You wouldn’t have been familiar with the name Bekon before it dotted the liner notes of Kendrick Lamar’s DAMN., and you certainly hadn’t heard of “The Hidden Path of Hirato Makuzi,”the martial arts short story so captivating it had Kung Fu Kenny himself instantly hooked.
You wouldn’t know it because Bekon, then known as Danny Keyz, wrote it the week before he wound up in a Soho studio with the biggest rapper on the planet. Low on funds and back in his native Long Island after years in L.A. working with DJ Khalil and on projects from Eminem, Dr. Dre, and RZA, a text exchange with longtime Kendrick collaborator DJ Dahi got Bekon in the room. From there, he spun a tale compelling enough to catch the eye of rap’s premier storyteller.
Bekon told Kendrick the story of Hirato Makuzi and played him the soundtrack he’d written for the piece. He was invited back for the rest of the New York sessions and eventually to L.A. to finish DAMN.. As they worked, Kendrick and Bekon got close, with their late-night existential chats serving as thematic—and sometimes literal—fuel for the record. Along the way, Bekon revealed his desire to be a solo artist, soaking up some sage wisdom from Lamar in the process.
“When it got close to the album being done, Kendrick came up to me, and he said something that sort of changed my life in a way, and it was very kung fu of him. He said, ‘Man you’ve got to decide if you want to inspire the people who inspire the world or if you want to go inspire the world,’” Bekon says.
Having spent so long in that behind-the-scenes role as a producer, songwriter, and session musician, working with Dre on both Compton and sessions for Detox, and collaborating with super producers like Khalil and Emile Haynie, Bekon knew it was time to change directions. Part of that involved shedding his old identity as Danny Keyz for the Bekon moniker.
His debut, Get With the Times, is a sprawling look at the human condition that’s sometimes a little Black Mirror-ish, but also a recognition of the dualities and contradictions that we carry around with us every day. It’s a culmination of years worth of music for Bekon, from his self-described “Billy Joel” songs written in his early 20s to the dense, pitch-shifted vocals and eerie melodies he brought to eight of DAMN.’s 14 tracks. There’s some pop polish, too, particularly on the crisp lead single “Cold As Ice” or the wistful “17,” which documents a teen romance gone awry with cinematic strings and a Fleetwood Mac-esque melody.
“I felt like part of the philosophy of Bekon is just this idea of taking a chance and being a little random. It’s like throwing darts at a dartboard, right? And some people are just able to aim perfectly and can nail it every time. Some people have to throw 50 darts,” Bēkon explains. “And, for me, I love the art of throwing the darts, like, I might not be the best at it, but I love throwing the dart. I love taking chances. I love creating concepts and trying them.”
Those expecting a DAMN. companion piece might be initially deterred by the breadth of styles and ideas on the record, but Get With the Times is a rich, diverse album where Bekon shows off his full arsenal, including that knack for storytelling that won over Kendrick in the first place.
Listen to the album now and read our interview with Bekon, below.
Where did the name Bēkon come from?
Well, I love bacon, and, at the same time, I remember visiting a farm and meeting these really cute little pigs. But, I kept eating bacon, right? And so to me it’s sort of like the human condition. Why do we destroy what we love? And then I took it a step further, and I thought well, “If you’re going to sort of bend your will or twist your morals a bit, do it for the bacon.” So, for me it was just sort of the idea of being human, no one is perfect. I think it’s great to have ideals and it’s great to learn and to act on the things you learn, but that there’s this part of us that is imperfect. Bēkon is also Japanese for “bacon” and appears as “beacon” or “beckon” or “bacon,” so even the name itself is sort of a moving target as to what people want it to be.
You had success as a producer working with Dr. Dre, Eminem, and Snoop Dogg as Danny Keyz before you became Bekon. Was there a specific incident that led you to want to be a solo artist or was it just something that grew over time?
When I met Khalil, I really just fell into production. Me and him had a really incredible run together, and he showed me so much. He introduced me to the Dres of the world. In between working with artists I would just go back to my room, and it was like, I hadn’t lost my voice but it was just dimmed a bit because I really stopped using it and focused on other things, like production. So, I would write an album, and then, next thing you know, it’d be like, “Yo, this artist wants to work, that artist wants to work.” So then bam, right back to it.
And then you end up always stripping away what you had saved for yourself.
Mhmm. It’s funny because it’s great and it changed my life, but when I worked on this song with Khalil called “25 to Life” for Eminem I was sitting in the room with this girl named Liz Rodrigues. I started playing this piano part from a song I had written when I was 20 years old. She started singing this melody to it—”Too late for the other side”— and it’s funny, Khalil came back in the room and was like, “Yo, that shit’s crazy.” We finished it in 20 minutes and then we got a call from Em saying the song’s on his album. It’s a catch-22, it’s bittersweet. Here is this little part of myself that was very personal to me, but the idea of working with Eminem and that being part of his story was incredible also, right?
So I assume Khalil introduced you to Kendrick?
Actually, I met Kendrick through a twist and turn of events. I was at a bit of a turning point in my life, where I knew I needed something to change. This is when I thought of the Bēkon concept initially. I was back in New York and I was in this position where I was just sort of broke, which is fine as a musician, because you get good at being broke. But after years of success, it felt different. It felt a little unnatural, and I knew that with my mind, my ability, with my work ethic, with all these different things, I can get myself out of this.
So, I went back to New York, and in that moment I was just very randomly talking to this producer DJ Dahi, who I’ve always been friends with. We’d never worked with each other, but we just had mutual respect for each other’s music. Weirdly enough he was in New York and he asked me, “Yo, have you ever worked with Kendrick?” And I said, “No, I’d always just sort of missed him but I think he’s incredible.” And he’s like “Man, I think you guys would do something crazy together.”
So, he invited me into the city. I was in Long Island and I took the train in to a studio down in Soho. Kendrick is there watching a Kung fu movie so, we just start going back and forth about Kung fu. Anyway, coincidentally, a week before I met Kendrick, I wrote a story called “The Hidden Path of Hirato Makzui.”
And you’d written this? This was a short story?
Yeah, it’s a short story that can almost be a treatment for a script.
So, we start talking, and when Kendrick says, “Oh yeah, man, I know all the Kung fu movies,” I figured, I’ve got nothing to lose. So I start telling him my story like it’s a real movie, right? I get about halfway through and he says, “Bro, I’ve got to see this. Like, where can I see this?”
I tell him, “Man you can’t see this.”
“What do you mean?”
“I just wrote it.”
It was pretty funny, he was like, “Man, you didn’t write that.” I had it right there in my laptop and I opened it up for him. I showed it to him. And then I told him that I also wrote the score for it. What I’ll do is, I’ll write a story and then I’ll write about two or three minutes of music.
So I plugged my laptop into the system and that’s when he said, “Man, we’ve got to work.” I didn’t realize how much that little moment would be a life-changer. Because in the music industry and in entertainment and in life, a lot of people say they want to do stuff with you, right? I take it with a grain of salt at this point.
What was different about Kendrick was just the philosophy. We spent most of our time talking about ideas, life, concepts. That became sort of one of my contributions to his album, DAMN.
From that point forward, I was like, “Okay, what if we all just plug a quarter-inch into the system, and jam like it’s the ‘70s, except for with laptops and instruments and you rapping and me singing?” So, we ended up jamming until 8 a.m. and he asked me to come back the next day. We did this three days in a row and Kendrick ends up calling me a week later and asks me to come to L.A. to help finish the album. I didn’t even hesitate. I said yes. So, at this point I’m like, “Damn, I’ve got to find a way to get back to LA.” Now, in those two weeks it started to go really well and I realized I needed to find a way to stay in L.A. no matter what. So I called my old engineer up and I’m like, “Yo, you’ve got to do me a huge favor. Can you just go sell all my equipment?”
What was different about Kendrick was just the philosophy. We spent most of our time talking about ideas, life, concepts. That became sort of one of my contributions to his album, DAMN. I would record some of our late night conversations and take the philosophy and turn it into music. Even how the album starts, “Is it wickedness? Is it weakness?” That was from a conversation we were having.
That basically was how DAMN. was completed as far as my contribution to it. I worked on some of the songs from a production standpoint. Kendrick said to me one night, “Yo, bro, if you want to just stay in the studio overnight, feel free to just use it.” So, that’s when I started recording all that music that became the interludes. He came in the next day I remember and he was just like, “Yo, this is crazy. Can I put it on the album?”
Then, when it got close to the album being done, Kendrick came up to me and he said something that sort of changed my life in a way. And it was very Kung fu of him. He said, “Man you’ve got to decide if you want to inspire the people who inspire the world or if you want to go inspire the world.”
I really thought about it. I took a week. I got what he was saying. And so, I came back to him and I said, “You know what? Both.” I said, “I love the idea that I could sort of whisper into the ear of the king or the queen. And wrong or right, I can at least use that position to inject a certain amount of creativity and philosophy that think might be right. But, on the other hand, I’ve got this thing that I need to say and I’ve been trying to say for a long time, so I think I’ve got to just go say it.”
So basically, this led me to realize I needed to put out an album. It was the last seconds of handing in the credits for the DAMN. album, literally the last five minutes, like, Kendrick’s manager is hitting me asking for my information for the credits. And that’s when it occurred to me: “I’m Bekon.”
So you decided last minute to be on the record as Bēkon and your new name was literally all over DAMN. Did you have a hunch that would start this phenomenon of people trying to figure out who you are? Or did you do it to make this concept kind of become real?
It was a little of both. I knew that it would take off. I thought about being a kid, there’s a fearlessness that kids have. As a kid, one day you might be a pirate, right? Or a cop or a robber or a prince or a princess, right? So, I was thinking to myself, “Damn, why am I so attached to this Danny Keyz thing?”
I WAS ASKING MYSELF, “HOW FAR CAN I TAKE THIS SOUND WHERE I DON’T LOSE THE MESSAGE?”
The way you record your vocals and create these pitch-shifted multi-track harmonies is really unique and all over DAMN., but you use it fairly sparingly on Get With The Times So I’m wondering how did you find that technique and develop it and were you ever worried about getting boxed into this one kind of very specific way that you sing? Because you sing all kinds of ways on your own record.
I have this little saying that I live by, which is, “What would Brian Wilson do?” I try and think in terms of the hyper-creativity and his approach to, let’s say, recording Pet Sounds. I try to imagine that this is my moment to—it’s maybe not Pet Sounds—but it’s definitely my moment to take that approach of hyper-creativity and still have a message. I was asking myself, “How far can I take this sound where I don’t lose the message?”
The first proper track on the album is “America,” which begins with the same refrain as Kendrick’s “XXX.” What is the connective thread between your take and the one on DAMN., and were you worried at all about people missing the point of your vision of it, which is quite different, because of the Kendrick connection?
I think that that song really has a lot to do with just how I feel. I think that just living here, I realize that there are some amazing things about this country, especially after traveling. I’ll come back and I’ll realize how good we have it. But, at the same time, for someone who’s persecuted by America or treated unfairly, it’s sort of tongue in cheek, “God bless you if it’s good to you.” So, I think it just set the tone, philosophically, for Get With the Times.
You have different times as interludes on the record. Is the album meant to simulate the cycle of a day?
I’m definitely playing with time. Personally, I think when you think about time enough—the positive benefit of thinking about time, in my opinion, is that it creates value. It’s almost like saying, “Don’t listen to this if you don’t want to, because you’re going to waste your time.”
Another one of the recurring elements is the repeated line, “I just want to be famous.” When it pops up on the intro, it’s this quiet whisper, then it gets much more aggressive, louder by “7PM.” How does that sentence function as a mantra for the record and how did you change the context of it as the album goes along?
Well man, that’s just what a day of scrolling on the internet will do to someone. You might start off the day with the best intentions, but by 7 p.m., that’s all you can think about right? It’s definitely a trap of the internet. You might go on there and say, “Well, today I’m just going to do a crossword puzzle.” And then, by 7 p.m., you’re watching Kardashian memes, you know? And it’s not a judgment, people gotta do what they’ve gotta do, that’s on them. I’m just saying be aware that after your entire day of scrolling whatever part of you is the most insecure will come out.
I think I’m just willing to be honest and say I’m inconsistent. In one day, I go through 50,000 emotions
There are definitely some moments on the record that are darker and more nihilistic, “Catch Me If You Can” in particular. Do you have these moments where you look at the culture of celebrities, the culture of people online specifically, and have that “fuck it” reaction?
Oh, yeah. I mean, going way back to when you asked me why I thought of “Bekon” and that idea that I love pigs, but I eat bacon. I’m inconsistent, and I think that so many people are so concerned with consistency—they want to appear consistent. I think I’m just willing to be honest and say I’m inconsistent. In one day, I go through 50,000 emotions, I think as most people do. And, I think that while, at 9 a.m. I might feel like, “Man, I want to be this,” by 9 p.m., I might look at that very same thing and think, “What will all of this even be worth one day?”
I have certain routines and habits that I keep, like exercise and working hard and staying in touch with the people I love. There are things like that that matter to me, and those are my consistencies, but as far as emotionally and conceptually? Man, I’m all over the place, so I think that found its way right into the album.
Yeah. I think that ties into deliberately making a diverse record. It’d be hard for someone, even if they don’t love your contributions to DAMN. to listen to this record and not feel something about some song or verse or phrasing here.
I know in rock ‘n roll it was always about making a record that your parents hate, right? For me, mine was just different. You know, for me it was like, “Yo, I want the hipsters to love it, I want the gangsters to love it. I want my grandma to love it.” Because, the spirit that it comes from it is the spirit of inclusiveness. It’s not exclusive, I don’t want it to be exclusive. I want it to be inclusive.
Bekon's album 'Get With The Times' is out now via his own label, Candy & Promises.
