Meet Keymo | Rap Artist & Business Owner

We had the good fortune of connecting with Keymo and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Keymo, how do you think about risk?
Me and my brother are certified risk-takers. I think risk taking is both crucial and essential to success. Where my family and i come from, you don’t find many successful people who aren’t dice-rollers. My brother and I made it to LA during covid, low on cash, with the help of two friends and in a car soo janky that it broke down in Colorado on the way. We still made it though. Once here we quickly realized LA had a much higher cost-of-living then back home in Chicago, but we also quickly found out that there was a lot more money to be made. I also come from a logistics background, and i used to book freight/loads for 18-wheeler trucks, and prior to owning our store on Melrose, we started our own trucking company, and if you want to make money in that industry, you need to know how to take calculated risks.
In order to get sharper, and in order to become a boss you have to take losses. So taking risks and failing brings important lessons on business and life. Our father wasn’t around for the majority of our lives but he taught us some key things, and taking risks is something that he whole-heartedly promoted. I believe we both inherited that trait from him.
There’s no regrets on any of the risks we’ve taken, and they’ve all helped us get to where were at here today, including the miscalculated one’s. Risk taking has played a great role in our lives and has helped shape and mold our characters, and it has reinforced the belief of seizing an opportunity once it presents itself. Forever grateful that we were taught to gamble with business

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
My name is Keymo, I’m an Iraqi Artist, born and raised in Chicago. We grew up financially unstable and our father wasn’t able to always be around, so we did have our fair share of trouble & run-ins with the law. We started off as soccer players and did very well, both my brother and I spent a summer in brazil when we were 14, training at a professional soccer club’s youth academy. Trouble transitioned me from soccer to boxing and muisc. After a run-in my brother had outside of school unrelated to me, I went from being a captain on the team to not having a place with them anymore.
That steered me to boxing, and took me deeper into my music. I was always making music but it wasn’t my main focus, but now its my whole life. I came to LA in pursuit of my music, and the cost of music has forced us to change gears temporarily from the pursuit of music, to the pursuit of business and money. We understand business, and we understand that this is a music-business, meaning great music is not enough. We have a collective of independent artists who all self-fund their career’s and also put up good streaming numbers on the board. We know that we need to make some serious money in order to compete in the music game. In the meantime the location of our smoke shop has us in a prime zone for networking. We’ve met soo many behind the scene people who have helped mold and shape us as independent artists. Engineers, A&R’s, Managers, Video Directors, Filmmakers, Choreographers, Stylists, and some important Executives.
Your network is your net worth, so continuing to do good business with the industry crowd that were bumping shoulders with has continued to bring us both blessings in & outside of the shop

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
When my friends come into town I take them to hollywood, grab some drinks around vine, I make sure to take them to Venice, let them see the Santa Monica Pier, and ill usually take them to East Los to get some taco’s on Ceasar Chavez and Indiana, to let them try some real Birria

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
When I was 18 i was introduced to Getemlouie (A Super-Producer & Recording Engineer) in Chicago at a studio session downtown. Aside from Executively Producing my music projects, over the years Louie has became my mentor. He has many times steered us in the right direction, & has given life saving advice about staying out of trouble, and maneuvering through the city. He is much farther ahead in the music industry, so he’s always providing the whole team with plenty of game on how to win, like a coach. We have a collective of artists who work in the studio we built out in the back of our smoke shop on Melrose & La Brea. Louie works with all of us closely and makes sure each and every single one of us is on track. When its our time for Glory and we’re holding the torch, we’ll be continuing the thank Louie for all he’s done for us, both individually and as a collective.

Website: https://www.171records.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/171keymo

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/faysalalharbi

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBsjp4fG1Dc

Other: Spotify and Apple music Artist Name: nmgKeymo

Image Credits
instagram: @Hotnick