Today we’d like to introduce you to Neko.
Hi Neko, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
I got my start doing poetry in high school. It was my way to get out of my shell. That led to me making music in high school, and eventually going to college for music where I developed my foundation for production and engineering. I went to school at Hampton, an HBCU in Virginia and got the key to the school studio my sophomore year. I spent time in the studio daily after class and almost all day on the weekends. My senior year I interned, then engineered at Virginia Beach Recording Arts, Timbaland’s old studio. Josh Haddad reopened the studio and brought on Andrew Coleman, a legendary producer and engineer. I learned a lot about business and music from these two. I came back home after college due to the pandemic. I freelanced a bit here and eventually opened my own studio in November 2022. The studio name is called Face of Fate. I named it that because there were a laundry list of challenges that happened when I was looking for a space. So many that I can’t even remember them all at this point, but once I was in the space it felt like this was something that was destined to happened. The studio was the physical manifestation of that hence the name, Face of Fate.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
There have been plenty of challenges along the way. The pandemic was the first, it shifted my plans from going to LA to figuring it out back home in Chicago. Those first couple of years I felt misaligned and I knew I needed my own space to execute my vision in the way that I saw it. I was on a waitlist for two years before finding my own space. When I opened the space there was a two year string of deaths of immediate family members. My uncle that stayed with me and my family passed away unexpectedly, and the week after my grandfather passed from cancer. Shortly after that, my grandfather’s sister passed from cancer, and the year after that my great grandmother was diagnosed with and eventually passed from cancer. There are many challenges when opening a business but having to work through so much grief while trying to grow a business makes the challenges that much more complicated. For those who are struggling in anyway, I’ve found that surrounding yourself with good people and finding ways to enjoy the things you did as a child can be very healing to the soul and give you what you need to move towards feeling whole again.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I am a music producer, I can take a song and step in at just about any part of the process to bring it to life. I can make the beat and engineer but I am also able to help out with songwriting, vocal arrangement, and additional production. I am most proud of the work I’ve done in the R&B scene in Chicago. I have a couple of R&B songs that crossed the 100k mark on streaming platforms. Both songs were released by independent artists. In Chicago, R&B isn’t really a sound that’s heavily pushed in the city. You can see bigger recording and marketing budgets being put behind the emerging rappers and that’s ok. That just means the R&B artists have more work to do when it’s time to push the song. Breaking 1000 as an independent artist is no small feat, much less 100k so it feels good knowing that something we put our all into was received so well. I care about every artist that walks through my door. I will turn a session down if I don’t think I can do the artist or song justice. We all have bills to pay but I want to be able to make a meaningful, positive impact on the songs I work on and the artists I work with.
If we knew you growing up, how would we have described you?
I was quiet, I still am but I had the gift of being able to connect with all kinds of people. I had different friend groups with different interests but still found common ground with them all. My biggest interest when I was young was space. I wanted to be an astronaut. Being able to travel to space seemed like the coolest thing to me. I also played a lot of sports.
Pricing:
- Studio Time – 60/hr
- Production – Contact for inquiries
- Mixing – Contact for inquiries
Contact Info:
- Website: https://Www.facexfate.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/madebyneko?igsh=MWxpbGU1dGljZHVwcQ%3D%3D&utm_source=qr
