At the start of the year, 2017 has already welcomed new and upcoming artists. But for Arkansas native Kari “Kari Faux” Johnson, she is ready to take this year by storm. After slaving her years at Chick Fil A, the artist now has bragging rights to stars like Childish Gambino.
Faux grew up in a typical Southern tradition, with her adopted family. Her hangout spots were limited to church, school, home, and occasionally the neighborhood park. At 16, Kari fooled around and rapped over an instrumental to Jay Z’s “Song Cry”. Faux wasn’t serious, but her friends were amazed at how she flowed on the hook. Kari never saw rap as something she wanted to pursue at first; it was all just for leisure. She saw interest in audio, which influenced her to enroll into the Art Institute of Atlanta where she delved into audio engineering.
After barley fulfilling her expectations, Kari only lasted 2 quarters before she decided to come back to Little Rock. The artist was at a time where she wanted to find herself, and calling in life. Fortunately, that’s when she linked up with an old high school friend and began recording.
In this day and age, the Internet is a growing home to not only communicating, but releasing content with hopes that it’ll land on the right blog. In 2014, Kari released a total of seven mixtapes, one of them holding her catchy track “No Small Talk”. The song created big buzz on the internet and tons of music blogs. Over night, the number of views sky rocketed. Notorious music blog Noisey noticed the video, and premiered it shortly after. Vastly approaching internet success, artist Childish Gambino did a remix over the beat, which would later be featured on his mixtape “STN MTN/ Kauai”. Gambino called up Kari months later, helping her achieve to the success she has gained today.
Since then, Faux has been featured on albums from Gambino and Isaiah Rashad, along with the soundtrack to the HBO sensation “Insecure”. Her latest project “Lost en Los Angeles” is the perfect mix to vibe with. Kari told Complex “It’s weird to me that people like my stuff,” she says. “I’m so awkward. I’m just being goofy and you guys really like this!” Kari’s boss-like chill style of rapping is what the industry needs. As the industry invites new faces, rest assure Kari Faux will be a name worth listening to. See what all the hype is about and tune into Kari today!