MySpace a place for friends

Growing up in Birmingham, KJ immersed himself in the creative diversity of England’s second city, catching the music bug at a young age and devoting most of his spare time to it. The flamboyant 80’s afforded him the chance to watch and learn from his idols, with the view that one day, it would be him up there performing his own tracks. As an 8-year old he contented himself with renditions of assorted musical heroes of the era such as Billy Joel and, of course, Michael Jackson and as time went by his own compositions took shape around his influences.

Despite being blessed with the talent and drive to achieve his dreams, the journey to where he is now has not been easy. Upon reaching his teenage years KJ began to struggle with a panic disorder that made him irrationally afraid to even leave his room. In a never-ending cycle of fear and despair, he could not see how, in his current state, it would ever be possible to perform his own tracks if he was unable to function outside his four walls.

Music became the only outlet for his fear and frustration – a cathartic outpouring of his emotions - and he entered a productive and intense song-writing phase. He composed song after song and his writing became increasingly sophisticated and his lyrics found new depths. Stunned by his song-writing prowess, his family and friends encouraged KJ to upload his tracks to MySpace – and from here his success snowballed.

In early 2007 his growing online presence and popularity was noticed by Kevin Savage, the MD of record label and management company, SavageTrax. Kevin loved the music and understood what KJ had been through and soon offered him a four-album, £1m deal. With this unbelievable turnaround, the darker side of KJ’s life began to recede and he worked toward whittling down the 250 tracks he had accumulated over the years and set about turning a select amount of them into the finely-tuned, polished gems that would become his debut album.

Breaking through the fear barrier to pursue his musical dream inspired KJ’s first single ‘When Fear Gets in the Way’, which was released digitally in Oct 07 and showed his own style emerging alongside all the influences from his past and his present – a melting pot of 80’s pop, hip hop and R&B.

2007 also saw KJ play his biggest show to date, performing in front of 25,000 people at the Cardiff Mardi Gras – a testament indeed to how far he has travelled to overcome his fears and achieve his goals.

In 2008 KJ released his second single ‘Deep Within The Skin’ to critical acclaim, featuring a deep list of top quality remixes, Deep Within the Skin hit high on the club and radio charts. With these two singles under his belt, KJ is looking forward to the release of his next single ‘Shakin’ That’ in October 2008 and then his debut album. Along the way, he’d like to make it clear, that fear need not get in the way of dreams.
The ‘No Panic’ organisation and KJ have joined forces in an effort to reach sufferers who still shy away from seeking help. Support can be found through organisations such as the ‘No Panic’ charity and as a Patron of ‘No Panic’, KJ hopes to inspire sufferers to come forward as he did, proving that it is possible to beat a panic disorder.