Kito talks LA, Fletcher collab and producing with a personal stamp

With every career move made, producer-songwriter Kito outdoes herself with bolder beats, getting her closer to finding how she wants to stamp herself on her projects. Coming off a 2019 stacked with credits on the projects of BANKS and Jorja Smith, Kito did not neglect the ecosystem of her own projects, releasing ‘Wild Girl’ alongside Empress Of. We chat to Kito about bringing in the new year, and balancing song writing and producing. 

Have you had your first studio session of 2020 yet?
I’m having it today! I’m going to go work with Tkay Maidza after lunch. 

Have you worked together before?
We have! We actually did an APRA camp in New York last year and started a song that we’re going to try finish today. 

I love that you’re open to meeting people through all these things. Sometimes with camps, people go in there with a specific agenda and keep to themselves to get there. It’s cool to see you open to all that collaboration to make a piece of work. 
I feel like that’s the way to approach writing camps. You have to have not many expectations, go in and have fun, and you always end up coming out with something you don’t expect, and meeting people you don’t expect.

Is that how ‘Wild Girl’ came about?
Empress Of and I met through a friend. Then, as you do, you follow each other on Instagram and see what you’re up to. She reached out about working together. It was a very natural way of meeting each other through friends in LA. 

Did you do that one all in person?
Yes. We wrote the song during one studio session, then I spent time finishing it after that… It was a lucky one and it came together really easily. I love it when that happens.

Does it happen often?
Yeah! I’m a bit frustrated if I leave a session and we haven’t completed a song in a day. Obviously, you need to work on production a lot more after the session, but I like to write the song in a day. Then you can come back to it, and if you need to rewrite anything, you’ve got some perspective and you can fine tune and improve it. 

As someone who is heavily involved in production and in song writing, do you feel like you’re ever in a position where you struggle to put things into words? 
Probably! Yeah, definitely. The creative process is a bit of a mystery. Some days you can have a bit of an off day and be struggling to get something across, and other days, songs just fall together. Producing and song writing is such a collaborative thing, so you definitely have to be comfortable communicating ideas with the people you work with. It’s probably one of the most important things I’d say. 

When you’re writing or producing with others for their songs, do you feel a responsibility to make them feel comfortable?
I think it is so important for the song writer, producer, the artist… everyone in the room, engineer to feel [that] it’s a safe, comfortable space to be creative. I think that’s been a nice experience. I work with so many young female artists that are mostly working with men in the producer role. Most producers are really good at making people feel comfortable [and safe], but it is nice having a bunch of girls in a room. You’re not going to feel much more comfortable than writing in a room with a bunch of girls as a teenage girl when you’re wanting to talk about a boy you have a crush on or something, or heartbreak. For me, it’s fun because it makes me feel like a teenage girl hanging out. 

Is it the same thing vice versa? You have to be equally as comfortable?
I think so. I do feel like if you’re inviting people into your space, because often you’ll be working from the producer’s studio, I feel some responsibility there. Sometimes people will come down to the studio with management, which can be a problem when you’re trying to write a song… Sometimes [I ask] for some time in the session with nobody else in the room because everyone needs to feel comfortable, otherwise you’re only going to get an average song, or not even a song.

Do you think the way you and Empress Of began the collaboration with each other on Instagram helps with establishing familiarity and safety in the studio?
Definitely. I think so many artists end up working together through Instagram now, and directly contacting each other. It’s a very informal job role, being an artist, and being a creative. 

Several of your songs have a distinct loudness, and calamity to them. Do you think that’s a common thread in your songs?
When I’m doing anything for my own project, I definitely want to make sure there’s a stamp and there’s personality coming through the production. Otherwise I don’t feel like there’s any point in it being for my project… Some artists like BANKS, she’s more up for having aggressive sounds in her music.

I worked with Hudson Mohawke on [Gimme] and stylistically that’s his stamp. He always has his stamp firmly on anything he touches. All the Kanye West stuff, it all has a very industrial sound to it. We both come from kind of the same place in music, so working together I think BANKS wanted us to push it. On Jorja Smith’s [The One] it’s much more classic. We worked with a composer for the strings and that was a more classic way of song writing where you get musicians in. That was very much her record and we were helping her create it exactly to the palate of her album. 

Was the dog bark in ‘Gimme’ your idea?
That was all BANKS! That was very cool… 

Where did you and Hudson Mohawke first cross paths? 
I was always a fan of what he was doing, and I used to send him music. We played at a lot of the same things when we were living in the UK. We knew each other socially just playing shows, but not very well. We became good friends when I moved to LA and reconnected then. The first time we worked together was when I came to LA.

Coming from an underground electronic music scene, loving rap and having that background, the first studio sessions we did were actually really, really pop, just to try do that together… He’s been amazing since I moved to LA. He invited me into the BANKS project, because we work really well together, he wanted me involved in some things he was doing, which was very nice. I’m really appreciative because he’s super talented and often working with amazing artists. We have known each other for quite a few years now. 

Although you don’t produce specifically for grime, I feel like your beats have the heaviness to them that could make them suited for grime. 

Do you think that grime has more of an ecosystem in the UK than it does in Australia? 
Definitely. I think I spent so long in the UK and I soaked up a lot of influence from the UK music scene. It shaped me as a producer, and my palate. It’s nice to have that coming through in my music. 

It’s really special because it definitely widens the listening experience and helps guide people through so many different catalogues of new music and makes the experience educational. 
That’s such a compliment. Thank you. I love that. 

I think your stamp is that you are able to make the vocalist stand out without minimising the effect of your production. 

Is that a hard rule, or a goal you have for every song?
I like each song that I do for my project to feel like a real collaboration, where you can hear the artist coming through on the song, but also bringing them into my world, and pulling them out of their artist-project comfort zone and doing something a little bit different. I don’t want to just pull one vocal from someone and then make it a dance track. I spent so long in dance music that I like taking influence from that, but I am a producer and I want to keep working on other people’s music and keep refining that craft of making the best record possible without overshadowing the other artist. 

Does taking the role of song writer and producer on a track help you with that balance?
Definitely. I like doing both, and I’m still DJing a bit which forces me to dig out more music, which complements [what I’m doing]. I think [all my roles] complement each other. It’s all helping… There’s so much crossover… It’s pretty fluid, all these different roles. 

When you write, do you sing at all to put ideas together?
Not really. Sometimes, but I’m mostly always working with songwriters and singers… I don’t like to do the song writing on my own. If I have a little idea, sometimes I’ll just sing a bit of it to the other person. 

On another note, the song writing on ‘Creature Kind’ is so strong. Did you write on that? 
We did it all together. Georgia [Broods] will pretty much write the lyrics herself. She’s amazing and I love her voice so much… They’re my family in LA. 

Do you have any moments from making ‘Wild Girl’ that stood out and made the track feel complete?
I don’t know about [that song]! I definitely worked really hard on the production and finishing it. From the demo from the session, it just morphed into [itself]. The bones were there, and it wasn’t a [sudden] transformation. I don’t really remember much, besides how we met and started working together! 

In 2020 will there be an even mixture of your own releases, and work for other artists?
I think so! I have a bunch of releases for my own project. I want to put out a song every couple of months. I have a couple of songs coming out for other people. I just had a song on the TV show The L Word with Fletcher. It’s not released yet, and I’m not sure if it’s coming out. All the people I’ve been working with will have stuff coming out, and just continuing to write with different people. It’s pretty evenly spread across stuff for other people, and my own project… 

I hope the Fletcher collab is released!
Me too, I really like it. It’s cool seeing the reaction for it, but I haven’t seen the episode yet… We did that song [in person] late last year.