As he began work on his sophomore album, the artist known as keshi found himself at a remarkable crossroads: the end of 2 years straight of sold-out touring, the achievement of hitting nearly 11 billion global streams, and the prospect of turning 30 on the oh-so-near horizon. Born Casey Luong and raised in Sugarland, Texas, keshi has built a massive career almost entirely on the strength of his innate ability to render emotional vulnerability through song. Since 2017, he's released a trilogy of EPs and a breakthrough debut album GABRIEL -- which crossed 3.1 billion streams alone -- weaving the rhythms and melodies of pop, R&B, lo-fi, and hip hop into barefaced confessions about love, loneliness, and loss. And finally, after a whirlwind of singing those very personal songs to screaming audiences all over the world, he landed back in Texas, in need of something different: time and space, the freedom to work on music unbothered by the hectic chaos of live shows and promotion, and a home studio in which he could create a sophomore album that encompassed all he had learned and lived.
Requiem is the culmination of a career on the brink -- of blockbuster success, arena-sized shows, and a powerful personal evolution, the moment when a rookie artist steps into his place as a fully formed adult one. He was once a kid from Texas wavering about quitting his job as a nurse to pursue his dreams as a musician, causing anxiety in his more traditional Vietnamese family who hoped he'd stay in medicine; now, he is a major label artist who has sold out Radio City (twice!), with a ravenous fan base who has stuck with him since his Soundcloud days. GABRIEL led to two, back-to-back headlining North American tours, one world tour, and one tour in China. It reached #4 on Billboard, which became the highest charting debut album from a new artist in 2022. And the singles, including "LIMBO," "UNDERSTAND," and "GET IT," became viral sensations. All of a sudden there were stakes to the game -- his life was serious business, his art listened to by millions of people. "I'm just hitting a turn in my life when it's not always just fun and games -- and I wanted to have a weight on the record in that sort of way," he says. "At a certain point in an artist's lifespan, there's room for evolution and growth. It doesn't mean that you leave everything behind. But it means that you take risks."
And risks he took on Requiem. "It's about going back to what makes you love music in the first place," he says. "To hit it in a really pure way." The 13-song album is a spirited ride through genre, from classic Y2K-style pop ("Night") to homesick country ("Texas") to meditations on mortality and meaning ("Just to Die"). "I strove to create a varied and cohesive record that's timeless," he says. "I wanted Requiem to feel grand, bold and dynamic, for it to be someone else's classic record that they'd come back to again and again.
To create something so personal, he assembled his friends and frequent collaborators at a private studio in his home in Texas, far away from the loud revving industry engines in New York and Los Angeles. He played bass, guitar, piano, and even viola for various recordings. Instead of the pressure of concentrated writing sessions, he let melodies and ideas come to him while ambling about his life, playing video games, reading, whatever. "I lounge around and wait until something manifests inside of me. Until I have something I want to say," he says. "That's kind of how I get my best work." This space allowed him to contemplate the big things in his life, like the dissolution of a romantic relationship that left him bereft and led to the song "War," with biting, but terribly relatable lyrics -- Since you wanna go to war / Let's see who hurts the other more -- sung with verve in his signature falsetto.
He wasn't afraid of existential inquiry, either. This crossroads he found himself at brought up big questions about who he is, where he's going, and why he's here. He thought a lot about a good friend and collaborator who passed away, wishing, on the eponymous "Requiem," that that person could still be here on this wild ride with him. He explored the nature of fame and what it means to have purpose on songs like "Amen." He opined about regret and romance on "Dream." And he eulogized his own childhood on the sweetly nostalgic "Texas," singing to his 17-year-old self about the various roads not taken and that special moment in time when he still, as he sings, had a lifetime waiting right in front of me.
Lest it all seems serious, it's important to say that he's having fun, too! On the expertly realized "Night," you can practically see the boy band choreography in your head. No matter the vibe and virtue of a particular song on Requiem, all of them sound bigger and bolder than anything he's done before. The poppy and peppy first single "Say" feels tailor-made to become an anthem, sung along to by crowds of thousands at massive live shows. That's what's needed at a crossroads like this, after all: just since 2019, keshi has gone from selling out small 250-capacity clubs to headlining his own upcoming global arena tour in 2024-2025, including stops at Madison Square Garden in NYC and the Forum in LA. This is to say, at a junction this dramatic, keshi might not be exactly sure what the future holds, or where his life and career will go next on this rollercoaster of an existence he's had. But the point is, it almost doesn't matter: with Requiem, he's shown that whatever comes his way, there will be beautiful music made to accompany it.
