Kyan

Kyan Kuatois, the Cambridge-based singer and songwriter, drew immediate parallels to Frank Ocean with the arrival of his first EP, The Purple Experiment, in 2014. After learning piano on his own during childhood, he confronted a pivotal choice among three central pursuits—acting, music, and basketball, a sport at which he had performed on the national stage—before electing to pursue music exclusively and setting aside his family name. Public recognition first arrived in 2010 via his appearance on Sky 1's Must Be the Music, where he progressed to the semi-finals. That platform opened doors to joint work with established artists including Duke Dumont and Benga. Momentum from those connections produced a contract with Virgin EMI and the issuance of his next EP, Remote View, in 2015. Its lead track, "Sometimes," captured the intensely soulful electronic style that defined his output at the time, earning positive notices from reviewers even though the arrangement with the label dissolved soon afterward. As a result, the following release relied entirely on self-financing. In 2017 a Kickstarter effort supported Nothing Beyond, which he characterized as a "visual mixtape."