Kota the Friend

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Kota the Friend

Kota the Friend (born October 16, 1992) is a rapper from Brooklyn. His first album, Anything, was released in 2018. In May 2020, he released his third album, EVERYTHING.

Early Life & Education

Kota started playing trumpet in the fourth grade.

He studied at Brooklyn High School of the Arts.

He also went to Five Towns College for trumpet. When he got to high school, he played keyboard, guitar, bass. Later, he started venturing into producing, making beats and that is how he traveled into the world of hip-hop.^[2] When he got to college, he started a little rap group, Nappy Hair.^[3]

Career

In February 2018, Kota the Friend released his first album, called Anything.

In an interview with RespectMag.com, he said:

I called it ‘ANYTHING.’ for two reasons.
One, I wanted it to have different sounds, styles and vibes.
I wanted to make a project that didn’t have any rules and every track to catch people off guard in a pleasant way.
Second, I was just so frustrated with the music industry, in which; I just wanted to make something carefree.. I didn’t want to spend forever trying to conjure up a title that the blogs would be into.
I wanted it to be more about the sounds and the voices on the project.^[12]

In May 2020, Kota the Friend released his new album, called EVERYTHING.

This project starts with "Summerhouse," a sound that people are used to hearing from Kota, a track with a chill wave beat with a very easy-going flow and chorus.

The album then continues with other similar-sounding, feel-good tracks paired with two interludes from actress Lupita Nyong'o and Keith Stanfield about what everything means to them. These interludes give a great insight into the motives behind this project and what "everything" truly means.^[11]^[12]

After a run of cheerful yet simple tracks from Kota and his great selection of features, the album ends with the great title track, "Everything," which features none other than Kota’s son on the outro.

The album sees contributions from fellow New York artists Joey Badass and Bas as well as other artists like KYLE and Tobi Lou, among others.^[11]^[12]

The rapper explained to Uproxx what the title "Everything" means to him and what it will mean to the average listener:

"When I was in college, I was in a little hip hop trio and I named the first album Anything.
I named the second album that we did Everything.
So, it’s not only bringing it back because I feel those are just great ideas for names for albums, but Everything is really, ‘Yo what means everything to you?
What does having everything mean to you?
What does it mean to have everything?’ So, right back to me just making a really positive album, I wanted to make a project that was about manifestation and manifesting the things that you want as an individual and only speaking good things."^[12]

"So this album, I’m pretty much talking about all the things that I want, what means everything to me, what’s important to me, and what I put before everything else.
We have other people on the album — fans, actors, and artists — just talking about what means everything to them on the interludes."^[12]