Keny Grey, from the cold midwest city of Minneapolis, is a vocalist and singer-songwriter, trying to discover and understand the 'meaning of life.' Keny spent his early years being raised by a teen mom struggling to make ends meet. Moving from home to home was commonplace and switching schools was equally as frequent. He was the unknown new kid in class year after year. Much of his introspective personality and philosophy in life is owed to this humble and unstable beginning.
Keny has always been inspired by his family to achieve more. A family poor in dollars, but rich in resilience, encouraged him everyday to always persevere. Keny is deeply driven by and impassioned by both the family he loves and the family he has lost. Keny began to focus heavily on strengthening his second language, American Sign Language, when his Grandpa passed away. Hearing loss is a trait that runs through his family: His Grandma is deaf, his brother is hard of hearing, and his grandpa was deaf too before passing. Keny often interlaces ASL in his music to create access for his friends and family in the Deaf community.
Growing up he always battled with wanting to go his own way. Society does a good job of convincing people there is a “right path” in life. And as expected, he graduated high-school, went through college, and landed himself a cubicle job. Keny lived a life of relatability, but without it he would lack just that: his relatability. That was until he decided to shake it up. At the end of 2020, Keny quit his corporate job to chase his dreams. With just enough saved to survive for one year, his goal was to make it in the music industry before running out of money. Through his lyrics and outlook on the world, he hopes to take his listeners with him on this journey. He feels that if he can learn to believe in himself and succeed, his supporters can believe in themselves too.
This starry-eyed young man took a leap of faith, a risk. And in 2021, it’s proving to be worth it. On New Year’s Day, he released, “Wow”, his first single since leaving his job to pursue a music career. In the first week, he has already received over 100,000 streams on Spotify and more on Apple Music. The buzz surrounding the song garnered him nearly 50,000 followers on TikTok, 10,000 followers on Instagram, and a phone blowing up with over 20,000 text messages and phone calls. If he didn’t have a reason to believe himself before, he does now. Keny plans to continue building on the excitement he has generated from the masses with hopes of touring the United States. As this is only the beginning, Keny Grey is an artist to watch in 2022.
