Coming off the success of his sophomore album, Robots & Dinosaurs, Grammy nominated jack-of-all-trades Kokayi is proud to release the latest track from the album “Chanticleer.” The self-produced song – Kokayi produced all of Robots & Dinosaurs, save “Autumn Rules,” produced by Oddisee – again shows off Kokayi’s ability to blend a variety of musical styles to create a unique and infectious beat. Breaking away from the norm, Kokayi’s main inspiration for “Chanticleer” derives from the lack of originality in art. “Be original and break out of the boxes; stay way from the margins and labels that people try to apply to you or your art,” says Kokayi, and while it’s a topic that’s been explored before, Kokayi’s original approach, both lyrically and musically, breathes life into the topic. Enlisting his own children for the chorus, Kokayi gives the song a touch of Jay-Z’s “Hard Knock Life, while using the verses to spit witticisms, with lines like, “You try to box me Rocky/ I May Weather storms, golden boy cocky.”
Kokayi’s new album, Robots & Dinosaurs, is available now via QN5.
Listen to Kokayi’s “Chanticleer” here.