While working for Grown Kid – a music production agency as well as a music label – I’ve worked on the development of James BKS’s solo music career, and more specifically on the communication strategies surrounding his single releases. In addition to looking for the right partnerships for his PR campaign, I’ve edited & written his press releases and press kit, co-written his biography, translated it, as well as working on various communication assets & administrative procedures (grants).
Biography
James BKS is a unique artistic figure, there’s no need to prove it. His music, like his person – two inseparable entities as they reflect each other – are the fruit of an exceptional initiatory journey, including both the acceptance of long ignored Cameroonian roots and the discovery of an innate talent for music production. Unique and singular, James BKS’s project reflects his passage from the shadows, as a producer, to light, as a fully grown artist.
Being a major component of his artistic and personal life, music production has followed each of his steps in the music industry. He started as a producer and developed his artistic signature through collaborations with renowned international urban figures, but as an artist today, he relies on independence with his own production company, Grown Kid, a creative house that welcomes another facet of his creativity : composing original scores for advertising and feature films; this creative house has developed a label side over time, label that produces and releases his compositions.
And his compositions never go unnoticed. Carrying both a message and a movement that is larger than life, James BKS’s music gathers people from all over the globe around causes that connect people of African descent as well as all those who wish to reconnect with their heritage. Proud ambassador of the latter, James embodies it for all the reasons that have made him the artist he is today, reasons crowned and amplified by the unexpected reunion with his biological father, Manu Dibango.
And it is this reunion, this essential event of his personal development that makes James compose his music as he lives his identity, between hip-hop sounds, African percussions and pop melodies. This way, his music that sounds like the meeting point between all the cultures that have nourished it, between traditional African rhythms and choirs and avant-garde urban sounds.
This is how his initiatory journey and his music are universal. They invite each of us to break free from preconceived codes by combining tradition and modernity, heritages and crossbreeding. A strong message that James conveys on an upcoming album in March 2021, which will be promoted around the world as part of an upcoming tour next year.
– disclaimer : his biography has changed since I wrote this one.
Press kit
Written both in French and in English, it includes his biography, some key information about what was his latest release by then – New Breed – some press article excerpts, the tracklist of his first album that is yet to be released and some added info about his live band.
I have wrote some of the information included in this press kit & created its layout.
