Photo by Sav Huddleston, “Kai”, 2023
Born and raised in Kings Mountain, North Carolina (a small suburban city on the outskirts of Charlotte), Kai has evolved in her identity and artistic expression many times over. She’s went from Projexxkillla, the poetic rapper who created music to connect with her late brother; and NineKai or Kalia, the “entrepreneur of sound” learning how to best exalt all of her ancestors and be the healer of her family; to now, just Kai, a self-taught visual artist and full-time student majoring in Early Childhood Education. I’ve been privileged enough to closely know and profoundly create with all of those versions of the enigmatic creative genius now known as Kai, from 2021 to 2024.
Mirroring her own metamorphoses, the collaborative nature of our work has shifted in space and shape throughout the years. We began working on our first project, SAGIQUARIUS., in 2021, only a couple of months after first meeting one another. Seamless, intuitive, and aligned on every level, we realised that the timing for the project was perfect. I made sure to show up for Kai in an immediate manner, with a natural sense of urgency in my communication, sound engineering, ideation, and creation of visual arts. All of it was truly just a collage of our bond that we were building at the time. The epitome of art. TRANSIT NEARBY. and SHARE LOCATION. illustrate the forming of our friendship furthermore, as actual audio messages sent to one another in our personal iMessage thread.
From that project onward, I’ve followed through with the same momentum and dedication for the work that we would set out to do together, while also allowing considerable room for a change of pace as needed.
We were able to successfully co-write, sometimes co-engineer, once co-direct, consult on, and record performances for four different projects — one of them receiving over 300 organic streams in its first week, and another, an unprecedented amount of positive feedback from our community. Here’s a more in-depth look at our partnership.
Hear from her…
The visuals
GRAPHIC DESIGN
SAGIQUARIUS. (EP)
REBIRTH OF MATA. (from R4LD2E album)
Nü Daylight Savings (A Rasquiat Rework)
...THE DARK WOMB. (Sonic Album)
awaken, 999, rebirth yourself.
VIDEOGRAPHY
Nü Daylight Savings (Teaser)
for the concept of a short film designed to warp you through the "Nü Carolina" state of mind, which is a human existence designed by RA YUKAWA, alongside Kai (fka NineKai).
Credits: Dir. and ed. RA YUKAWA, vid. Kai and RA YUKAWA
The music
A project gifted to Kai, from me.
And the marketing
SOCIAL MEDIA
SAGIQUARIUS.
The social media assets for SAGIQUARIUS., and all of the other projects that I partnered with Kai to create, were simplistic and sometimes collage-like with a nod to the many sources of our inspiration. The video above, formatted for an Instagram story or reel post, was one of only a few different visual assets for our collaborative SAGIQUARIUS. EP, and it serves as an overarching example of each asset rollout designed for the Yukawa + Kai partnership.