“I remember [Busta Rhymes’s] ‘Woo-Hah!! Got You All in Check’ was on the boombox if our track team won,” he says in a phone interview. “We would play that during our victory lap. But it’s not just hip-hop. When my brother I would be driving to church, we’d be listening to Biggie [Smalls]. But we also threw in some Fred Hammond and some Kirk Franklin and some Hezekiah Walker. That was the introduction to a lot of Christian music, which was influential. I always want my music to have that spirit behind it.”
By the time he went to college at Kent State University, he started to take music more seriously.
“My buddy and I had a group that played out locally,” he says. “We even got to do a show overseas in Italy.”
While Bishop has posted numerous singles online, his first major release was last year’s Period, an album he also produced.
“It was well-received,” he says when asked about the LP. “I put a show together in Akron. People came out to a restaurant, and we did an evening of great food and great music. I also performed some shows as part of an event called Souls at the Polls during election season last year too. I try to make sure the music is an extension of everything I do and believe, and I try to do it in a way that can be inspiring. What I produce and put out now I do by myself. I’ve been a part of a group and learned how to make beats from a good friend named Jonesy, and we put some projects out together, but the last few have been all Kenan.”
“Ohio,” one highlight from Period, possesses a strong sense of immediacy thanks to its rapid-fire raps and references to Klan rallies. The song stems from an exercise Bishop did at work one day.
“We do an activity called ‘I’m from,’” he says. “You take the time to write down where you’re from. It’s less attached to geography but more about the experiences that make you who you are. ‘Ohio’ came from me writing my own version of where I’m from, and I took it and put a beat to it and recorded it. I’m mentioning experiences that are very much Ohio, but most of it is a description of the formative experiences that make us into who we are.”
Soulful backing vocals turn the shimmering “Deedee” into a beautiful ballad.
“That is a vocal chop from a sample from an artist who is scatting,” says Bishop when asked about the track. “It’s a R&B song from the ‘90s. I chopped a piece of the scat that ended with ‘Deedee.’ It’s to her but any other person looking for that special somebody.”
Bishop says he wrote the tunes for his forthcoming new album, First Sunday, which will be a vinyl-only release, in isolation. He had come back from Florida and tested positive for COVID.
“I told my wife, and she told me, ‘Alright, brother, go in the basement,’” he says. “I have my music set up in the nice part of the basement. I basically was making the music after work. All these old records were playing. There’s Aretha Franklin and bands you never heard of. If I was on a break, I would make it, but I mostly recorded at night. I mixed it and was down there by myself. Then, when the body of work was done, I was ready to release the best of it. I believe in the Michael Jackson and Quincy Jones approach. Put your best stuff out. [Jackson’s] Thriller had just nine songs on it, but every song was a single. That’s how it came together.”
His gut instinct told him to release it on vinyl.
“I’ve had a desire to have vinyl in people’s hands for years,” he says. “I thought it would be cool. I love the sound and feel of it. It was always in the back of my head. In terms of what project and when, I wasn’t sure. Streaming is now a saturated space. I wanted something that could connect with my people directly instead. It’s spirit music. It’s soul music. And it’s necessary for this moment in time and for the challenging times we’re in.”
Subscribe to Cleveland Scene newsletters.
Follow us: Apple News | Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | Or sign up for our RSS Feed
This article appears in Cleveland SCENE 7/30/25.
