DOT.KAI: On Creativity
Marianna
Do you have a routine for entering into a creative headspace?
DOT.KAI
Nothing too specific. I keep a mood board and playlist ready that I’ll usually jump into for a bit before I get started on anything (music or art.) It also takes me a bit to get into gear, but being in creative spaces with friends rather than alone definitely speeds that up and just helps overall with my creative efficiency.
Marianna
Do you have habits you've built for yourself to foster creativity?
DOT.KAI
Definitely. I try to read and stay up to date on non-artistic subjects like physics, philosophy, and politics/current events to keep my awareness of the physical and metaphysical worlds up to date.
It helps to keep me from feeling like I HAVE to create and instead makes it feel more inspired by other thoughts and events I witness. I also try to consume pop culture on a semi-regular basis via comics, Netflix, books, Instagram, etc. (though not too much.) Keeping a mood board and inspiration playlist going are probably the two most immediately helpful things I do though.
Marianna
Where do you think ideas come from?
DOT.KAI
It depends on what I’m creating. For a lot of my music, it comes from channeling the more anxious side of my emotions, but of course, there are other feelings involved and I am inspired by other artists as well. For digital art, it’s mainly a combination of visualizing whatever music I’ve made or listened to, and re contextualizing whatever art I’m consuming at the moment (good artists copy, great artists steal!)
Marianna
What does creativity mean to you?
DOT.KAI
To me, creativity is abstracted problem-solving. My background is in software engineering, which is almost always rooted in resolving a specific want or need, but it still takes an incredible amount of creativity to be good at it.
When it comes to music and visual art, I believe we’re still solving problems even if not directly. The solution has just been abstracted outward to a more emotional level.
Marianna
When do your best ideas hit you?
DOT.KAI
Definitely when I’m in transit. I’ll be riding my bike or walking somewhere and an idea for a hook or melody will just pop into my head and I’ll write it down in my phone. For visual art, it’s a bit more of a drafting process.
Marianna
How would you describe your creative process?
DOT.KAI
I feel my creative process is based in pragmatism. I definitely don’t consider myself anywhere near the “genius” archetype of artists by any means.
The majority of my skillset was built of time through trial and error, and because of that, I feel like whenever I create something (whether it be music, programming, or visual art) I tend to take a step by step approach involving multiple drafting and fine-tuning stages.
Marianna
So many creatives are pivoting and finding ways to adjust their creative process during the quarantine.
1) How have you been channeling your creativity during this time?
2) Discover anything new or surprising about yourself?
DOT.KAI
During quarantine, I spent a lot of time building up my peripheral skill sets and expanding the range of the skills I already had. I took a deeper dive into art composition, animation, and modern creative and fashion trends while trying to absorb as much information about those topics as I could. Surprisingly enough I didn’t make very many songs at all during that time (Quarantine is still in place in much of the world but it’s on a bit of a reprieve here in Tokyo.) Instead, I found myself picking up and refining a lot of skills surrounding digital marketing, media relations, and “packaging” for art releases.
I realized given the chance I have a propensity to become addicted to Netflix and baked sweets [laughter].
Marianna
Art and creativity reflect the current culture. How an artist wields the power to tell stories can be an effective act of rebellion.
How have you been creating in the current cultural climate?
DOT.KAI
I actually found the current political climate made it a bit hard to create. It felt like I was doing something selfish. Eventually, the team and I halted most of our creative productions and focused on creating something we felt gave back to the suffering of the black community.
We ended up creating a live stream series called blackroots.jp geared at educating creative communities in Japan about the black foundations of modern pop culture. As far as COVID affects me, it just made it a bit harder to stay creative, but instead, I focused on more technical skills (like I said above.)
Marianna
What unexpected turns did your life take to lead you to become who you are today?
DOT.KAI
Whew, that's a lot. I’m actually not sure if I’m comfortable sharing them all on a public platform yet [laughter]. I feel like I’ve been through some interesting journeys. At 17 I started my first music collective that went on to release 6 or 7 projects over 4 years. I’ve gone from the D student at school to being the only non Ivy Leaguer in an internship fellowship program.
I also studied abroad in Japan at 20 and subsequently dropped out to become a DJ and model, and found my way back to Japan through a corporate sponsorship only to move back into the world of music and art soon after.
Looking back, those are definitely some of my most formative events from early adulthood, but there are a lot more details to the story I can’t fit here. Some of the experiences were really tough on me emotionally but they definitely helped me grow a tremendous amount.
Marianna
What sources of inspiration do you use to foster creativity in your work?
DOT.KAI
I feel a bit like a broken record, but I keep a mood board on my phone that I am CONSTANTLY updating, along with the musical equivalent in a playlist. I draw a lot of inspiration from the people around me also. I’ve always been group-oriented, and I like to evolve with my team as well.
Outside of that, I don’t really latch on to specific people for inspiration, but I definitely try to keep up to date with different styles and how they’re evolving so I can incorporate a bit of that into my work.
Marianna
What creative projects are you most proud of?
DOT.KAI
The penultimate album of my first group (ShobMob) titled “Mob” will always be one of my favorites creations. It by far wasn’t the peak of any of our abilities, but the memories work and effort we put into completing that and how it strengthened our bonds will probably stay with me forever.
The second to that would probably be the recent group project I put out with dosing called “MACROdosing”. This one I felt more so showed the best range artistically of what we could all do in the sonic and visual range.
Marianna
How do you make sense of chaos in your life?
DOT.KAI
I find the best thing to do when facing a chaotic period in life is to step back, evaluate the situation, and start handling things one bit at a time. A good example for me was the end of my first year in Japan. I was really having it out with my employer at the time and ended up leaving the company for my mental health before I had secured another job.
My roommate and I had also been made to move out of our sublet house very abruptly, which left me living in a sh*tty room in a share house on the other side of the city. I was dealing with some serious depression and alcoholism as well, and all these factors were in a sort of self-feeding downward spiral with each other. I ended up meeting my current partner at the time, and she wasn’t doing too well either.
Wanting to make things a bit easier for her—and knowing I could only do that if things were okay for me too—gave me a bit of the focus I needed to start putting my life together piece by piece.
Marianna
Why do you think people get stuck on problems?
DOT.KAI
Whenever we face things that are contextually very different but emotionally very similar to some sort of trauma we’ve had in the past, I feel like we get stuck trying to repeat old mistakes or can’t step out of our own heads enough to see the bigger picture. That’s when we get stuck on problems.
Marianna
What advice would you offer those struggling with creative blocks?
DOT.KAI
Do something different! Or go somewhere different! I get the biggest creative boosts during or after traveling. Not even to someplace far off, it could be 2 hours out to the beach, or just a part of your neighborhood you usually don’t go to.
Taking in new stimuli and information can really help jumpstart your brain.
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About DOT.KAI:
Hailing from North Carolina, DOT.KAI currently resides in Tokyo, Japan. Under the Japan-based net label dosing, DOT.KAI has released three projects in the last year– 20XX HATE (his first dosing solo EP), the self-titled band EP “Dreaming of Screaming,” and the dosing collaborative project “MACROdosing.”
The latter two, which include collaborations with well-known acts from Tokyo and Seoul such as Tohji, TYOSiN, SKOLOR, and 19XX, were well received in both Japan and South Korea’s trap scenes. His joint EP with rapper/producer Teddy Robinson titled “Wet Feet” released in May and saw Kai step away from his grittier and darker sonic palette to explore a dreamier pop-friendly sound, showcasing his ability to fluidly transition through a dynamic range of artistic styles.