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Kenna Zemedkun, known professionally as Kenna, is an Ethiopian-born American musician, philanthropist and technology creative. His track "Say Goodbye to Love" was nominated for Best Urban/Alternative Performance in the 2009 . Kenna is the founder and producer of the Summit on the Summit clean water initiative, and also partnered with Justin Timberlake to re-imagine the social network Myspace before Time Inc. purchased it.
He was later raised in Virginia Beach, Virginia, attending school with friends and eventual career-long collaborators Chad Hugo and Pharrell Williams. Kenna began to express an interest in music upon receiving a copy of U2's The Joshua Tree. (2025). 9780141022048, Penguin Books. ISBN 9780141022048 The album inspired Kenna to teach himself piano while studying singers like Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye, as well as groups like The Cure and Duran Duran. (2025). 9780141022048, Penguin Books. ISBN 9780141022048 Breaking into the music scene at such a young age and at an interesting time in pop history, Kenna met some of music's biggest names including Whitney Houston, Babyface, Blackstreet, Teddy Riley and Michael Jackson.
He was featured in Canadian journalist Malcolm Gladwell's book, .
The album, which was co-produced by Chad Hugo of The Neptunes, contained elements of electronica, synthpop, 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. "Freetime" reached #19 on the U.S. Dance charts., Allmusic
In Malcolm Gladwell's book , which is about the way people judge and make decisions in their lives, a portion of one chapter focuses on the stops, starts, and difficulties that Kenna experienced in getting his music accepted by the general public, despite the tremendous reception and enthusiasm that music executives, other musicians and a small, loyal fan base had when they heard his music.
An unrelated song from his second album, "Face the Gun", was released to appease his waiting fans, and initially was not to appear on Make Sure They See My Face, missing from early promos of the album. Ultimately, it was included in the final track listing. Kenna released a track from the album, entitled "Better Wise Up", in time for the Super Bowl.
The first EP, titled , was scheduled to be released on March 8, preceded by the first single "Chains". The song was streamed on Kenna's official website on February 22. On March 4, it was announced that there had been an unfortunate technical failure with the hard drive that stored the majority of the files that made up the songs for the EP and the album. Kenna rerecorded and reproduced all the songs, reworking the concept for the entire series. Chaos and the Darkness was eventually released on April 26, 2011, with "Chains" being available as a single on iTunes & Amazon on March 8.
The second volume of the Land 2 Air Chronicles series saw its release spanning three EPs, titled Imitation is Suicide Chapter I, Chapter II and Chapter III, respectively . Four singles would accompany their release, including "Relations (An Ode To You And Me)", "Long Gone", "Love Is Still Alive" and "How Will It End?". All of them have an accompanying music video, with the exception of "How Will It End?". The video accompanying "Long Gone" was filmed in an Hitchcockian-style and also marks Kenna's directorial debut. It was released on MTV on October 17, 2012. Additionally, a remix to "Relations" featuring Donald Glover was released on November 12, 2013.
Kenna announced the third and final volume, to be called Genius. A demo of a track from the EP called "Something to Break" was streamed on Kenna's SoundCloud and social media pages.
A single titled,"Sleep When We Die", was released on July 15, 2015. It premiered on Zane Lowe's Beats 1 Radio show on Apple Music, and was subsequently released for digital download.
On July 7, 2007, Kenna opened the New Jersey portion of the Live Earth concert. He also toured with Nelly Furtado throughout various stops on her "Loose" tour.
Kenna has also worked with Lupe Fiasco on the remix of "Say Goodbye to Love", and The Cool Kids on the remix of "Loose Wires."
"Out of Control" appears in the soundtrack for the video games MLB 08 The Show and FIFA 08.
Kenna and Chad Hugo produced the track "Pretty Please" for JoJo's 2010 mixtape Can't Take That Away from Me.
Kenna was also a featured celebrity in the HP You on You project advertisement.[2]
"Never Let Me Down", an unreleased track from the Make Sure They See My Face sessions, was released on the charity album Download to Donate for Haiti in 2010, in which the proceeds go to Music for Relief, Linkin Park's charity. This album also contains "Resurrection", a collaboration with Lupe Fiasco, which was accompanied by a music video.
Kenna also appears along with Pharrell Williams in the music video for their collaboration with Clipse, "Life Change".
In 2010, Kenna and Chad Hugo worked with Kid Cudi on a track unofficially titled "Capcom!" for a Street Fighter game. It was never officially released, but was streamed on the internet the following year.
In 2013, Kenna released a cover of the U2 song "Gloria" to his SoundCloud and Myspace pages, as a way to reach out to Bono, one of his biggest musical influences. He received a call from Bono shortly thereafter.
A new song called "Turn" was made available as a free download on his official MySpace for a limited time. It has since been released on the iTunes Store on January 26, 2010. Proceeds from the sales of the track are donated to the SUMMIT ON THE SUMMIT project.
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