Kero One
Kero One is a Korean-American hip hop MC and producer from San Francisco, California. The origin of the name came from his graffiti tag when he was 15 and was short for Kerosene. In one of his lines from the album, "Windmills of the Soul," he says “When Kero’s on the Sene (scene) I fuel flames to burn emcees with more degrees than a PHD”.
Kero One's style, "has been compared to Common, Q-tip, and Kanye West, but Kero One's music is very positive and upbeat..."
History
When Kero One was 6, he started listening to old school hiphop on the radio. The first hiphop song he heard was by Boogie Down Productions. Since then, he collected records with genres spanning from hiphop, 70’s soul, funk, jazz, latin, soulful house, electronica and rock.
Later on, Kero One originally worked as a web designer, making 50 copies of his first single with home equipment and personal credit cards. He released his first 12” record “Check the Blueprints” in 2003 on his own imprint, Plug Label. Of the 50 copies that were eventually distributed around the world, one landed in a tiny record store in Tokyo, Japan. A few weeks later, it was found by a Japanese DJ who played it at a club that night and received dozens of inquiries, including a Japanese label executive who immediately contacted Kero One and asked for 3,000 copies of the record. The record, “Check the Blueprints” became an underground hiphop classic in Japan selling almost 15,000 copies, and Kero One was invited to tour the country just a few months after. He performed in cities throughout Japan.