Who are you, Kelvin Krash? That’s what tens, if not hundreds of Reddit threads want to know about the evasive music producer. And you can understand why – type his name into any search engine and you’ll be hard pressed to find much more than a link to his Instagram and a few artist bios listing his features. Consequently, as a producer with the likes of slowthai, Skepta and none other than A$AP Rocky on his collaborative roster, it seems mind boggling that an artist of such prestige is so underground at face value.
Hailing from Willesden in North West London, the enigmatic artist grew up surrounded by the likes of Nines, Ice Kid and Dot Rotten. Pirate radio, prevalent at the time in London, was worshipped daily by Krash and his cousins whilst Krash’s brother, with an in-house studio in tow and a penchant for late night visits to underground radio stations, paved the way for his venture into producing beats. This, perhaps, is our first glimpse at understanding how such a deep and undeniable grasp of music was born for Kelvin Krash.
Fast forward to 2018, and we’ve come a long way from Pirate radio bedroom beats. Krash has produced tracks for A$AP Rocky’s third studio album, Testing, with production credits for “Buck Shots” featuring Playboi Carti and Smooky Margielaa, and “Black Tux, White Collar” in collaboration with Clams Casino, Tank God, Flacko and Hector Delgado. The math aint mathing, but it just makes sense that such high calibre skill could rise from Willesden, to A$AP Rocky. By 2020, credits had spread to releases by trailblazers Jeshi, slowthai and Skepta, with noted tracks such as ‘3210′ and ‘NHS’ respectively.
As if that wasn’t enough, Krash’s eye for visuals adds another notch to his belt. A multi disciplinary creative by nature, his videos are kaleidoscopic trances; rotating neon medallions, flame engulfed characters and birdseye views give us a taste of his creative vision. Revealing that his darkly psychedelic music video ‘TIME’ featuring Kasien was born from binges of old school visuals such as ‘Firestarter’ by Prodigy and references to cult movies such as Trainspotting, it seems only natural that Krash’s artistic ability should be so impressively varied.
It therefore comes as no surprise that Kelvin Krash has collaborated with the likes of Dexter Navy, filmmaking and photography veteran. A trio of ominously beautiful videos celebrating the A-COLD-WALL* x Diesel Collaboration were worked on by none other than Krash as the sound designer, with eerily echoing beats and transcending, glitching synths that teleported us into a futuristic new world.
Despite his exterior elusiveness, Krash has been known to express a desire to allow his fans to see the inner workings of his creative process. On his Youtube you will find such videos, one example being the ‘making of’ A$AP Rocky’s ‘SANDMAN’. Similarly, in Krash’s Instagram bio you will find a link to a Discord group named KRASHED – the producer once stated that it’s ‘always [important] to just take the time to talk to people’. Within over 500 members within the Discord group, 54 people are already online as we speak… at 12:38pm. If this doesn’t show the community that Krash has fostered, we’re not sure what will.
A clearly dedicated, honest and raw multidisciplinary artist, Kelvin Krash may be a mystery to Reddit, and perhaps to the world – but maybe that’s exactly what he wants to be.
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