Things have changed for Canadian rapper Keynes Woods since he broke out a few years ago with a hair-raising, lyrically lethal COLORS performance of his song “Threat.” For one thing, the Congo-born, Ottawa-raised MC has caught many more ears thanks to the much-praised clip (which racked up over 700,000 views), landing on Artists to Watch lists and generating buzz with his 2020 debut EP Kongo Kane. For another, the 25-year-old no longer sees the outside world as, well, a threat.
“When I was starting off, I had a different type of hunger because I was always like, ‘I need to prove people wrong.’ Even in that COLORS session, that ‘Threat’ song was all about trying to prove motherf**kers wrong,’” Woods explains to Complex. “But I hear that now and I’m like, ‘Yo, people do f**k with me!’ So I need to switch that energy. I’m not trying to prove people wrong anymore; now it’s like, I gotta prove everyone right.”
Well, he certainly does plenty of corroborating in his new single “Allo,” the music video for which we’re premiering today. In a first for Woods, he raps confidently in French over a nasty, trunk-thumping beat he produced all by his lonesome (another first). If you don’t happen to be bilingual, the lyrics can more or less be boiled down thusly: talk is cheap.
“The track is really about, ‘Yo, leave me alone,’” Woods laughs. “I mean, I’m at a point right now where I’m taking this thing a lot more seriously. And I’ll be honest, I need to start making money, you know what I mean? I want to make a living off of this. So as harsh as it is, it’s just like, I need to mostly answer money calls now. I can’t do free shows anymore. If it’s not about business, I gotta go. I’ve done a lot of favours.”
Woods, a lyrical acrobat with a proclivity for bending styles, says he feels “pressure, but good pressure.” He’s itching to level-up his career and follow through on the hype that’s surrounding him. And yet, he’s also happy to indulge left-field ideas and subvert expectations entirely. Hence, the decision to record a track in French. For his next album, he plans to depart from the shadowy, skull-rattling trap sound he established on Kongo Kane in favour of what he calls “pretty music.” He describes it as a mix of early 2000s pop-leaning R&B, dance music, and introspective rap cuts.
“When you see there’s two different sides of the world, I feel like you live life differently.”
“I’m willing to shoot shots that a lot of people aren’t willing to shoot,” he says when asked what sets him apart from other Canadian rappers. “I’m always constantly trying to push myself to do uncomfortable things. I think a lot of people get caught up in certain boxes, and I genuinely want every project I come out with to be different than the last one…. I’m not afraid to try things out in front of people. It’s nice when you don’t know what to expect from your favorite artist, and it’s not formulaic or anything. It’s just like, this guy felt it and he tried it.”
After a summer that saw T-Pain and Dr. Dre openly gripe about the repetitiveness and lack of originality in rap today (“Do some different music! We have all the sh*t that you’re doing!” T-Pain screamed on a Twitch stream that went viral), Woods’ creative curiosity is a breath of purified air. Especially amid a Canadian hip-hop scene that can often feel congested with the same gauzy, hazy sound.
Keynes’ willingness to chuck the rapper instructional manual can be traced back, at least partly, to his unique upbringing. He immigrated to Canada from Kinshasa, Congo at eight, an experience that was, to understate things, jarring. “I remember my first time on an escalator. I was kind of shook. Like, yo, how do I get on this thing?” he recounts. “When you see there’s two different sides of the world, I feel like you live life differently. It gives you a different perspective. I don’t think it’s intentional but I do definitely think it’s opened me up to more things.”
“I want to have my own world, man. I like artists who build their own world around what they do.”
Today, Woods bounces back and forth between Ottawa and Toronto. But he reps Canada’s capital hard. The “Allo” visuals, directed by video production crew Heirmanos, showcase various parts of the city, from lush forests to basketball courts. He credits fellow rappers Night Lovell and City Fidelia as being key architects of Ottawa’s rap scene, though he admits it’s nowhere near as massive as Toronto’s. Still, he notes that when it comes to artist support, even the 6ix has its limits. “It’s funny, in Ottawa, I was kind of like, ‘There’s nothing here.’ So I moved to Toronto, and then a lot of artists out here are talking about, ‘Yo, I can’t be here, we gotta move to L.A.’ There’s just a major difference between living here and living in the States. In terms of [music] infrastructure, there’s just less here, but the more and more stars we get, we’ll get there.”
Thankfully, programs like First Up with RBCxMusic are doing their part to help artists get there. Launched to support Canadian talent during the pandemic, the initiative provides musicians with mentorship, as well as funding and exposure opportunities with the likes of Grammy-winning R&B artist H.E.R., who Woods appears alongside in a splashy new promo spot.
Stacked as the odds may be against artists here, watching a Canadian climb to the top of the hip-hop hierarchy is plenty motivation for Woods. Not only because Drake is a Canuck, but because he’s such a different Canuck. “It’s insane: a half-Black, half-Jewish dude from Toronto, kinda suburban looking, is the biggest rap star in the world,” he says. “I don’t think there’s ever going to be that again, but it is inspiring to know that you can be yourself and build your own thing, and you don’t need to fit into a certain type of mould to make it. It gives you hope that, ‘OK, I can have my own version of that.’”
So, Woods is looking to build not just a career, but a whole-ass empire off his idiosyncrasies. “I want to have my own world, man. I like artists who build their own world around what they do. People who know me know I kinda live in my own world already. This is Keynes’ world, for better or for worse. But I want [to get to a point] where people have bought into this big brand and understand it. And that’s what I’m working towards. And it’s not just on the music side of things, it’s everything.”
And when he says everything, he means everything. Alongside the new album, Woods has also been hard at work on Rarefruits, a line of fashion dolls (that’s right) he plans to someday release. “I wanted to create the fashion doll for boys,” he says. “The way I look at it, Barbie has the Ken doll, but the Ken doll is not necessarily for boys, it’s just an accessory of Barbie. I just saw there was a gap in the market.”
He says he’s created a few prototype dolls and some packaging, and is now looking to secure funding for the project. The idea came about while spit balling ideas for unique merch. “I just went down a rabbit hole of like, ‘OK, clothing, maybe I could do something different, like socks or something.’ And then for some reason I just thought fashion dolls. You can do so much with them, even in terms of the clothing. You can do brand collabs, for example. And I was like, oh, that’d be interesting.”
Woods already knows that people mess with him and all his eccentricity. Now he’s looking to see just how far down the rabbit hole they’ll follow him.
“Like I said, I’m shooting shots, man. I’m shooting shots.”
