Rising Stars: Meet Celeste Kay

Today we’d like to introduce you to Celeste Kay.

Hi Celeste, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I started making music as a joke with my best friend Dustmyte; he would make beats and I would make raps that had absolutely no meaning behind them whatsoever, simply as a way to kill time. Over the next few months, we found ourselves drawn to the computer doing what we could with almost no actual equipment. Just GarageBand and a pair of Apple earbuds. Simply because it was fun. Over time, I personally found that making music became addicting; like the only way to put what I was feeling into some sort of outlet that wasn’t a therapist. People around me were telling me that I was good enough at it to actually do something with it and by the end of the first year I had my sights set on taking music seriously. Nearly six years later, I am proud to say that my friends and I have gone farther with music than we could have ever imagined, doing shows out of state, amassing over a million plays on Soundcloud alone, and bringing small venues to life across Colorado. We’ve met some of the most genuine people possible throughout our journey, and we’ve had the privilege of touching the lives of the people who tune into us.

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
The first year or two were a breeze, no issues with booking shows or even seeing progress with plays. After two years, this internal feeling of not being good enough, or feelings of “what if they don’t like it?, etc. developed and made it hard to truly enjoy the art I was making. Along with the ups and downs with coming and going waves of creativity; some days I can sit down and finish six songs and other times I’ll find I go weeks or even moths at a time without being productive musically. As an artist, there’s many routes to take against this issue but I find that just accepting those creative slumps and realizing that everything you make doesn’t always have to be perfect is a good route to take. There’s also the issue of comparing your plays or success to other people; celebrities, peers, or even other local talent. Comparison kills motivation and makes you lose track of your main goal and your journey sometimes.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I am a musician first, but I feel like using that label to describe everything I do as a whole would be inaccurate. I produce beats, I rap, I sing, I play guitar and a few other instruments, I like coming up with ideas for clothing designs and a million other things. It’s always hard for me to describe what kind of music I make, since I’ve dabbled into almost every genre I can think of (many sub-genres of rap, alternative music, pop-punk, reggaeton) I’ve even done work on EDM songs and given my shot at country, but I would say I’m mainly a rapper. My versatility as a musician is what puts me apart from any artist I know. I would say I’m most proud of the personal progress I’ve made since starting my music journey, especially when looking at the analytics and seeing that every year just gets bigger and bigger with more listeners, more plays, more shows, etc. and the overall improvement in the production quality of my music.

How do you think about luck?
I would say for the most part that my journey has been very work-based and it reflects in the outcome of how songs or projects perform. When a new song does better than the last one, I know it’s because I go out and network, do more promotional stuff than the last one, and even put more time and effort into the newest thing out than the last one. The only time luck seems to come into play is when a show falls through due to promoters, lack of support, etc. There’s been times we’ve flown out of state to do shows and it ends up being cancelled last minute; like day of show last minute. It’s not fun, but those scenarios that were affected by bad luck end up being blessings when it motivates me to do more for next time.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://linktr.ee/celestekay
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thecelestekay/
• SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.app.goo.gl/8hQvF22EkLQRmbEAA

Image Credits
Levi Polon