Kenna facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Kenna
Kenna at a U.S. Department of State reception honoring his Summit on the Summit initiative.
Background information
Birth name	Kenna Zemedkun
Born	(1978-10-30) October 30, 1978 (age 46) Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Genres	Alternative rock electronic
Occupation(s)	Singer-songwriter musician producer
Instruments	Vocals keyboards
Years active	2001–present
Labels	Columbia Interscope Star Trak Godel Dim Mak

Kenna Zemedkun, known as Kenna, is a talented musician, a kind-hearted helper (philanthropist), and a clever tech person from Ethiopia and America. He was nominated for a Grammy Award in 2009 for his song "Say Goodbye to Love." Kenna also started an important project called Summit on the Summit to help bring clean water to people. He even worked with Justin Timberlake to make the social media site Myspace better!

Kenna's Early Life and Musical Journey

Kenna was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. He lived with his grandfather for his first three years. His parents had to leave Ethiopia and moved to England, then America. Kenna joined them in Cincinnati, Ohio when he was three years old.

He grew up in Virginia Beach, Virginia. There, he went to school with friends who would later become famous musicians, Chad Hugo and Pharrell Williams. Kenna became interested in music after hearing U2's album The Joshua Tree. This album inspired him to learn piano. He also studied singers like Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye, and bands like The Cure and Duran Duran.

Kenna was even mentioned in a book called Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell. This book talks about how people make quick judgments and decisions.

Kenna's Music Career

First Album: New Sacred Cow

Kenna released his first song, "Hell Bent," in 2001. It became quite popular with a group of dedicated fans. They were excited for his first album, New Sacred Cow. After some delays and changes in record labels, the album finally came out in 2003 with Columbia Records. Kenna then went on a tour in North America in the summer of 2003 with Depeche Mode singer Dave Gahan.

The album was co-produced by Chad Hugo from The Neptunes. It mixed different music styles like electronic music, synth-pop, and house music. Two more songs, "Sunday After You" and "Freetime," were released from the album. The music video for "Freetime" even played on MTV2. "Freetime" reached number 19 on the U.S. Dance charts.

In Malcolm Gladwell's book Blink, a part of a chapter explains the challenges Kenna faced in getting his music widely known. This was despite many music experts and other musicians loving his sound.

Second Album: Make Sure They See My Face

Kenna's second album, Make Sure They See My Face, was also co-produced by Chad Hugo. It took three years to write and was finished in early 2007. The album's release was delayed a few times, finally coming out on October 16, 2007. Kenna explained that the delays were due to issues with the music video for the first song.

The idea for the album came from Kenna's attempt to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. He got sick at 18,200 feet because of an allergy to his altitude medicine. The album's title was inspired by his friend Pharrell, who kept asking Kenna, "Are you going to make sure they see your face?" On October 23, 2007, the album became number 1 on the Billboard Top 20 Heatseekers Chart.

A song called "Face the Gun" was released to keep fans happy during the delays. Even though it wasn't planned for the album at first, it ended up being included. Kenna also released "Better Wise Up" just before the Super Bowl.

Land 2 Air Chronicles and Songs for Flight

In 2011, Kenna announced plans to release a series of three shorter music collections (EPs) called Land 2 Air Chronicles. These EPs would lead up to his third main album, Songs for Flight. Kenna described this as a "first ever musical journey."

The first EP, Chaos and the Darkness, was planned for March 8. The first song, "Chains," was available online in February. However, a technical problem caused Kenna to lose many of the song files. He had to re-record and re-produce everything. Chaos and the Darkness was eventually released on April 26, 2011.

Four songs came out with these EPs: "Relations (An Ode To You And Me)", "Long Gone", "Love Is Still Alive" and "How Will It End?". Most of them had music videos. The video for "Long Gone" was directed by Kenna himself and was shown on MTV in 2012. A new version of "Relations" featuring Childish Gambino was released in 2013.

Kenna announced the third and final EP would be called Genius. A sample of a song from it, "Something to Break," was shared online. In 2015, he released a song called "Sleep When We Die." It first played on Zane Lowe's Beats 1 Radio show on Apple Music.

Other Music Projects

Kenna has worked on many other exciting projects. On July 7, 2007, he performed at the Live Earth concert in New Jersey, which aimed to raise awareness about climate change. He also toured with singer Nelly Furtado.

He has collaborated with other artists like Lupe Fiasco on a remix of "Say Goodbye to Love," and The Cool Kids on "Loose Wires." His song "Out of Control" was featured in the video games MLB 08 The Show and FIFA 08.

Kenna and Chad Hugo also produced the song "Pretty Please" for JoJo's 2010 mixtape. An unreleased song by Kenna, "Never Let Me Down," was included on a charity album called Download to Donate for Haiti in 2010. The money from this album went to Music for Relief, a charity started by the band Linkin Park. This album also had "Resurrection," a song Kenna made with Lupe Fiasco.

Kenna also appeared with Pharrell Williams in the music video for their song "Life Change" with Clipse. In 2010, Kenna and Chad Hugo worked with Kid Cudi on a song for a Street Fighter game, though it was never officially released.

In 2013, Kenna released his own version of the U2 song "Gloria." He did this to try and connect with Bono, U2's singer, who was a big influence on him. Bono called him shortly after!

Other Important Work

Summit on the Summit

Kenna learned about the worldwide problem of not having enough clean water, which even affected his home village in Ethiopia. He decided to start the SUMMIT ON THE SUMMIT project. On January 7, 2010, he and his friends, including Lupe Fiasco, Jessica Biel, and Emile Hirsch, climbed Mount Kilimanjaro. Their goal was to bring attention to the global water crisis. A documentary about their climb was shown on MTV in March 2010.

A new song called "Turn" was released for free for a short time. It was later sold on iTunes, and the money from sales went to the SUMMIT ON THE SUMMIT project.

Working with Myspace

After his friend and fellow musician Justin Timberlake encouraged him, Kenna took a job as the Chief Vision Officer at the new Myspace. Justin Timberlake also invested in the company. In April 2013, Kenna was featured in Details Magazine as one of their "Digital Mavericks" (clever business people in the tech world).

Translator Company

Kenna has a company called Translator. This company helps manage all of Kenna's different projects, including his music, his technology ideas, and his charity work. In March 2012, Translator worked with Myspace to put on a successful outdoor concert at the South by Southwest Festival in Austin, Texas. Over 12,000 people attended, and 1.3 million people watched it online! Kenna continues to help organize and advise on many projects while also working on his own music.

Kenna's Music Albums

Studio Albums

• New Sacred Cow (2003)
• Make Sure They See My Face (2007)

EPs (Shorter Albums)

• The Black Goodbye EP (2007)
• Land 2 Air Chronicles I: Chaos and the Darkness (2011)

Songs with Other Artists