Kevin Cossom has appeared in OZONE a handful of times, but never as a Grammy-nominated songwriter. KC is opening up 2010 with his first ever Grammy nod for writing Keri Hilson’s “Knock You Down,” and he’s also raising attention with his own single “Relax” ft. Snoop Dogg. A familiar name behind the scenes of the music industry, Kevin Cossom will soon be a familiar face EVERYWHERE. What have you been working on since your last OZONE interview a few months ago? I just dropped a mixtape in November called Hook Vs. Bridge. I’m promoting that heavy. I’m working on an album and trying to finish that up. We also got a song called “Relax” featuring Snoop that we’re going hard with. It’s supposed to be the first single off the album. We’ll be shooting a video in the next month. I’ve still been doing a lot of writing. I got something out with Chris Brown called “What I Do” featuring Plies. I wrote that with my homeboy Pooh Bear. I got a song on Mary J Blige’s album called “Tonight.” I got a few things on DJ Khaled’s album. I’m getting prepared for the Grammy Awards. A song I wrote for Keri Hilson called “Knock You Down” is up for a Grammy this year. Being nominated for a Grammy must be one of the highest points of your career so far. Definitely. It’s different if I just wrote the chorus or put in a few lines, but I pretty much wrote the whole thing. I did the whole concept and everything. For it to be nominated for a Grammy is huge. You know, for it to be a #1 record was already crazy, but to be a Grammynominated songwriter is big. Tell us about your mixtape. Is it mostly original production, or is it more like a mixtape format? Most of it is original. “Headboard” featuring Plies is a song I wrote the chorus to, but it’s a Hurricane Chris and Mario record. I wrote a verse to it so I wanted to do a remix for it. The Drake record “I Get Paper” is a remix I did. Other than that, everything else is pretty much original. There’s a lot of good features – Rick Ross, Joe Budden, Pusha from The Clipse, and good production as well. It’s still a mixtape; there’s 14 joints on there. You’re signed to the producer Danja. What’s
24 // OZONE MAG
the history behind your working relationship with him? We met a few years ago, right around the time I first got my publishing deal. A representative from my publishing company, Sam Taylor, sent me to work with Danja. At the time, Danja had just come off of working on Justin Timberlake’s Future Sex Love Sounds album. He had just done “Promiscuous Girl.” He had been doing a lot of big things. I was writing for a girl group and he was producing for them. We went in for a 3-day session and on the last day he asked me if songwriting was the only thing I wanted to do. I told him no, it was just to pay the bills and I wanted to do the artist thing as well. He talked to my manager, and about a month later he did some records for me. We got in the studio for like five days and came up with four dope records. That’s how we noticed there was a chemistry. A month later we did the same thing and got some more good records. We knew we needed to be working together, so I signed to his label N.A.R.S. Records. You know, he produced “Knock You Down,” so this is our first Grammy nomination together. It proves that we’re a good combination. The music industry is familiar with your name and your work by now. Are people starting to recognize your face yet? I think the more I get the mixtape out there, the more people research me. I’ve been a few places and people recognize me. When the video comes out and I get face time on camera, more people will recognize me. Besides the face, people are recognizing the name and that’s the most important. You’re pretty much following the same path as Ne-Yo or Keri Hilson, and there are predictions of you being that next big R&B artist. Are you prepared for that level of superstardom? It’s nothing you can really prepare for. You just keep it in mind. You gotta realize you can’t do certain things you used to do all the time, or go some of the places you used to go. You just have to be smarter with the things you do. That’s the biggest thing. I want to be as normal as possible, if that’s possible. But yeah, it’s hard to prepare for that when all you have is an idea of how it’s going to be. All I can do is stay focused and prioritize. Where can people get at you and hear some of your music? Hit me up at KevinCossom.com or on Twitter: @KevinCossom. //
K
C