Kenji
With his earnest vocals and wistful songs of heartbreak, newbie singer-songwriter Kenji has some fans comparing him to Moira dela Torre. While he is flattered that there are people who find similarities in their work, it does come with pressure, he admitted.
“When you say Moira dela Torre, the music hits differently. You can really feel the pain or emotions she’s feeling. Every song, every line you come up with should clearly convey your message,” he said in a recent pocket interview over Zoom. “My songs talk about heartaches, too. And our vibes sound familiar. I’m honored that I’m being compared to her.”
Like Moira, Kenji is now being managed by Cornerstone Entertainment, bringing him closer to his goal of collaborating with one of his idols in music. “I have already met her and she’s such a beautiful person. We ended up chatting for an hour. She taught me a lot of things about songwriting,” the 24-year-old artist related.
“What stood out to me was when she said I have to always use my experiences and emotions and express them in a way people can easily relate to,” added Kenji, who has always gravitated toward mellow and acoustic sounds since he began writing songs in high school. “My goal is to collaborate with her.”
Kenji’s debut EP, “Liham,” is a collection of five songs that represent different “episodes” in his life, and serves as a “love letter” for his listeners “who have been on a deep journey of love and pain.”
Moira dela Torre
Life experiences
“Every time I write songs, the inspiration comes mostly from my life experiences, things that really happened to me … It’s like every track is an episode of my life. A lot of them are about relationships. I haven’t had a lot of experience, but in each relationship I got to write about different things like sadness, joy, emotions and stories,” he said.
“Every time I perform the songs, they take me back to particular moments. And I think people can also feel that when they watch me perform,” added Kenji, who wrote the EP during the pandemic.
“I just looked at myself in my room. There are fewer distractions and you can’t go out, so you have more time to reflect. All sorts of things and ideas go into your head, so I used that. I revisited past experiences,” he said of the creative process behind “Liham.”
Kenji has always been musically inclined, growing up. He used to play the guitar at his friend’s birthday parties while other people did the singing. He only realized that he can sing, too, when he was chosen to represent his section in a gospel singing contest back in school.
Fallback
Later on, he enrolled in singing lessons and workshops under Star Magic, where he was eventually discovered by ABS-CBN music creative director Jonathan Manalo, who chose him to be part of G2B in 2013.
However, Kenji, who used to go by his full name Kenji Exaltacion when he was part of the said teen pop boy group, had to put his dreams on pause because he and his parents want him to at least finish high school. “We decided to focus on my school first before pursuing my passion. So that if my entertainment career doesn’t take off, I will have a fallback,” he said. While there are many young, up-and-coming artists coming in, Kenji said he doesn’t see his music career as a competition. “What I think is that you should just be yourself and be honest with everything you say and work on,” he pointed out. “I want my songs to represent me.”
Asked what his biggest dream was, Kenji said: “To be in front of a very large crowd singing along with me, as I perform with a guitar in my arms.”