh, my God, that would be an honor.

Hey, Kaysha wants to shoot a video. So all the dancers community actually said, listen, if you shoot a video, it would be an honor to be in it. We come for free. So I just had to pay the camera crew. And I had one of the places, a very famous place called Jao. The owner was also a Zouk dancer. And he offered me the place for the day. He closed the place down.

All the dancers came and I just invented the scenario of the music video on the spot. And I told them, listen, do your thing. Dance your dance. Dance the lambadazouk, the brazazouk, whatever you call it. Do your thing. I wanted to showcase how the same way for me, I can take things from here and there and make it a music that you will recognize but not...

And I wanted to see that for dancing is the same thing, depending on where you come from and or where you receive the music from. You might not call it the right way. You might not dance it the way an Angolan would dance it, but you will still put your heart in it and love it the same way because it's the same thing. Like the dancers have a really different connection to the music and to the fact of dancing. It's really something that

Yeah, they put their whole soul in it. So yeah, that's how I shot this video. And when I came back.

Victor (1:10:17)

Absolutely.

Can we see the video, We want to see the beautiful women. Not right now, I'm just saying. People here, they can Google that, right? Or they can look on YouTube for that.

Kaysha (1:10:22)

of something going on?

Guelas (1:10:25)

Ha ha

Victor (1:10:29)

Great

Kaysha (1:10:29)

When you go against the grain and you make music your way, and you don't want to do it like everybody else, you don't like to follow trends, you like to create them, and you have a different way of respecting genres. like to, yeah, you listen, you like to add stuff. You like to add, mix, try stuff.

Sometimes it will take a lot of times before the way you do it becomes mainstream. And I believe it's the same thing for all art forms and it's the same thing for dance as well. Like I would love to learn one day.

how I've been starting to do my research on why Zouk, Konpa, Kizomba sound the same, like in terms of rhythms. And I'm starting to understand that it goes back to, yeah, the Congo drums, the slaves, the slaves and the fact that the same people were taken in different areas. And the fact that it's

these music didn't wait for us to influence themselves. Like, vinyls used to travel back in the days as well. The cassav influence, the taboo combo influences, the afrozouk influences, every time there was something that was trending, it would go from one TV station to another TV station. It's not something new. That's how music

But because of the lack of documentaries and books and stuff to take the time to try to understand, I remember watching a documentary about how house music was born in New York and Chicago and why they called it house music because of the name of the club where it was and it was a refuge for the...

Guelas (1:12:09)

Hmm.

The warehouse.

Kaysha (1:12:18)

the warehouse and it was a refuge for the black and Latino and the LGBT communities back then. It was like fresh after the end of the disco, et cetera. And it's beautiful to be able to see. And then after that, when you listen to Afro House, you can go back to the point of where it came from because you have the documentaries and you have the people who were there.

who were 17 at that time, who are now 50, 60, they can now tell how they would do it and who and the Frankie Knuckles and et cetera. I love that. And I'm really sad and at a point I'll do it myself, but I really think it's too bad that in the Zouk world,

in the kizomba music world, in the Konpa music world, and in the dancing kizomba community, nobody is documenting. Nobody, I mean, why we're doing the podcasting and stuff is important because it is also a form of documenting, but nobody is, with all the...

with all the passion that all of us DJs, musicians, writers, dancers, event organizers, with all the passion that we put in this culture, these different cultures that are mixing each other's with each other's. None of us have been passionate enough to say, you listen, let's all put, I don't know, 2000 each.

and try to join 200,000 and make a real documentary about the musicians, the dancers, thing, like, let's talk to the people who are 70, 80 before we can talk to them anymore. And the fact that when I personally, in the Zouk community, we lost Jacob des Varieux, that's when I was like, my God.

And I'm happy that I could talk to him a lot and I did a few interviews with him. But I'm like, look, one of the creators of the music is gone now. So it's that's why podcasting is important. That's why. But also that's why even the artists themselves should feel that it's important that they. They tell their stories, and I believe that.

Victor (1:14:35)

Yeah. ⁓

Kaysha (1:14:54)

in the dance world. And I understand it because I've lived it for a long time. I've had the imposter syndrome for ever because I was born in Congo and I've never been number one in Congolese music, but I was number one in Ivory Coast. I was number one in Cape Verdean music. I was number one in Zouk music from the West Indies, Angolan music. I've been number one in genres that are not my...

from my, I mean, my mom is half Portuguese, so maybe, I, so I always had that imposter syndrome of, yeah, listen, should I like put myself in front when it's not really my culture? But at a point, like if enough people tell you you're pillar of the culture, you have to start accepting it yourself and start telling your story as well. and, and

so that the generations that come after you can have something that they can dwell on when they don't have the information, they can type and you appear. And I believe that it is time in the dance community because it's been like, 15 years of Kizomba festivals? Yeah. Yeah. Almost 15 more or less. Yeah. Okay.

Guelas (1:15:58)

Mm-hmm.

Victor (1:16:09)

Thank you.

Guelas (1:16:10)

More than that, yeah. 17, 18 years. Because, yeah,

African South 2008 or something like that. yeah.

Kaysha (1:16:18)

So it is time that the people of the dance community forget about the imposter syndrome. I understand you came from Ukraine, you did a festival in Spain, it became huge. You came from Budapest, you came from here, you came from Portugal, you came from Germany and you're like, yeah, but can I speak about it? it's, they belong to, listen, it belongs to all of us. It's art.

Art has no passport. Go ahead and tell your stories, dancers. Go ahead, how did you learn? Where did you heard about it for the first time? How did you become Albir? How did you become Sara? How did you become Tony Pirata? How did you become XYZ? ⁓ How did you create urban kiz? How did you create that? Because the people who...

Victor (1:17:00)

you

you

Kaysha (1:17:10)

make it is you. It's the dancers, like the people who make, who actually kept the kizomba alive when all the singers wanted to sing Afro Beats was the dancers. During COVID, the dancers were so itchy that they started dancing in front of cameras online. They started doing festivals online. And all this

is something that was created by you and it doesn't matter if it's not your culture or if it doesn't matter if you blonde with blue eyes. What is important is the intent. You love it, you care for it, you nurture it. So you have the right to tell your story and you have the right to also tell other people. And actually,

Victor (1:17:49)

Absolutely.

Kaysha (1:18:04)

meet also people from the original culture and start gathering the information to learn the dates, who, what, when, what happened in Angola, what happened in the West Indies, what happened in Cape Verde, what happened in Haiti, what happened here and there, how the influence of everything. And I would love to see, I mean, if I do my Zouk Kizomba and comeback documentary one day, I will sure have

two episodes just about the dance because I think the dance is

The dance is not respected by the musicians the way they should. The dance is seen as like the fans, like, the dance with the... No. The dance is as important as the... It is as important as the music because the dance is what takes the art and make it...

travel the whole world. It's really the dance. So

Guelas (1:19:01)

And some

of these musicians should be actually thankful because it actually revitalized a lot of their careers ⁓ because they now doing shows in places that they never thought they would perform at some point. definitely it dance has been used as a vehicle of, you know, spreading this culture abroad into all these places where otherwise it wouldn't have reached.

Kaysha (1:19:08)

Yeah.

Victor (1:19:27)

100%.

Kaysha (1:19:27)

Yeah,

yeah. So that's why I think it's very important that the... I know a lot of dancers are, at the same time, very protective of the movement, the steps, the essence of what they view as the traditional Kizomba dance. And it's funny sometimes because you tell them, you're not really dancing the traditional one, but it's okay. It's okay that everybody...

is being protective about what they feel is what they love. And at the same time, they're scared to have a voice as well because they feel, it's not my culture, I'm not African, or I'm not XYZ. Go ahead, express yourself. Come to the podcast.

Yeah, I think festival organizers should be invited in podcasts, also dancers, also teachers, also like everybody should be able to be invited to talk because everybody is an actor. It's like from the DJs to the beat makers. Beat makers also are.

Victor (1:20:31)

Yes.

Kaysha (1:20:40)

Yeah, they're also forgotten because the artist is always put in front. So the musicians, the DJs, the...

And yeah, everybody. Like, I really believe that when you understand that it's the art world, whatever art, it's always a community. And that's the reason why the kizomba world is vibrant is because there's this community where you have the community of the dancers, but it doesn't work if there's no music. The community of the musicians, but it doesn't work if there's no DJs.

Victor (1:21:11)

Yep.

Kaysha (1:21:16)

the DJs, but it doesn't work if there's no organizers of parties. So everybody is in an ecosystem. And once you understand that.

Victor (1:21:23)

Yeah, I think you're 100 %

right there, Kaysha, 100%. And I definitely support everything you say, especially around the documentary. Why haven't people done more around that? So anything that people are thinking about doing, let's do it. And in terms of the podcast, you're right. obviously, we're trying to speak to as many people as we can. So it's great to have you here. And then we've got promoters, we've got teachers, we've got DJs like Guelas. So it's a whole rounded thing, man. So I totally agree with what you're saying, 100%.

Kaysha (1:21:41)

Yeah. There you go.

How many episodes you have already?

Victor (1:21:55)

We have about 25 currently. 25. Watch Guealas post if you haven't watched them yet.

Kaysha (1:21:57)

nice. So I'm gonna go and watch a few of them.

I think, no, I think I watched, so when we got in touch, I think I saw one before, or I saw one on Instagram or something popped up in my stream. That's how I discovered and then.

Victor (1:22:09)

Okay.

Okay.

No,

thank you. yeah, that's right. And I said, hey, Kaysha, Kaysha, Kaysha discovered us? I'm like, hey, OK. He's going to come and fuck us, Yeah, I'm like, hey, we accept that. That's all good. Yeah.

Kaysha (1:22:18)

Yeah. Yeah.

The magic of the algorithm. That's the magic of the algorithm. That's... Yeah, no, no. It

popped up and I was like, oh, that's interesting. watched a little bit of... Usually when I watch something on Instagram and I like what I see, then I go do a search on YouTube and I try to see and I watched a little bit of it and then we sent each other messages and then I was like, yeah, let's go. Let's do it.

Victor (1:22:45)

Yeah. No, thank you.

my pleasure. Pleasure.

But my other question I want to ask you, Kaysha, around, so working with artists, right, so obviously you know you've co-written songs you know with Nelson Ferdish, you know you've worked with C4 Pedro and others as well, so the question here, yeah.

Kaysha (1:23:03)

Yeah. George Soumya,

Elisio, Abigee. I also launched a lot of careers.

Victor (1:23:08)

You've got, there's loads, right? There's Yeah, okay, so there's Absolutely, right?

So my question to you is when you're working with these other artists, right? What changes creatively when you're making music for someone else and it's not your own voice? Is there anything that's different for you? You know what mean?

Kaysha (1:23:27)

So one of my mentors told me in New York in 99.

I was asking him.

Yo Papa Jube, if you are such a, I mean, you are such a great celebrated artist and I can see that everywhere we go, people are knowing you, people celebrating you, rappers, like you work with Wyclef, you work with like, why did you stop working as a solo artist in the Asian community? And he told me,

because I decided to work for other people. it was impossible for me to not be selfish when I was making music for other people. I would always want to keep the songs for me.

And this changed my view on production for other people. So the first thing when I work with other people is I'm not selfish at all. When I did the beat for Deeper, first of all, the name of the beat was NY 271 because I made it for Nichols.

But Nichols didn't like the beat. He said it's too minimalist.

So then I was like, I just met this guy in Holland and he's doing Kizomba solo album. Send an email to Nelson Freitas and he replied, the email was just bomb.

with the mp3 of the instrumental and he told me I'm heading to the studio that's why he replied and the same night he sent me Kizomba vocals and he said can you put a rap here and can you mix it?

put my rap, mix the whole thing, send it back to him. The rest is history. Something that I learned to do when I produce for other people, other than not being selfish is...

As a producer, you have to create a universe for the artist that you are working with. Especially when you are... So if I make a song for Marcia or for George, you will see that I'm not... You will recognize my production, but you will recognize that it's not the same type of production that I'm doing.

And it's not because I'm just giving them beats like that, like, yeah, take this. What do you think of this? No, I'm just like, OK, that's what he needs. That's what and when I when I work with an artist and we're to do an album together, for example, and I'm to be like, OK, we are about to do 15 songs together. The first two days, I just speak with them. And in the conversation.

I know exactly the universe I'm going to build for them because of the conversation.

Like if I was having a conversation with you Victor for two days, I would be able to decorate your living room.

Victor (1:26:31)

Yeah.

Kaysha (1:26:32)

And that's the same thing I do for music. I just create something that will fit the artist. So.

When I did, for example, when I did a rebound chick for Nelson Freitas, when I do the beat...

In my head, I'm like, the first thing I said to myself after five minutes of creating usually takes me half an hour to make the instrumental. As I'm doing the beat, I'm like, I don't have an album right now. I cannot use this for me.

Victor (1:27:00)

Yeah, yeah.

Kaysha (1:27:01)

But then as I'm doing it, I'm like Nelson. I knew this beat was for Nelson and I knew that this would be.

a major hit for Kizomba second album, believe, or third, I don't remember. I mean, I had a track in every album of Kizomba, but I think Kizomba second album,

Guelas (1:27:24)

second yeah

Kaysha (1:27:27)

And yeah, he told me, listen, I'm doing an album, you know, whenever you have something. And when I did that one, was like, I just sent the email. didn't say nothing. And he didn't reply, just went and he was like, I'm recording this tonight. Because when you send the right song to the right artist,

they know directly what they're to do on it because it suits them. It's just like when you go to the tailor. If you go to Zara and you buy something, you have to try it to make sure your belly doesn't pop out. When you go to the proper guy, he's going to take all the measures and he's going to give you something that is really for you. And this is something I do, but I do it.

without sounding like somebody else. It continues to sound like me. And it's funny because...

Whenever I do a hit for Nelson Freitas, all the artists call me. It's like, yeah, why can't we have a track like this? And I'm like, actually, when I send you tracks like this, you don't understand that that's the track you need. He does. That's the difference. When I did Melodia for Elisio, it's the same thing. When I did I Like It same thing. And some people, they just ask me, can you produce and write?

So or produce and at least have a chorus written or something. It depends what they ask. Lidias or close your eyes by George. Same thing. It's always. OK, I think this is what you need to to touch your generation. And you but for this, you have to understand the artist and you also have to understand the landscape where the artist is evolving like you evolving. You have to understand.

Victor (1:29:03)

Yeah.

Kaysha (1:29:14)

Where is that in Kizomba career? What is doing what he wants? And at the same time, what is perfect for what he wants right now in the culture, how the culture is. so imagine if you are with a, you have a Nelson Freitas who comes out of a group and he's doing Kizomba solo. It's not the same conversation. If you have George that used to be a child star and wants to come as an adult.

you have to make him look as an adult in the song. And it has to sound as he's not the kid anymore. When Nelson Freitas is like, I'm solo now. But if, let's I meet a dancer that always wanted to sing, but she's very famous as a dancer. Let's say at the height of her run, Sara Lopez, for example, if she would have asked me,

Victor (1:29:48)

Yeah.

Kaysha (1:30:09)

Hey, I want to do a song. I would have a completely different conversation because I would not do a song for her as a singer. I would do a song for her as a dancer. And I would have done a song that would complement the way she used to dance, the way she modified the kizomba to be more feminine, the way she trailblazed the solo girl dancing.

So all these has to be taken account when you are producing. And that's what it is to not be selfish as a producer, because you're going to have producers. They're going to come and they're going to be like, and you can hear it when you listen to some singers that become record execs. They are creating clones of themselves. And when you're going to listen to the songs, they could have sang them themselves in reality.

And they didn't work for the artists. They made the artists work for them. And I believe that it never works for a long time. And most of the time when these artists, they come work with me, they're like, I feel free here. And I'm like, that's what art is. The goal is for you to express yourself. The goal is not for you, for me to tell you everything you have to do. It has to...

Victor (1:31:22)

Yeah.

Kaysha (1:31:29)

There has to be a little bit of you. Even if I write everything and I produce everything, you have to, you have to be in there.

Victor (1:31:37)

Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. You can't tell Picasso, hey, do the stroke like this. No, do it that way. You know, he has to express himself.

Kaysha (1:31:45)

Exactly. You can

tell him, I want an orange. I want some fruits. And he's going to be like... And he's going to be like, one million dollars.

Victor (1:31:56)

Exactly. No, great, man. And it's, like what you're saying about not being selfish. And the point of all that really is that people are able to express themselves because art is literally art. It's freedom basically. And you're to get the best out of somebody if you work with them and go to their strengths basically.

Kaysha (1:32:14)

That's why the person I like the least in the art world is the purest.

I actually hate all the purists. I hate somebody who comes and says, that's not the way you sing this. That's not the way you dance that. That's not the way you're supposed to do this. As if they made the role. Because if we would have listened to purists, none of what we do would exist.

Cause even like podcasting wouldn't exist because that's not the way you're supposed to do. It's supposed to be on TV. It's supposed to be like this, like that, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's supposed to be everybody on on a tape. Like all these things understand the intent of the purist who is trying to protect Kizomba, Kizomba vision of what something sounds like at a certain time.

But that person doesn't understand that either in the grand theme of things and the grand line of time, we are a point that will pass because time is moving forward and as it moves forward, the kids of our kids will not do what we do. They might not even speak the same language as us.

Victor (1:33:37)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Kaysha (1:33:39)

the country's name will change, et cetera, because everything is moving, language is moving, the same expressions move from, from, from things to things. So.

Guelas (1:33:42)

.

Kaysha (1:33:50)

A lot of people, when they come and they start saying that

Yes, that's not the way you dance kizomba. I'm like, do you really think the way you dancing is the way they used to dance it or they used to dance it back in the kingdom of Congo 800 years ago? No, you don't know. So you are just never think that you are zero.

Yeah, so everybody believes that they are...

Victor (1:34:17)

Okay.

Guelas (1:34:21)

you.

Kaysha (1:34:21)

the

first step of something. And it's funny when when you when people say, yeah, but you know, Kaysha, you need to bring the real Zouk back. I'm like, me? What I do is like, it's like I'm doing the bastard version. What are you talking about? I'm the Jon Snow of Zouk. What are you talking about? And it's funny because when I was 20,

Victor (1:34:33)

You

That's funny

Kaysha (1:34:46)

People were telling me, yeah, you guys, this is not the way you dance, Zouk. That's not the way you make Zouk. And they used to come to speak to me until Creole. They would not even speak to me in French. They were like, God, did not you hear that, Zouk? was like, man, leave me alone.

People who were in their 40s, 50s, we were 20, we're like, look, listen, we are R &B hip hop. We don't care. We don't care about what you're saying to us. no, you, like that. We sing that. No, the Zouk is a crybaby. I was like, I don't care. Like, I'm just, listen, I didn't come to change your thing. I came to do something. I just came, listen, let me have fun. I just want to have fun.

Guelas (1:35:28)

And curiosity about that,

curiosity about that and just jumping on what you're saying, something that you said a little while ago. How did somebody like Jacob feel about what you did? If you ever, if that was ever discussed or anything like that.

Kaysha (1:35:43)

was. It was. Actually, the first time somebody asked them, it was live in a TV show in the West Indies around 99. It was me and Kassav doing an interview in the national TV. And they asked them, so how do you feel about this guy from Congo that just

took your song, turned it into something else. And it's Jocelyn who replied, we love it. We love it because what we do ourselves is actually the crossroads of begin, Konpa, a little bit of, this guy used to play in jazz bands, this one used to play in African bands.

Guelas (1:36:27)

So, let's do it.

Kaysha (1:36:32)

Jacob actually learned to play guitar in Senegal and all our section of wind section, they're all black people, white people that used to play in et cetera. So our music itself is actually a mixture of so many things. So the fact that the next generation takes it to and they make it their own is actually the point.

I was about to cry that day on live TV. was like, nobody can say shit to me anymore. It's like, yo, listen, the king arrived. Listen, the king arrived. It I was like, I don't care. None of you have to say if, and I've, I've, I've had Jacob,

Guelas (1:36:57)

⁓ Right exactly. Once you have the blessing. Once you have that blessing it's like.

Kaysha (1:37:12)

in four of my music videos, would always come and he asked me to do a lot of things like, hey, can you do a beat for this? Or I'm working on this project and you can have anything you want. Like, so I'm really lucky that I had a close, close relationship with Jacob, but also that every time I meet the other members, they really talk to me.

Guelas (1:37:32)

your attention.

Kaysha (1:37:42)

as a brother. And it's strange to me because of my African upbringing. I really revere them as...

You know, in Africa, the uncles, the generation before you, have like utmost respect for them. But when they see you, they just talk to you as a fellow musician. And me, it's very strange to me when we hear we talk and listen, they have millions of stories of early, early when they were in their 20s and when they were like doing it. And you realize that you believe you're a trailblazer.

But everybody in their 20s are ultra blazing too. In reality, them too were against all the whatever they were doing when they were in their 20s inventing the Zouk was viewed by the people from begin was viewed from by the people from of of Konpa view of the people of traditional music as what is this? They're using drum machines.

You know, so and yeah, exactly. They look like what synthesizer that's not real music. And so every generation has their. Their tool that they use that everybody is saying, that's not the real thing until the next generation. So this generation is a I the generation before was auto tuned the generation before was synthesizers. The generation before was.

Guelas (1:38:49)

Synthesizers all of that.

Victor (1:38:54)

Mm.

Kaysha (1:39:14)

digital workstations. Like I remember when people were saying a photographic that is taken by a digital camera is not a real photography. It has to be Argentic for me to respect your photo. Me, I was like, bro, it goes on Instagram anyway. No, I make photos for national geographic, bro. Bro, listen, one kid takes a Iphone on the 4.

Guelas (1:39:24)

Yeah.

Victor (1:39:31)

That's true.

You

Guelas (1:39:35)

Hahaha

Yeah.

Kaysha (1:39:38)

take the picture, put the filter. There was the filter on Instagram that everybody used. They put the filter for the public. Their photo is better than yours. My camera costs 20,000. The public doesn't care. ⁓ They don't care. All they know is that's what we like and that's what we're consuming. I had this conversation with...

Guelas (1:39:49)

Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Victor (1:39:52)

Does not matter. Does not matter.

Kaysha (1:40:03)

It was a few years ago before with some kizomba dancers that were first generation kizomba festivals. And they were complaining about this new dance that was starting to show up like a year before, urban kiz. And they were all complaining, these people, that's not the way they dance. That makes no sense. Robot. That's not the real kizomba. And then I was telling one of them, I was like,

Where are you from? He was like, I'm from Angola proudly. Where's your wife from? she's she's from Morocco. OK. At home, what do you guys speak? Spanish, because we live in Alicante. OK.

Do you have a baby? Yes. How does your baby look like? Mixed?

That's it, end of the conversation. Why do you believe that your music going to Ukraine or to Russia or to hip hop kids, why do you believe is going to stay intact as it reaches other cultures? As Kizomba is expanding, why do you believe that he's going to stay the same moves when... Listen, that's the story of art. Art is every artist that learns something changes it.

every DJ that learns to DJ will do something that nobody was doing before. Somebody started filtering, somebody started putting echoes and doing things in the Afro house world that somebody just played kizomba was like, let me try it. nice. And then maybe that's how you create a genre. Like, how do you want to invent something if you want everything to stay static? That's Latin for you.

And what do we call Latin? We call it a dead language because it doesn't change anymore. Art is alive because it's alive. It's going to change every time somebody knew that already. Listen, if you have somebody that has no, no, no background in dancing and you teach them the moves, the steps, they will dance it the way you intended.

But once they know how to dance it, they might add some stuff. Now, if you take somebody who used to dance hip hop or used to dance polka or used to dance Congolese music, Numbolo, and you have them learn kizomba, they will, once they understand your steps, whatever they learned before is going to mix in there. That's the way language works. That's the way

Swag now means you cool and back in the days, it means secretly we gay. Like it's part of the being alive as a culture.

Yes, but they, they, listen, let them be the same way I was happy that people let me be when I created my music. I let the people who are 20, who are doing something different. In France, we have this thing, there's there's a, there's a between the Zouk and the Popur band, which is, it takes a lot from Zouk, but it's more, it's more urban.

And and the Zouk artists are saying the same thing. That's not the real Zouk. And I tell them, yo, what you do is not the real Zouk either. What are you talking about? Zouk from 2003 has nothing to do with Kassav Zouk. Just the rhythm has nothing to do with like the original Zouk is like, there's nothing to do with like, there's nothing to do. What you're doing is a,

a declination of a declination of a declination of Zouklove, which was already a variation of a variation of Zouk, but every time you are at the top, you kind of forgot that you took it from somewhere. You kind of forgot that somebody passed you the mantle and at a point it's time to pass it on and let the kids do what they're going to do. And when you start being becoming old,

Victor (1:44:12)

Yes.

Guelas (1:44:14)

So kind of pivoting from this, right? In the business of art, you as a founder of Sushi Raw, always being in control or for the most of your career, being in control of your own destiny as far as producing, as far as releasing, distribution, publishing, all of that. ⁓ What do you think that most artists, although it's sort of different now because you're more independent, but...

Kaysha (1:44:18)

Mm.

Mm-hmm.

Guelas (1:44:40)

What do most artists still get wrong about independence and owning their own work?

Kaysha (1:44:45)

The main issue between the desire and the execution, this is where the problem lies.

People are dreaming of something they want to own, but most of the time they don't want to put the work, they don't want to understand the landscape before they take the road. If you are...

signed to a record label. There's a big bus and somebody tells you go sit at seat 77. You enter and you go sit and somebody will drive you to the destination.

When you are independent, there's no bus. There's you. There's the road. And there's your objectives. There's no car. There's nothing. It's just you, your bag. And, okay, where you want to go? I want to go on the, at the top of that mountain there. All right. You have to understand the topography. Where's the lake? Where's the road going? Or it goes through the jungle?

I heard there's gorillas in the jungle. I heard there's lions there in the steps. Okay, how am going to protect myself? How am I going to do all these things you have to learn and you have to understand that it used to cost a lot of money and that's why it was hard to get in. Nowadays, it costs nothing to record at home. This microphone costs 200. It's a digital replica by the same brand.

of a microphone that was used to record a thriller from Michael Jackson. So I believe it's a good microphone, right? You can buy a program with all the plugins, bells and whistles for $12.99 per month and you can record yourself at home. So the difference of the world of today as an independent is, first of all,

there's no more barrier to entry.

When there's no more barrier to entry, there's way more competition. So there's a lot of dilution of your creations inside of what everybody's doing. It's the same thing as when you had 10 Kizomba festivals around the world and everybody would travel from everywhere and every festival had like 500 attendees and that were willing to pay tons of money.

And then some people smelled the money and all of a sudden every city had their Kizomba festival and everybody was complaining that, well, people don't want to pay anymore and there's too much festivals. And yeah, because anybody could rent a hangar, put two lights and put a DJ and play some super low urban kiz and all these people were dancing, dancing, and then they would go fuck.

It's all about understanding the landscape and how the landscape change when you are first coming and the business is new. And then when the business becomes mature, it's different. The second thing that is a big difference is the costs and the revenue. Back in the days, it would cost you

I would say 15,000 to be able to make an album. Studio time, engineer, mix engineer, mastering, photo sessions, music video, creation of the product, because back in the days...

You had to buy the paper and then the piece of plastic that was in there. And every time you would create one, it would cost you two euros. If you wanted to sell a thousand, first you need to upfront put two thousand to create your thousand objects. And then you would have to do some promos on the radio so that the customers would know.

that there's a project that they want to buy. And then they would have to go out of their house, go to Fnac or Tower Records or Virgin Megastore and buy your object. And that's when you would get 10. And if you had a successful project and you would sell 1,000 copies, you would get 10,000. If you would sell 10,000 copies, you would get 100,000.

You would sell a hundred thousand copies, you would get a million. But to be able to print the 100 copies, you needed 200,000 to pay the factory.

Nowadays, the big difference is it costs nothing to make and it costs nothing to distribute, but it also earns less because there's so much music outside and anybody has access to the music. So the market is huge now. It's not local markets. can just you just play music everywhere.

but at the same time to make 3000 back in the days to make 3000 you only had to sell.

300 CDs. So if you had like a small independent project, you would try to spend only 2000 in a small studio. And if you'd spent, you sold 500 copies, you were good. Nowadays to make 3000, you need a million streams. And that's where a lot of people, they get lost in thing because they...

Victor (1:50:04)

you

Kaysha (1:50:25)

They continue to believe that we are in the old market and that with one song, they're going to make it. When it's harder and harder, when you have, I believe every week you have a million songs that are out between all genres, right? Of course, but...

There's a rain of AI music coming out of everywhere. And it's at the same time reviving all genres, which is great. But at the same time, listen, you want to do Kizomba songs, takes you 20 seconds now. And the worst part, it sounds good. And the public doesn't care. So now the DJs, all the DJs now, they're like, I'm going to play my own songs in the festivals. Why would I play?

Victor (1:51:00)

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Guelas (1:51:12)

flooding the market. Yeah.

Kaysha (1:51:14)

Where would I play your song? Like, let me go play my own songs because now I can make my song. So now they, if a DJ wants to play a certain type of music, they're gonna have AI create what they wanna play for, for the, what they wanna create. So it's harder and harder to make your own with one song, unless you have a hit record or a...

a song like something going on or you have like, unless you have one of those bangers, a TikTok banger.

It's very hard to make your, to create your name because most of the time, unless you're lucky, you're not going to make it with one song. You need to create catalogs. And another thing that is different today is a

back in the days, all you had to also do was play on the right TV channel. And same thing, those places were gatekeep. Nowadays, everybody put the music on the same places, TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and you're competing with the whole world with platforms that decide who they are showing your music to.

Guelas (1:52:12)

Thank

Kaysha (1:52:25)

So, and a lot of people approach the independence.

as if they were in 1995. They don't understand that in 2026, listen, give them five years and you're to have Robo Kizomba teachers. Things are going fast. You can create people that dance. can like you can create videos. Listen, you can be I'm testing making music videos with AI and it's I'm shocked at how easy it is.

Guelas (1:52:34)

Yes.

Kaysha (1:52:56)

I just create a whole deep house project. Stuff that I always wanted to do because I started with house music, but now I can do my own deep house project and I have singers that I generate sing the songs because whenever I tell a Kizomba person, I'm doing a deep house project. You want to sing on it? On house? No, you know, I don't know. Like people are scared to try stuff when I love to try stuff.

And you are now in a world where the whole market has nothing to do with how it is and every six months everything changes. I think there's a lie that has been told to musicians for the longest of time. It's two lies. The first lie is, it's great to be poor.

Lie number one. It's great to be poor and not be a sellout.

I never understood this. And lie number two is great to be independent. No, it depends what you want to do and how you want to do is the same thing as do you prefer being a working woman that is juggling between kids and work and life? Or do you want to be a wife?

that take cares of home and the kids, whle your man works, depending on your culture, depending on what you're set up at home, it's up to you to decide, not your friends. And some people are not made to be independent because they don't know how to read the market, they don't know how to put in the work. Like I've seen artists have success

in my label and then soon as they go independent nothing I've seen it so many times and every time I'm like but I showed you everything like all you had to do is do what we did the last 10 years

And then you realize that, no, listen, you have deadlines, have other responsibilities when it's yours, it's your money. When you, listen.

If somebody invests 10,000 on you and you do shit, they lose money.

If you invest your money and you lose it, you are the one who cannot pay your rent. That's the independence. You take all the risks. You take all the rewards. When I decided to go independent, I didn't go from signed to independent. I took the steps. did two albums with Sony Music.

and their affiliated labels. Then I did 10 years at Section Zouk doing 50-50 with a partner when the deal was the master belonged to me, but we shared them 50-50 except the internet. And at the same time, at that time, nobody cared about the internet because on the internet you would sell 100.

but you would make 300,000 from CDs. So he was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't care about your internet. They assigned here. Me, knew.

In 2020, that's when I win. So I see very far ahead. And when I arrived to 2006, 2007, I went back to Sony Music and I bought my catalog. I bought my first two albums. And then I had everything under one roof. And then when I left,

Victor (1:56:06)

you

Kaysha (1:56:34)

I stopped working with Section Zouk. I took all my masters with me. So I've been an independent a long time, but there were strategies, there's been millions of mistakes. And there's been millions of time when you like, my God, I had, listen, when I was signed to Sony, album comes out, they tell you come to the office at

10 a.m. you come all the journalists are there and everybody's asking you a bunch of questions and then the next week you have a lot of articles about you when you have a PR person and you have this and you have people that are taking care of the promo. If we have to pay a radio we have to we have to to to corrupt somebody they have like everything is done for you.

Victor (1:57:18)

you

Kaysha (1:57:22)

When you buy yourself, it's you. It's you and Facebook. And to me, it's exciting. To a lot of people, they realize, I might not want to do this. Yeah, yeah, but I need these make-up artists. 200. Damn, it's expensive. Yes, it is. Hello.

Guelas (1:57:34)

I wasn't expecting this.

Victor (1:57:37)

Yeah.

Kaysha (1:57:44)

That's what I used to pay. Then they call you crying. Yeah, this person asked me for that. Yeah, that's how much I paid for your last two albums. Yeah, but I mean, can't they? That's it. That's what I've been telling you to buy your own camera. That's what I've been telling you to buy your own lights. That's what I've been telling you. Instead of buying some boots and a bag.

Victor (1:57:53)

Mm.

Yeah.

Kaysha (1:58:10)

Next

show you do, take 200 every show and buy the best microphone you can buy so that you're going to use the same microphone in the next 20 years. Because yeah, those are technology built for the ages. And if you make a thousand every show, put 300 every show, three shows, you have enough to buy a good quality microphone.

And if you already have your laptop, you're ready to go. And when you tell them this, they don't, they're not interested. They don't care because they want to, yeah, they want to, they want to go and go perform. They don't want to own. But once your career starts slowing down, because the more you advance in age, the less you want to be in the club.

because usually the kids are in the club. So when you are in your 20s, you are kid yourself. But if you start performing, you start your career at 19, yeah, your fans are kiz, you are a kid as well. Once you are 25, they still relate to you and you still have 25s in the club, they are accompanying you. But most of them are married now.

Most of them have kids. Most of them have, they have jobs. When you are 35, your fans are 35 as well. And the new fans that you are trying to connect with, they are 19 in the club. You are the age of, you have the age of their aunt. Once you are 45,

Yo, you're the age of my dad, Like, how am I going to be a fan of somebody who's the age of my dad? They know, they're connecting with the new ones.

They're connecting with George, not Kaysha and Nichols. It's normal. It makes sense. But at a point if George is 35, there's going to be a 20-year-old. There's going to be a Yasmine. There's going to be a next generation. It's normal. But it means you, you're in the 50s now. You're the age of my grandpa. What you mean? Me, I'm 16. I'm going to salivate over a

Grandpa makes no sense. So you do less and less shows because the kids are in the club and they don't want to see you. The old people might show up once, sometime if there's an old school party, they're going to come see you. But, but, and you, when you are 19, you have to think about all that in your head. Me, that's what I did.

Victor (2:00:27)

Heh.

Kaysha (2:00:51)

Me, was like, oh, listen, okay. If I still have a career when I'm 30, I should be there. If I'm, I still have a career when I'm 40, I should own this. By 40, I should own my catalog so that I can create passive residual income. I was saying this to myself in 1996. I was like, nah, listen, I have to.

do it this, do like this. By 2001, I already owned one compilation, Caribbean Soul. From then, I did my third album, I was the owner, Soumia's album, Elizio's album, ABG first album. Then I did a deal with Nelson Freitas. was like, listen, you don't pay me for Deeper, but we co-own the song, meaning that

You use it in your album, of course, but then once your album came out after a few years, I can put it in compilation and use it as well on my stuff. And we both make money from the songs. And then I did this with a few people. Then after that, I launched the Looney Johnson. I launched Mika Mendes and all these albums. I own them. They don't. They get a royalty.

a percentage of what I make. So by 2007, 2008, I owned

five or six albums of me plus 15 albums of a bunch of people. So whatever they did for their careers would benefit me because I would make money from composing songs, writing songs, owning the masters. So whenever they would perform somewhere, I would make some money as well from the different avenues. When you rent a venue for a concert, you have to pay.

a fee for playing music. If my music is played in there, I make money from that. buy. And then by 2005, I decided to put all the music videos of all these artists that are owned in a new website called YouTube. And back then, everybody was still selling DVDs. And me, that's when I did my first podcast. People forgot that I had a podcast called

Chilling with Kaysha or something like that. I forgot the name. And at that point, I stopped putting the music videos on YouTube and YouTube invites me to the monetization program. When they invite me to the monetization program, I start earning a thousand every month from YouTube. And that's when I said to myself, okay.

Guelas (2:03:33)

Thank

Kaysha (2:03:46)

YouTube now pays my rent because my rent at that time was 800 in Paris and YouTube, just YouTube was a thousand. So in my head, I'm like, wait a minute. If I can turn this thousand into 3000 and if I can turn the money coming from iTunes and Spotify, no, Spotify was not existing yet, but if I can start turning this into, let's say 2000.

I can move to a country where the rent is cheaper. That's when in 2008, when I realized that I'm making $2,000 a month from the internet, from YouTube and internet sales, that's when I said to myself, wait a minute, I should move to Portugal. It's gonna cost me less money and I'm gonna live better and I'm gonna live by the beach. And...

By 2008, I'm starting to work on it. And I call Nelson Freitas and I'm like, yo, listen, I thought about this. And he called me, he's like, that's exactly what I thought too. And that's how we all moved to Portugal. Because it made sense as asset owners. And the problem of artists, when they become independent,

they don't think like asset owners. They continue to think as emotional singers. Being a, and because I'm both, I'm an artist, but I'm also a.

an executive producer and a publisher. I understand both. I'm in the middle. I understand how it feel as a creator. understand the frustration of a creator, but as an executive, I also understand that you invest money to make money. You don't invest money to please an artist. When I was just an artist, I was as annoying as every artist. I would go to Sony, why we have this? Why we don't have that?

my album didn't come in. I have like 10 Cap Verdean telling me that they don't find my album in Rotterdam. like Sony were like, where? Rotterdam? What do you want to do in Rotterdam? like, no, I have this store called this, that, that, in like, the Cape Verdean community, they need my album. have to give them, they want 10 albums. And they were like, we are Sony Music. We don't speak to those stores. Like, what are you talking about? I was like, I want my album.

Now I'm damn, this guy is a pain in the ass. So what I would do, I would take the albums myself in the stock and I would sell, send them myself to the stores because I really wanted everybody to have my music. But most artists, they actually realize when they become independent that they don't want to deal with all that.

stock promotion.

receiving money, selling, spending, money's not coming back. You spend 2,000, 3,000 on a music video.

You look at your sales, 20 euros. Lord, when am I gonna make my money? We need a few million stream, my friend. Million streams? Why? I don't understand. And then, yeah, maybe by the time you become independent, maybe you're in your 40s already. So your fans are not going to the clubs anymore.

So you cannot spend and make money from the shows anymore like back in the days. Me, when I started being independent, I was signing other artists. So when it was time to not do a lot of shows, I was making money from all these slaves. So it's a different mentality when you understand that you are a businessman and listen,

I've been at the, my mom put me in economy at the university. So my brain functions in a different way. see assets, see songs as when I'm in the studio, I see songs as my beautiful creations. Once they are out in the market, I see them as money generating assets, all of them. Some of them generate

10 cents per day, other one euro per day, other 10, other 100, other 500. To me, that's the way I see them. And it doesn't mean that I don't like them as a creator. When I listen to them, I'm so amazing. But when I look at the numbers, I don't see them as my babies. I see them as assets, the same way I would invest in crypto or in stock options or in restaurant. That's the way I

Like if you invest in your own restaurant, it might be your little baby that, my God, I have my room, my kitchen, I'm cooking, et cetera, et cetera. But then there's a point where you have to do accounting, taxes, et cetera. You have to hire somebody to come do this, do that, clean, et cetera. You start to understand that it's not just about the passion, it's also about the business. And a lot of people, listen, they don't know how to do that.

Because it's a completely other part of your brain that you have to use to be able to do this as a business. I had conversations with my good friend Olga, who's a Kizomba festival, one of the most successful Kizomba festival creator. And we have business conversations.

Guelas (2:09:01)

Yeah, engage.

Kaysha (2:09:18)

As the time was going, she was explaining to me, like, yeah, the hardship of organizing, like trying to please the people and the competition from all these different festivals popping up. And I was like, OK, you should do this. You should do that. Those are business conversations. And she was like, and I could see at a point we had a conversation. She was like, listen, we just wanted to have fun and we just wanted to dance, Kizomba. Yeah, but now you're a business owner.

Now you're a business owner and you are generating, you have clients and you have employees. So yeah, it's not when the festival is happening, you are not having fun because you're organizing. There's stress, there's this, there's drama, there's this, all the that happened in you. Yeah, so, and that's when you see who can do it and who cannot do it.

Victor (2:10:04)

different game.

Kaysha (2:10:12)

Because a lot of people were like, he's on the festival, money to be made. Some festivals were horrible because some people are not made to be businessmen, organizers. And it's the same thing with podcasting. A lot of people think they can be there in a podcast, hold one hour conversation every week with people and have questions. And listen, you might have

people like me who can talk nonstop for hours. And sometimes you have people who have nothing to say. So that's when you have to learn and then you have your podcast. It's a passion in the beginning, but okay, how do you make money? How do you make money in podcasts? People don't know. So all these things are things you have to start thinking about in terms of, okay, why am I doing this? What is the goal? How much money do I wanna make? How am I gonna make money?

Do I use sponsors? Do I only use the YouTube money? But some people, they have no clue.

They just come because of an opportunistic. Yeah, there's the hype And then they will disappear This is why I'm not scared about AI. This is why I'm not scared about nothing because when I do something creative, I know how to make money out of it.

Guelas (2:11:15)

The hype.

Kaysha (2:11:32)

I'm wearing my own t-shirts. I'm promoting all the time. Like, you see what I mean? I'm like, I'm going to the park. Okay, I have to do this. I have to do that. have to... All these things are... Some people, they don't think about all this. So that's why they should stay signed to somebody.

Victor (2:11:34)

Go feed Rich Club.

Guelas (2:11:52)

taking this opportunity to pivot to my last question, then I'll let Victor take it home. just podcasting. And I know that you had your podcast way back in the day and that you doing YouTube vlogging before most and you had like, I don't know, 800 and something episodes or something like that. But in 2020, something changed. There was a pivotal point.

There was a fork in the road and, you know, club shot that came along. was there first night you did it. We talked for hours about that. And then also now more recently Internet to do village. What do you think about those? What made you pivot to those? Was it a natural progression from what you already had been doing?

What does it bring you as far as the universe of Kaysha, Sushi-Raw? How does that integrate into your universe?

Kaysha (2:12:51)

Are you talking about Internet du Village or are you talking about Club Shada or the whole thing?

Guelas (2:12:55)

whole thing both but those two latest ones

Kaysha (2:12:59)

so it's very interesting because when I look at my career and the way I

turn things into businesses, I realized that most of the things are kind of accidental.

And because if you remember first episode of Club Shada was called Sushriraw Vibes. And it was me and Boddhi Satva and you guys. We were all locked at home and I just found this program and I was just like, all right, listen, let me turn it on and click live and then spoke.

Guelas (2:13:33)

Actually, a couple of days before you were on Instagram, like playing music.

Kaysha (2:13:39)

Yeah.

Guelas (2:13:40)

I remember that, you old school R &B and all of that stuff and then you transition to YouTube for Club Shada.

Kaysha (2:13:45)

Yeah.

Yeah, because I realized one thing. Instagram doesn't want us to make money. Instagram want us to bring them clients so they can show ads. And they don't share the money with them. But they tell you, here's your currency, likes and comments. Oh, look at all these likes. And me, I'm like, what am I going to eat with likes?

Victor (2:14:13)

You

Kaysha (2:14:13)

But on YouTube, I was already monetizing my channel. I already had like 4,000 videos in there. They were generating two, 3,000 a month. So I was like.

Listen, it just makes sense to do this on on YouTube instead of doing on Instagram because everybody's on Instagram, but Instagram doesn't pay you. People cannot give you a donation, et cetera. When on YouTube, you could place a QR code on the corner that would take people to PayPal if they want to do a donation.

that you could do stuff. I was seeing the Brazilians do a lot of shows and they had like QR codes and they had like millions of people watching.

Guelas (2:15:00)

I remember talking to you,

the shows, and they had the QR code, and we were talking, we were like, yo, what are the Brazilians doing? This is crazy. Not even the Americans were doing that at the

Victor (2:15:07)

the

Kaysha (2:15:08)

Exactly!

Exactly. So, and me, was like, look, everybody was doing Americans. look, Dina is had 100,000 people live at the same time. I was like, the Brazilians have a million. Why the Americans are lying again?

So then I did the first thing, then the next day again, and then I saw that there was really a lot of people that were just alone at home, feeling lonely. And the fact that we could just vibe together and talk about things, just... And me as a... At that time, I'm not performing. I might... At that time, I'm doing one show a month. That's before something going on blows up.

from TikTok and that all of a sudden I do a little more shows. But at that moment, I'm living a great life. I'm making a lot of money from my catalog, but I'm not performing. So I just do walks. I'm kind of having a life of retired artist. But when you are a creator, you need to express yourself.

You need to have something to say. So I just. Yeah, to me, was a way to also be able to tell my story, give my opinions on stuff, give my opinion about the music business, have conversations and.

I don't remember when I changed the name to Club Shada. I think I was trying logos and I was like, I don't like the first logo that I did. I did it on my iPad quick. Then I was like, I changed the name. And then at the point I was like, yeah, Club Shada. I like the name Club Shada. First I wanted to find something with the name Kaysha, which made more sense in terms of marketing. Because Kaysha is a brand that is recognized everywhere. But I don't know.

Every time I would say, was like, oh, Club Kaysha. was like, I don't know. Or, shout out gang, K-Shaw.

Let's talk with, listen, something with Kaysha didn't make sense. And then, I did around 500 episodes during four or five years. Then there was a, the summer last summer that I think I didn't say that I wouldn't say that he went through its course, but, that's when I did my first live on Tik TOK.

And I saw the difference in terms of engagement. When you live on TikTok, like on YouTube, you might have a thousand people total watching you. On TikTok, you can have 20,000 people. And the engagement is crazy. And the way the algorithm works is the...

The discoverability on live is really crazy on Instagram rather than on YouTube, which will more show you stuff that is pre-recorded. when I did my, so in a club shada, I, used to have fun whenever a guest would come and the internet would start freezing on them. We would laugh like, you have the internet of the village. That's how this was.

it seems in the village, the internet is not good. That's that's that was the fun thing. Yeah, that's that's when we start studying saying internet du Villages when we had French guests. We were like, hey, internet du Villages. And then when I went to Instagram, I did my first show without naming it then again, and then a bunch of the YouTube people that most of my listeners, they speak both languages.

Guelas (2:18:16)

That was Teddy Riley too.

Kaysha (2:18:38)

most of them, speak English and French or English and Portuguese. But a lot of them speak English and French. But a lot of the French people were telling me, yeah, listen, when you do a club shada out, we don't understand something. And then when I did the first I internet it, du village without naming it. A lot of people were engaged just because they could understand what I was saying.

And then I think my cousin was there who used to come all the time at Club Shada and he showed up. The internet went bad. I said, and I was like, that's the name. That's the name of the show. So then I started doing everything, finding a logo, doing all the things I do because I have graphic design background. So I created the whole thing and then I use the tools that I learned, everything I learned in

doing club shada, I just turned it into a TikTok show and I was like, okay, how do I have the same quality using a professional camera, but to use on TikTok on vertical and then the tools were not ready, but I was getting ready for today where the tools are ready. It's like the new version of Ecamm has vertical video now, but it's been like three weeks. But me, I was doing vertical way before we were just hacking the system.

And Club Shada and Internet du Village, and I would say I didn't abandon Club Shada. It's just that it's hard to do both, like to do. When I was doing the, when I was doing the COVID, I was able to record three episodes a week because we have, we had nothing else to do.

Nowadays, something going on is bringing shows. So a lot of times I travel in the weekends. So when I'm back on Sundays, I don't really have the courage to record in English. And it's interesting, like, after recording in English, it's kind of hard to me to switch back and forth between English and French. I don't know why. I have to find

Guelas (2:20:45)

and

Kaysha (2:20:48)

the right how I want to pivot, pivot club shada to be exactly something maybe more about interviewing English speakers, having conversations like the one we have. And I really want to make club shada more something like this. When I just tell people, listen, this day, let's have a conversation and let's just talk about these subjects because club shada is way more organized where

Guelas (2:20:57)

Yeah.

Kaysha (2:21:15)

I would choose two or three subjects and then I freestyle for an hour. Where Internet du Village is more, I turn it on and whoever's there dictates how it's going to be. yeah, we just, so it's completely different and I actually like it more. And what he brought to me is very interesting is...

Guelas (2:21:26)

where the conversation goes.

Kaysha (2:21:38)

I was starting to be frustrated with the idea that it's not that I'm looking for recognition for what I did, but I realized that people don't realize everything I do because

me being a very successful singer.

overshadows everything else that I do.

Nobody knows that I did an NFT collections that sold $100,000 in 38 minutes. Nobody talks about it. Nobody knows that as we speak right now.

As in Portugal, I'm the second most streamed artist in the whole country. Nobody talks about this. When it comes to Congolese artists, it's the same thing. I'm the Congolese artist born in Kinshasa that are not doing rap and stuff, that are not French. mean, it's hard to put me in a... Whenever you put me in any position...

I'm always like number one, number two, number three in terms of Konpa artists with something on I'm number one, Kizomba artists, I'm number one. Like you can even take artists that are filling stadiums. They stream less than me. But nobody is having the conversation. And it's very interesting that.

Guelas (2:22:57)

very much.

Kaysha (2:23:00)

When you are a scientist who likes to be in Kizomba cave creating

You don't really care about that because it's not about your ego.

But I don't point you like, wait a minute.

Where's my prize? Where's the conversation about me? Or wait a minute, why is the conversation happening without me?

I need to do podcasts. need to, I need to go out there and do some PR talk to, but wait a minute. Why are they talking about this guy who made 30 million stream as if he's the best thing since the invention of bread. I had a, I have 150 million streams. What's going on? Wow. Why are we celebrating this guy who has 500,000

listeners a month when I have a million and five. Wait a minute. Why am I doing wrong? And that's when the fact and the fact that I come and sit and talk, it gave to people a better sense of who I am, what I do, and even the way my brain functions brought a lot of respect.

from industry people, from artists. I have a lot of artists that are telling me, listen, every time I speak to an artist, they tell me, I listen to you. Sometimes it's four of us in the studio and we just listen to you for an hour and we're commenting. I was like, I don't see you in the comments. And now we, you know, like, we don't come in the comments, but we there.

You sometimes you, you just, I, last time you said this about something, yo man, it changed my whole way of thinking about us. Like, and so now people are seeing me a little bit like a mentor now. Like I receive a, listen, a lot of comments I have are thank you for showing me the way or thank you for unlocking things that

Guelas (2:24:43)

Right, you're there.

Kaysha (2:25:01)

I didn't think this way or even just the business or even just ideas of a, did have added a video called.

10 ways to make money as a beat maker. And I'm going to have the next one, which is 10 ways to make money as a DJ or 10 ways to make money as a podcaster. Like, and sometimes somebody looks at that and they realize that, I never thought about the nine other ways. And all this puts me in a way that where I like to be where

People are now seeing me more than an artist as somebody that's a little bit over the old field, which is who I am. I'm not a football player. I'm a stadium owner. When you are stadium owner, your conversation has nothing to do with the other soccer players. These people are trying to score goals.

You are selling tickets and hot dogs and Coca-Cola's and you don't have the same thing. Like when, when in your, in your head, when I was 16, that's exactly what I wanted to do. I was never, my end goal is to be famous. I don't care about fame. My end goal is, okay, I'm on the field. I'm scoring. Okay. We winning games at our school.

but the money I'm using, I want to buy the team. Once I buy the team, I want to buy a stadium for the team. Once I buy the stadium, it doesn't matter if I play or if I don't play. As long as there's a game, I sell tickets. If I sell tickets and I have the football field, the stadium, if the subway station is here, if I build a shopping center between the subway and the...

the I make money from the shopping center. I make money from all the Zara stores, the McDonald's, and et cetera, and from the stadium. Once I make enough money from all this, I can buy other teams and other stadiums and build other shopping centers. Once I have 10 teams and 10 stadiums and 10 shopping centers, I'm FIFA. I can organize tournaments.

Guelas (2:27:23)

Hehehe.

Kaysha (2:27:25)

Well, I need a TV to play these tournaments. I can buy my TV. That's the way I think. never, I'm here, like, people don't understand. When I did Bounce Baby, to me, even if it's not the peak as my career as an artist, because after Bounce Baby, I had Telephone, I had One Love, I had Question My Heart, then I had Deeper, Rebound chick, She Close Your Eyes, then I had Diamonds.

something going on. My career as an artist kept rising and rising, but me as a business person, in 98 I'm signed. In 2003 I'm independent. In 2004 I own the albums of four different artists. I'm signing people in 2004. I'm a record company exec.

When people are singing One Love, I make way more money as a record company exec than shows and my own music. People don't understand that. By the time we are 2015, I I invest my money in Twitter, in crypto, in...

Bitcoin in Spotify, in Google, in Facebook, in all the things that I use, I have a rule. Every time I use something, I have to invest not a lot of money, a thousand in everything that I use so that I own a little bit of these companies. And whenever they make money, I make a few cents. Then I start realizing, wait a minute, if I keep investing a little bit of money in all these companies, every time I make

a little bit of money, or they make money, I make also a little bit of money. And when I'm...

When I'm working on the success of my platforms, I start becoming like a multi-channel creator. And everything I do is in synergy with everything else I do.

So when I do an episode of Club Shada, I'm wearing my brand that has its own website that I sell, that I mention every time. The people who are watching the podcast, they wanna support the show, so they go buy some t-shirts and make money. Or they go listen to the music because they saw me and they're like, remember this guy, had some great song. They go listen to some old songs.

And at the same time, when Nelson Freitas go play in a stadium, I make money because two or three of the songs that he's singing, I compose them. So I make money from the SBA. So that's how you build an empire. And it's very interesting that until I did my two podcasts, people never saw me as the...

the ruler of my own empire. They used to see me only as an artist. I think people, listen, people don't even realize that I produce these songs. People have no clue that I produced One Love, Question My Heart. Like people like, I love Kaysha, but they think I love him, the singer, the artist. They don't realize that I'm also behind the songs.

Guelas (2:30:42)

So one dimensional.

Kaysha (2:31:01)

and I also own the masters. They don't realize that because most artists are employees of labels. So people don't see you, those scope of everything you did. And the podcast gives me that voice and give me that possibility to give my opinions on things and even change people's opinion about things or explain to them.

what they can do about things. I had a conversation on one of my episodes with somebody who was telling me that he was a Kizomba event maker. And I was like, okay, great. So how is the market of Kizomba? It's bad. Like people don't come to things anymore, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's different. And I was like, but what do you do different from other people?

Oh, nobody ever asked me that question. There you go. How much does it cost you to do a festival? This, this, this. Okay, so why don't you have a sponsor? Ah, but you know, sponsors are not interested in Kizomba Festival. was like, who do you go see? Samsung? Did you ever talk to people who make shoes for dancers, people who make shirts?

people who make something that has to do with dancers and that your clientele can meet their clientele. Did you ever go to these people, explain to them why they could give you 2000 euros and it makes sense that they're to have their logo somewhere. Did you ever explain to the right people? So maybe you make your Kizomba festival instead of spending money, you're spending sponsor money. So listen, one people or 500 people, you already made your money.

I never saw it this way. So when you have these business conversations with artists, with promoters, they start realizing, listen, when David Guetta asked 400,000 for a DJ set, the festival doesn't pay him. It's Moet and Chandon and EC that pays because they want the logo.

in the back and it's worth it because there's going to be one million people that are going to see the logo and it makes sense for them to put that money in there. So as creators, a lot of us, we don't want to have those business conversations. We have a podcast. It's written, Kizomba Conversation, Kaysha, there's some flower school. Where's the logo? Who's the sponsor? How do we...

monetize. Those are conversations that we don't have because we've been, again, the two lies that people told us. We don't want to be sellouts. We have to be poor. No, we don't. We want to make, at the same time, good conversations that will elevate the people watching. But at the same time, we want to pay our rent and we want to make money from it.

We want to, so I'm in a different position because I already make a lot of money from other avenues. So I can, I can go 2000 episodes before thinking about all these things, but don't think that I'm not thinking about, okay, how do I monetize this? The way I monetize right now is I'm going to, I'm going to do three hours of live and I'm going to chop it into 10 videos.

And I monetize the videos from the YouTube ads, right? But I have a few episodes where I'm going to have a brand that's going to be like, okay, listen, I want to rent this all week. How much does it cost? And I just want my logo here. And in the beginning of the episode, in the end of the episode, you say, brought to you by, and every clip that you're to do, I just want my little logo somewhere.

before you start talking. And that's when you have to start thinking as a...

As an ad, as an ad seller, right? have, in French we say regie, I don't know how you say in English, I don't. You have a team that sell the ads that can explain to, all right, listen, when these guys live or when this podcast is there, there's that much people. These are the, that's the data, that's the Instagram viewership, that's the TikTok clips viewership.

Guelas (2:35:08)

Yeah.

Kaysha (2:35:30)

That's the YouTube viewership in total. have these people speaking those languages in those areas. So we believe that, listen, you have a product. You have these products for people that do tattoos to heal the tattoos. Well, this is the podcast about tattoo artists. And if you have like a thousand and five for five episode, that would be great.

Boom, money made. And those conversations, for some reason people are scared of those conversations, and I'm not. So.

Victor (2:36:08)

Well, Kaysha, can definitely hear that you're not. But no, listen, man, lots of information there. And no, no, but thank you, because especially people listening or watching who don't have your mindset, yeah, you're teaching them something new, you're educating them and you know, hopefully helping them as well. So I really appreciate that.

Kaysha (2:36:10)

You

too much.

Victor (2:36:29)

especially for those people. And obviously I'm learning from you as well. So seriously, obviously as you said yourself, you can talk, but at the end of the day, it's information and it's good information and it's what we want to hear as well. So thank you for that. So listen, man, you are officially now the longest guest we've had. Okay? On the episode,

Kaysha (2:36:29)

My pleasure.

Yeah.

Victor (2:36:52)

So I want to finish off with

Kaysha (2:36:53)

yesterday I did four hours.

Victor (2:36:55)

just a couple of questions that we got left here. I want to ask you, Kaysha, I mean, you've talked about it already a little bit, but just in a nutshell, yeah, because obviously it's Kizomba conversation. So what do you love about Kizomba, basically? What is it that you love about Kizomba?

Kaysha (2:37:11)

I love the sound because it's a sound that is constantly evolving. I love that. When I used to come from Paris, even if Zouk evolves, there was a point where the people really wanted to keep it a certain... 2003 sound, people didn't want to shy away from that sound.

And when I used to come to Portugal, every time I would come, there would be a new trend. I would come, would be Tarraxinha, I would come the next year, would be Ventuinha. There would always be a new dance and a new trend of music. And this is something I loved because I hate when things just stay the same. So I really had a feeling that things were moving musically.

I love the people because I can feel the passion of the people for the art and for the culture. And I can see how the people who are not from this culture are ready to invest and protect that culture. So that's lovely. And I love watching people dance because...

Believe it or not, I can't dance kizomba. So I love watching people dance. Yeah, I know like, what? Sara Lopez tried to teach me, but I was like, what? Cause I was like, can you do like, she was like, yo, yo, No, it's I know basic move, the real issue.

Victor (2:38:21)

Not a little bit.

Okay.

Guelas (2:38:32)

you

Kaysha (2:38:42)

I learned to dance Zouk in France. So in my head, I hear the one, two, one, two. It's hard for me to go one, two, three, one. It's very hard for me. If I put my mind into it, yeah, would. Ten lessons, I'm ready. But actually not really somebody who loves to dance.

Victor (2:38:56)

Yeah, yeah.

Good, yeah.

Kaysha (2:39:09)

I prefer making the music for those who dance. So yeah, but I like watching people dance. I love it.

Victor (2:39:15)

Yeah.

No, great. Great. Thank you. So you talked about the culture and the people and you love making people dance. So on that point, so our listeners, so Kizomba conversation listeners, know, that they're dancers, DJs, teachers, lovers of the culture, like you, like you were saying. So if you're speaking directly to them, yeah. What do you want them to feel when your music comes on? What, you know, what are you hoping that they feel?

I want to hear your tune.

Kaysha (2:39:41)

All right.

I don't want them to feel it when my music comes on, because when my music comes on, I want them to feel something different. But I'm going to answer in two ways. First of all, I want them to feel whether my music comes on or not. I want them to feel appreciated. Because as a creator, I appreciate the fact that they are dancing on my music and they are

loving it and they are spreading it all around the world and in their different communities. So I appreciate you guys. Now, how I want them to feel is feel free to feel what you want to feel because the music is made for you to

Create something else. See it as this is the pot, you guys are the flowers. So you grow the way you want in the color you want and you dance the way you want and you, whatever you wanna feel, whatever you wanna do with it, go ahead, feel free.

Victor (2:40:49)

That is pretty damn beautiful, I must say. To end on, what a fantastic answer to the question. Okay, yeah, feel free. And you've been saying that all along anyway, right from the start. So it's great that we ended on that man. But Kaysha, listen. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Okay, it's been a long one, but it's been a good one. Lots of nuggets in there, lots of information.

Kaysha (2:40:53)

Hehehehehe

Thank you. Feel free.

My pleasure.

Victor (2:41:15)

And it's been great getting to know a bit about you as well, your background, the music, the business side, and just learning about you and how you think as well. So obviously now when we listen to your music or people who listening to this, they can appreciate what you're doing and where you're trying to go, your breaking barriers. You don't want things to stay the same. And I love all that as well. So it was great to find out about you, man. So thank you very much. Okay. Thank you for joining us. It's been an honor to have you on the podcast, but

Kaysha (2:41:29)

you

Thank you for having me.

Victor (2:41:45)

just before we let you go, right? What we normally do is we normally have these cards and on these cards, these are just a bit of fun. listeners, people that subscribe to the podcast, know, said, know, Kaysha's coming on. I spoke to a few people. What are some of the fun questions that we can ask Kaysha? So we come up with these questions, right? Now the thing about you is that you've answered one of these already.

Kaysha (2:41:53)

Okay.

Okay?

Mmm.

Oops.

Victor (2:42:12)

in the conversation that we had. So I would have got you to pick one, but there's one here that you haven't answered. And I just want to ask you this question then. So basically it says, if today's Kaysha could sit down with the younger version of you at the very start, yeah, what's one piece of advice you'd give to him about music or the industry?

Kaysha (2:42:35)

Learn to swim with the sharks and don't worry you are always right in the end.

Victor (2:42:43)

So basically trust yourself, basically.

Kaysha (2:42:46)

Be patient with yourself and be patient with time. It's very frustrating to be right but misunderstood. It's very frustrating when the same people who...

we're telling you you are not right. Now come and explain to you like you see after C there's D and then there's E and you're like really? And only time sometimes we have a saying in Portugal that says so tempo traz verdade the only time brings the truth and actually it's the same in

in Lingala. The lies take the elevator, the truth take the stairs, but they arrive eventually. And in this business of music, a lot of time I've been frustrated by not being heard and not being trusted.

by my peers, by the people who were saying they would follow me. There's always a point where people, look in the back, there's nobody. And I used to be frustrated at the fact that every year somebody comes and tell me, you were right. He used to piss me off, you have no clue. I was like, yeah, what am I gonna do with that?

Now I'm more like, yeah, it makes sense. Like, people don't realize how the people who...

have a vision and an understanding of all the details of things that can make the calculation before you. They feel lonely sometimes because most times you are alone doing what you do. You are alone doing the first singles when everybody's doing albums, having a YouTube channel when everybody's selling DVDs, et cetera, et cetera. And you feel lonely a lot of times because

Other than your group of friends who are excited by what you're saying, sometimes the market itself will not.

be ready for you. So you learn to walk slower sometimes. So you learn to go in front, put something in front, but you know, this is for five years down the line, but you already built it. And now you come back and you build something for in 10 days because that's nearer. You learn to accommodate yourself to the market.

I wouldn't say that every choice that I made were the right ones because I think if all of us could go back, we would do things differently for some things and exactly the same for other things. But,

Victor (2:45:27)

Yeah.

Kaysha (2:45:33)

In terms of vision, sometimes you have the right vision, but you have to learn the execution. You really have to learn how to execute because the market continues to be the market and the market is not made of people like you. The market is not made of visionaries. The market is made of consumers who are kind of basic. So if you are excited about

the calculation that 0.5 plus 0.30 plus 0.10 plus 0.05 plus 0.02 plus 0.03 equals 2. That's cute. But 1 plus 1 equals 5 works better. So you have to learn to keep the complicated stuff for your small group of people or

Victor (2:46:15)

you

Kaysha (2:46:24)

The fans that get it.

But understand that one plus one equals two. So you have to either make it simple or make it look simple. And that's a fine, there's a little fine excitation about creating something that is very complicated that, but when people look at it, they're like one plus one equals two. But in reality, it's not really that there's a lot of, if you look closely, that's not a one.

So that's when you start having fun because you start understanding who you are and where you are and how you are different from everybody else. And it's, it's, it's kind of complicated to say that you're different with everybody else because people might take it as who do you think you are, but you are. So you have to accept you, you have to accept all this. So yeah, if I was talking to my younger self, that's what I would tell him.

Listen, you're different. You're a little bit in advance, 15 years, it's gonna be all right. Just do what you have to do. Believe in yourself and don't worry.

Victor (2:47:26)

You

Kaysha (2:47:32)

Don't be ashamed of everything. Because some of it is not your fault and most of it is just listen, that's your blessing.

Eve.

And most of my mentors, they kind of understood that, it took them time to explain this to me as well. Like they knew, like some people knew once they start working with me or when they met me, that kid is different. And that's why they took me where they took me. But yeah, at a point I was feeling lost.

because, listen, sometimes you're in the middle of Cape Verde and everybody's Cape Verdean, everybody's speaking a different language than you can be in Cape Verde, can be in the West Indies, and everybody's looking at you a little funny because you're the only one singing playback and everybody is with a live band and everybody's, and somebody decided to put you to perform in the middle.

Not at the end, not in the beginning, in the middle. And you're like, why would you do this to me? But once you go on stage and you destroy everything, everybody looks at you different now. And the person that put you there tell you, you see? Because sometimes people believe in you more than yourself because they see how different you are. And they see the brilliance, they see your aura.

Victor (2:48:51)

True.

Kaysha (2:49:00)

So you have to trust in that and this is something that you learn as well.

Victor (2:49:04)

Fantastic. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Fantastic advice. And Kaysha, you know, where can people find out about you? Especially if they don't know about you, where are you on the socials?

Kaysha (2:49:06)

There it is.

pleasure.

Kaysha.com. You go to Kaysha.com and then you have everything is there, but yeah. Kaysha1974 on Instagram, Kaysha2201 on TikTok. Those are the places where you find me and that's where I interact the most. Kaysha.com and Kaysha.tv, that's my YouTube channel. Those are the places really where every day there's new YouTube videos on.

Victor (2:49:21)

everything there.

Kaysha (2:49:44)

YouTube and every Wednesdays you have Internet du Village, show in French. Every Sunday you have Club Shada, my show in English. And every Friday there's a new song as well.

Victor (2:49:55)

Fantastic.

Okay, cool. Excellent. So everybody listening, just want to say thank you for tuning in. You heard Kaysha there. Make sure you go and check him out on all the channels there and find out about what's going on with Kaysha. right. So Kaysha, thank you. One love, sir. One love. Okay. DJ Guelas, just want to say thank you for coming back And people, make sure you check out DJ Guelas's episode if you haven't checked that.

Kaysha (2:50:11)

Thank you. Bless.

Victor (2:50:22)

to and like I always say thank you all for listening to us if you want to subscribe please do but like I always say keep dancing and we'll see you on the dance floor soon peace

Kaysha (2:50:33)

Peace out.