Jamaica is home to some of the best entertainers, and it is home to some of the best songwriters. Keely Keyz is one such person. His rise within music starts with humble beginnings, and crescendo’s with a career in songwriting and some production, notably working with Don Corleon.
VP: Keely, give us an introduction to you and tell us how you came to the entertainment industry?
KK: My name is Matthew Keaveny also known as Keely Keyz or Keely B and I’m a Producer, Songwriter and Singer. As far back as I can remember music has always been a part of my life. My parents had me taking piano lessons from as early grade 3 and this continued right up to about 10th grade in high school. I also used to play the drums at church on a Sunday which was a good enough incentive for me to go to church because at that age, there was nothing fun about church nah mean.
While in high school my friends and I also had a sound system and because of this it forced me to study the various genres of music so I could know what to play. Every week I used to buy the latest sound cassette and listen to what was being played, how it was played and the argument that the selector would use to intro each song then listen to crowd reaction.
I remember recording Bones and Master Wayne’s radio show on Irie Fm on weekends to hear what they would play and record it on cassette – the real good days. Moved eventually from sound system to production and started going around to King Jammys studio and Grafton studio when my childhood friend Anju Blaxx and I decided to dive into music production.
The first official beat I ever made was at Grafton studios with Mikey Bennett’s son Nicky B, Anju and myself when we were working on a remix for a song his father had with LL Cool J and I was probably 17 at the time. In those days we had to use sound modules in combination with the keyboard plus the MPC and then run off to the 24-track machine.
VP: You and Don Corleon are a package deal. Don on the production side and you on the song writing side. How did this partnership come about?
KK: The partnership with Don came about in 2012. I originally signed on to work with Don as a producer so we would always collaborate on beats together but over the years I’ve gone from the production side more over the side of writing. However working with Don I ended up and was blessed to be in the room with top song writers such as Rico Love and Prescilla Renea to name a few, so I started to learn a few tricks and tap into a different level of songwriting that I was not exposed to before. So I decided to start writing songs to beats that I built or we built that nobody had written to as yet and just started honing my craft that way until eventually Don started actually giving me projects to write for. The first was Gentleman and I wrote a song called ‘Rise We Up’. This pattern continued for sometime until eventually I’m now writing more than I actually compose beats.
Don has always told me constantly your just as good or better than any other songwriter out there which definitely helped to fuel my confidence in my craft along with other friends constantly telling me as well it sometimes you recognize your own talent but that confirmation from others definitely helps to solidify things. So when it comes to production now we are a one stop shop Don does the production I write the songs and I think this definitely gives us an edge in the market.
VP: What would you say is the project that solidified your confidence that song writing and music is where you want to be?
KK: I think when I was working on a project back in 2009 with Jonathon Shapiro of Cinematic Records. At the time they offered me a deal as a songwriter / artist with Epic Records at that point I would have to say definitely I was sure about this songwriting thing. What’s crazy is when I first started working with Don he didn’t take me seriously until I actually sent him a beat with a song that I wrote fully and demo’d, even though he didn’t use the song, he used the beat though.
VP: Song writing is a rewarding career. Can you tell us some of the people you have worked with?
KK: To be honest I’ve only written for major projects recently but prior to this I produced and coproduced some major songs.
I composed the beat for Popcaans hit ‘Naughty Girl,’ co-produced ‘We Pray’ for Dre Island and Popcaan, co-produced Sean Paul and Tory Lanez ‘Tek Weh Yuh Heart’ and Sean Paul Migos ‘Body’ with Don Corleon and earned GRAMMY status as a producer when I co-produced Damian Marley’s ‘Speak Like’ for his GRAMMY-Award winning album Stony Hill. On the song writing side however I wrote Tarrus Riley’s most recent single produced by Don called ‘Baby Blue’ and also wrote a 13-track Album produced by Don as well for Marlon Asher and we did this all in 2 weeks but it was a great experience can’t wait for people to hear that body of work when it’s released.
VP: How did Romain Virgo’s song “Driver” come about?
KK: That song came about after Don told me VP reached out to him for some records for Romain so he pretty much sent me the beat and said just write something mad something that they wouldn’t expect him to sing.
So before I even got to a concept for the song I had to figure out melody construction and ‘feel,’ so I drew off of all the songs Romain did previously that did well like ‘Stay With Me’ and ‘Soul Provider,’ and then I drew for a song in the reggae market that did well prior to this and that was Estelle and Sean Paul.
I liked the feel of that record – I always did. So I merged all them vibes together and then next concept, what does every woman want from a man more than love, time and money?! They want leadership so me seh cool ‘Driver’ and just took my time and worked on the song and when I sent it to Don he had no complaints which is surprising cause he’s a hard marker when it comes to music.
Romain recorded the record and really made that record his own, it was great experience collaborating with him and his team on this one.
VP: Where can fans find you on social media?
KK: People can find me on Instagram @keelykeyz