Nola Grown Artist: Producer Desmond Hollins aka Katrah-Quey

Today my featured Nola Home Grown Artist is my one and only brother, Desmond Hollins aka Katrah-Quey (prounounced Cat-Tra-Kay) is the pseudonym of New Orleans native St. Paul, Minnesota based producer. Katrah-Quey’s beats have been featured on Adult Swim’s bump ads. He is also a member of a production crew named the 4Shades.

Born in New Orleans in the late 80’s to the parents of Blues Musician, Willie Cole and designer semtress Jean Hollins, Desmond was exposed to a big gumbo pot of culture and music. He was named in honor of the great Desmond Tutu and his middle name “James” was after our great grandfather, named after men like these Desmond James Hollins had no choice, but to be someone great.

Desmond is our child prodigy. He started reading at 3yrs old, memorized the continent of North America, including all the states, its capitals; down to how it is shaped and what it produces.

He also, is a lover of anime and street fighter games which influences most of his music.

Katrah-Quey is a self taught musician and producer, wowing music lovers all over the world. The New Orleans native hip-hop producer has been like an epiphany for us, delighting our ears with his craftmanship, making impressive remixes and productions.

He blends lush melodies, samples & chords with boombap driven drums, experimental electronic sections, relaxing soundscapes and very minimal turntable scratching into a cohesive instrumental healing hiphop album. The longer tracks have more dynamic arrangements while the shorter tracks have grooves so rich in depth, you are inclined to play them back over and over. The first half the album provides a good amount of energy to catch your attention while the last half of the album is more meditiative & zen-like. The compositions seems to follow the chakra chart on the album cover with each track activating different spots while maintaining vibrations to improve the quality of your mind, body and spirit. Overall, a delightful listen that is highly recommended.

“Katrah-Quey treats us with a brief but very concentrated and cohesive instrumental hip-hop album that is mellow but very energetic. Laced with heavy drums, shifty procussion and nice bass carried throughout the project complements the chilled out concept of the album that is not boring like many instrumental projects tend to do. For fans of Fat Jon, Comfort Fit, Dimlite, Prefuse 73, Nujabes, Caural and Express Rising – or if you’re a fan of relaxing music! 8/10” – James Howard.

We suggest you to pay attention to a project where Mr. Quey fuses jazzy meaningful beats with supa-smooth and electronic hip-hop underground instrumentals. This is not the work of a newbie but it sounds really mature,solid,compelling,lavish.

Katra-Quey recruited Chicago femcee/singer Kaiji , Louisiana emcee Noir (sumptuous performance over the sample of Bob James) ,Suzuki Kaioh and others!

Def one of our fav emerging hip-hop producer!