DJ Xpect: The story of the Kenyan producer in music icon Alicia Keys project
US-based Kenyan DJ Peter Kerre, better known as DJ Xpect.
Peter Kerre, better known as DJ Xpect, has been making a name for himself in the creative industry and in the justice reforms movement in the US for some time.
The New York-based producer released his own body of work titled Nomadic Soul Therapy late last year, a melodic masterpiece pushing boundaries in sound he claims is his unique art form and sound he calls AfroElectronica.
Born in the US, his family moved back to Kenya and he grew up in Nairobi. He says he was fortunate to grow up in the “golden era”, When the matatu culture was starting to take shape, going from a simple mode of transportation to having big speakers, graffiti and becoming cultural icons. The emergence of contemporary local Kenyan music was big for him.
“I used to be in a rap group called DPG while I was at Ditchez (Dagoretti High School, Nairobi) and we would go to battle other rappers during jam sessions. I was very much part of that scene but then I flew out before things could materialise,” he says.
In his later teen years, his family moved back to the US, in the city of Illinois. There he joined a group known as K Strings that was part of a larger collective of friends known as Simba Nation. They would rap at small shows but more like a hobby than anything serious.
“What has stood out to me is the polyphonic vocals from different cultures and tribes, especially in traditional music. Despite growing up listening to more pop music – being a hip hop head and listening to house music – traditional music is something that really caught my ear,” says the deejay.
Moving to Minnesota and working his first job at a fast food joint, he realised that he could walk into a store and buy records. This was in 1998, so he would get 2Pac and Biggie Smalls albums and others.
Having been in the Nairobi rave scene, he noticed he would also bump into people from those times while attending events in different states. They began having events and visiting each other. People came to him to help plan these get-togethers.
“Back then there were many international students who were closely related to Kenyans. Kenyan students would come along with friends from places like Korea and Brazil, and we had this large groups of international folk convening. At some point, it became too big for house parties and so we decided to do parties,” says DJ Xpect.
Since they were all students and didn’t have the money to hire a deejay, he offered to do the music. He liked the feel and bought his first pair of turntables as he started learning to deejay. He prides himself in being part of those who built reggae and African music in Minneapolis and Saint Paul area night clubs, warehouses and hotels.
“We were doing raves with up to 1,000 people through just word of mouth,” says the deejay.
Even though he is mainly a hip hop deejay, Xpect says deejays are supposed to not only entertain but to teach their audience about new music. He credits Tim Wilson, the owner of Urban Lights in St Paul, who gave him tons of vinyl records that he received from recording artistes to promote. He started doing mixtapes and Tim asked him to make some that he could submit to radio stations.
A few weeks later, Tim connected him to the program director at KMOJ, a community-oriented noncommercial FM radio station in Minneapolis airing a predominantly urban adult contemporary radio format. That’s how he got to deejay on radio, doing weekday prime time for half an hour. This was an avenue for him to break new hip-hop and R&B music to the audiences.
Different worlds
“That’s where Xpect comes from; expect the unexpected. I’m able to bring different worlds together: reggae, African, hip hop and R&B,” he says.
After five years as a mix show deejay, doing weekly club nights and running a reggae promotion company called Mezesha, he had also been producing a lot of music for his own chill and relaxation after training himself and even had a whole studio at his dwellings. Social media had started being used as a promotion tool. He felt like he had maxed out in the twin cities, so he moved to New York City in 2009.
“In the back of my mind, I wanted to live actively both here and in Kenya. New York City is very internationally connected and it’s better as a base,” says Xpect.
As part of introducing African music in the nightclubs, Xpect had been doing remixes of pop music with African beats. When he moved to New York, he would remix the pop songs with Afro and electronic sounds then send them to deejays to use as they wished.
In 2015, after Alicia Keys released “In Common”, people started calling him to congratulate him on working on the official project. However, he hadn’t. After listening to the song, he went on to do a remix of it and put it out. He released a snippet on his social media and tagged the singer, saying he hoped to work with her. A few weeks later, he got a call from Sony Records saying Alicia Keys had heard his remix and wanted to work with him on the remix album for the single she was working on.
“I’ll always be grateful to them for that opportunity. If you work with Alicia Keys word is going to go out fast. 2016 was the time Afro beats was really popping and I had to turn down deals from record companies,” he says.
The most important thing he advises creatives is to have a business mind for endless opportunities to turn creativity into a business. A business manager is a key where one isn’t business-inclined. He says there are many gatekeepers so it can get challenging if you don’t know someone who knows someone in the industry.
Peter has always had a passion for humanity and social justice initiatives. He feels like he owes people a responsibility to give back. Through litigation, he was part of the Kenyan diaspora who successfully fought the government to enable Kenyans abroad to be able to vote. He was one of the Black Lives Matter leaders who led weekly protests in New York City in the wake of George Floyd’s killing in 2020.
“I couldn’t even come home straight because I was getting threats on my life. Sometimes, NYPD helicopters would follow me home,” he says.
Xpect now hopes to work with creators, especially in the Afro-electronic space to expose more of their art to the world. “Right now is truly Africa’s time. The world is listening but there aren’t enough creators from East Africa.”
