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This past weekend, I was watching the premiere of Rachel Sennott’s new influencer culture HBO comedy I Love LA when I was caught off guard by a name in the credits: Kenneth Blume. If you’ve been tapped out of the Geese phenomenon, you may be thinking, Who the fuck is that? The answer is simple: That’s Kenny Beats. (777 is still good, by the way.) To undergo his transformation from rap production chameleon to acclaimed rock-record producer and film and TV score composer—he also did the music for Alex Russell’s thriller Lurker, which is sort of like if The Talented Mr. Ripley were about a Brockhampton stan—he switched up his name, an extension of the thought process that, to be taken seriously by musical institutions, you have to soften your connection to rap. “I named myself Kenny Beats at 15 years old for MySpace—because my name was Kenny and I made beats—and it kind of just stuck,” he said in an interview over the summer. “And whenever I get a Grammy nomination as Kenny Beats, there’s times where in my heart I’m just like, ‘But my last name is Blume.’”
It’s disheartening that Kenny thinks like that because, hey, man, beats are sick and who cares if some suits on a voting board or in Hollywood don’t think so! I was reminded of that last week when I pulled up with my friend to a show in Williamsburg. There, I saw Chicago’s Semiratruth fiddle around and improvise on top of their 2024 album, The Star of the Story, reminding me of the most surreal moments on collagist classic Red Burns. Then, later in the night, out came Jersey digital crate digger Doris, whose Ultimate Love Songs Collection, 50 tracks of pitch-shifted sampledelia, was one of my go-to albums of last year. During the performance, Doris’ mic was messed up, so all of my attention was on the production and, as he breezed through dozens of one-minute songs, I turned to my friend and said, “I’ve listened to this album so many times and the beats still blow me away.”
