Koby Wills saw his mom Magda Fiona-Griffith singing in church when he was a child and knew he wanted to be a singer. He began to sing around the house and his mom encouraged it. Singing alone then transformed to singing with his friends in school. He recalled that in third form he did freestyle singing with his friends and this helped in his development as an artist.
When Wills tried to record a love song for a friend’s girlfriend, the idea dawned on him that he could produce records. He took his freestyling on the Skype platform. Friends would give him beats and he found lyrics and rhythm to accompany them. It was a training ground for him and he became a student of music production and did everything in his power to improve his craft.
“If a beat stuck, I would go into my closet and try to record it,” Wills said. He would place his microphone on a stack of books so he could sing and use clothing in the closet to avoid having the sound of the record bounce around the room and lose its quality.
Over time and with practice, the quality of his music improved but he was still unsatisfied. He heard the sound of Guava Productions – a local music studio owned by producer Rondell Glasgow. Wills was impressed by the sound quality and contacted Glasgow to record with him. He learned the technicalities of how to mix and master music to improve his production quality. Glasgow also showed him the best YouTube channels to view so he could fast track his productions.
Wills’ music improved technically, but it was the philosophy of being himself that made it unique.
This idea was introduced to him by his mother, who he credits with helping him to think for himself. “She always tells me to just do you. Don’t care what people think or say. Just be yourself; do what you want,” Wills said.
At that point in his life, Wills, who is now 22, felt that he had too much freedom and that his mom did not pay enough attention to him. But in retrospect, he said, she was preparing him to form his own opinions and ideas about life because she did not want to impose her beliefs onto him.
It is something he feels gratitude for because this style of parenting has informed his art in music and more recently, photography. He describes his music as not being genre specific because music mimics his emotions and emotions are not static. In this way, his music is dynamic and he does not feel the need to be pigeonholed based on what is expected of him. His feelings will be reflected in the music.
His photography is also based on the same idea. “In the moment, I just try to capture something that feels real. I hate the idea of posing for a photograph. I just really love candid photos the most and I just try to capture what made that moment memorable,” Wills said. He would soften the look of the photograph and make the colours warmer because he equates this tone with candid photographs.
His friends are also major influences on his music and photography.
He credits them with providing a space for him to feel comfortable when expressing himself and pushing him to improve and experiment with his creativity so he can grow as an artist.. “The key to success is giving and having healthy relationships. The more that you pour into yourself the more you come back to you. Doing that, you end up building healthy relationships… eventually building a community,” he said.
It is this community of friendship and family that has helped Wills to build his own music studio and move away from recording in his closet. He was so in love with the process of creation that he did not even realise his growth. “We had these two cheap speakers and I didn’t know it then but I just always wanted to improve the quality of my sound. I was just so focused that I wanted my music to sound like real music on YouTube and I just got lost in that and I only acknowledge how far I came when I created [a music studio] with my mom and my friends,” he related. In this studio Wills connects and brainstorms ideas with his friends.
Wills did not always have this drive and focus for creating. He said three years ago he was playing video games all day, partying and consuming too much alcohol. But writing music about his experiences made him pause and reflect about the lifestyle he was living and he knew he wanted to make changes. He realised that music also served as an instrument to discover truths about himself.
“Music is an outlet to express myself and to find myself,” he said. “As I make music, I find out a bit more about myself so without music I think I would be a very sad being.”
