Kenna (musician)

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This article is about the musician. For other uses, see Kenna.

Kenna Zemedkun is an Ethiopian-born American musician.

The eldest son of an immigrant family relocated to Virginia Beach (and later raised in Cincinnati, Ohio), Kenna began to express an interest in music upon receiving a copy of U2's The Joshua Tree. More records by influential artists such as The Beatles, Stevie Wonder, The Cure and The Cars followed, and remain as inspiration and influence of Kenna's music today. With the release of his first single, "Hell Bent", Kenna gained moderate popularity and an underground following of fans who eagerly awaited the release of his debut album, New Sacred Cow. After many delays and swapping of record labels, the album was finally released under Columbia Records in 2003. A subsequent North American tour was launched in the Summer of 2003 with Depeche Mode frontman Dave Gahan.

The album, which was co-produced by Chad Hugo of The Neptunes, is difficult to place in a single genre, containing elements of electronica, synth pop, post rock, and house music. Two singles, "Sunday After You" and "Freetime" followed the release of the album; the music video of the latter, along with "Hell Bent", appeared sporadically on MTV2.

A second album, titled Face (formerly titled Make Sure They See My Face) which will also be co-produced by Hugo, is currently in production; release date has been set for June 5, 2007. An unrelated song from this album, "Face The Gun", was released just to appease his fans. The song will not be on Face, but is currently on his MySpace. Kenna released a new track in time for the Super Bowl called "Better Wise Up" on his Myspace

He has also contributed to many other tracks by bands associated with Chad Hugo or The Neptunes, including but not limited to "Spiral" from William Orbit's album Hello Waveforms and "Red to Black" and "The Hard Way" off of The Rising Tied, the first album from Mike Shinoda's Fort Minor (although the second cut is only available as a bonus track, on the limited edition version of the album).

On October 06, 2006, the world premier of "Out of Control (State of Emotion)", from Kenna's upcoming EP, was played on East Village Radio [1] on Authentic Shit with Mark Ronson.

"Out of Control (State of Emotion)" became available on iTunes on December 19th, 2006

[edit] Trivia

Kenna is profiled in Malcolm Gladwell's book Blink.
A music video, which featured Kenna's song "Hell Bent" to the film More, was aired on MTV in 2001.
Kenna was featured in the video for Kelis's single Young, Fresh and New, co-wrote the single "Clutch" with Shea Seger, and contributed to the song This is My World performed by Darius Rucker.
Kenna and Chad Hugo attended the same high school.^[1]
"Out of Control", a song featured in a Sony PSP commercial, was produced and written by Kenna and Chad Hugo.