IKenj

Karle E. Norris Jr. (born April 14, 1988 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States ), better known by his stage name "iKenj", is an American Rapper part of the Make Sure independent record label in 2007. He is rising to fame in the Tri-State Area following the success of the "singles" from his debut mixtape, The Foundation. In June 2008, tracks from the mixtape on his MySpace page began receiving attention from A&R's at Cash Money Records and The Power DVD. His self-produced track "215" is highly anticipated by local residents and international fans thanks to the publicity and major attention of his profile on MySpace.

Biography
Early life
Karle E. Norris Jr. was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and is known to be of African-American descent. At the age of 3 he took a serious interest in computer technology. At a young age he was playing around with graphics in ClarisWorks on Mac OS. That would soon evolve in to being his self-educated ability of Graphic Design. He also began playing the keyboard at the age of 4 when his mother bought him a Yamaha keyboard for Christmas. Norris moved to Indianapolis, Indiana at the age of 3 with his family. He moved back to Philadelphia five years later when his grandmother became ill.

Back in West Philadelphia is where the seed of Hip Hop was planted and would make him into the artist he is today. In 1999, he caught an interest in rappers Jay-Z and Eminem from hearing the tracks "Jigga My Nigga" and "My Name Is" on local radio stations. Norris then wanted to start writing rhymes but after becoming frustrated with the outcome of his lyrics, he gave up. That same year he joined the youth
choir of The Bethany Baptist Church in Southwest Philadelphia. There he unlocked his hidden talent of singing and fell in love with the art.

In 2000, he became interested in design web pages and started using a site builder on Tripod.com. He then learned the basics of HTML and sincve has evolved those skills and also learned advanced HTML, CSS, and various web scripts.

In 2001, where he became infatuated in a schoolmate, he began to express his feelings in the form of poetry. His poetry then found it's place in a melody that resulted in writing his first R&B song. Then Norris needed the music to go a long with the words and using his talent of playing the keyboard, began to compose the rhythm for the song. For Christmas that year his mother upgraded his keyboard with a brand new Casio CTK-574. With an advanced instrument he composed beats for his own songs and kept them stored in the keyboards memory.

In 2004, Norris entered a state of rebellion caused by overprotective parenting. Anger had built up inside and eventually led to his four arrests, failure in school, running away from home, and the conceiving of his son. All the pressure followed the same path of his feelings and eventually landed on paper in the form of poetry. That became the initial mark of the beginning of his pursuit in Hip Hop/Rap. Since then, the use of his vocals in singing has become secondary to rapping. He continued to use his keyboard but now in the producing for Hip Hop beats. Despite the year of obstacles and hardships, he received his own personal computer for Christmas. A valuable tool that would play into being the core component in his interest in entertainment and creative works.

In 2005, he further educated himself in the Graphic Design field by experimenting in Photoshop CS2 which far outperformed the older ClarisWorks he was used to and other photo editing software he had previously tampered with. Photoshop became a very valuable tool.

In 2006, things began to escalate when Norris was watching Jay-Z's Fade To Black DVD when he heard of Fruity Loops a program said to be used to produce a few tracks on The Black Album. He immediately ran a Google search to found out more. He installed the program and was blown away at the opportunity to have all of the ideas of beats and the ones programmed in his keyboards memory digital in a digital format. He immediately began learning the software and created numerous beats using it.

In 2007, now having his own self-produced library of beats, he began to take rapping more seriously. The only problem was that he only had his lyrics in written form. Not being able to afford studio quality microphones, he just kept writing and kept making beats; knowing one day it would all come together. He had finally found his style and was comfotable with it. Norris along with Rook and Philly, former high school associates, along with a few other members formed Make Sure; an independent record label. Norris abandoned the Windows operating system due to instability issues and went back to his roots with the Mac operating system. Being one of his smartest moves, it opened up many closed doors.

Music Career
In 2008, Norris had finally set out to do what he had been talking about for months and had a desire to do for years. Thanks to the Mac OS and iLife '08, Norris was finally able to have the tools he needed to pursue his dream. Now older, he took care of the formerly-financial obstacles that hindered his hopes previously. In April 2008, his personal studio in the bedroom of his DE home was complete which led to the creation of the iKenj profile on MySpace's social networking site.

The Foundation (Mixtape) - 2008

Immediately after the setup of his studio, he began working on his debut mixtape. He aimed to make the mixtape like an album but with the use of his vocals over commercial productions along with a few bonuses and a single exclusive. He released "singles" from the mixtapes track list as uploads on his MySpace music profile. The first "single" was "Innocence", a track telling the story of one's determination to be with his lover. He immediately received positive ratings and comments from numerous members of the social site. Four weeks following "Innocence", he posted two more "singles". "Get Puppz" & "I'm Gon' Fly", an exclusive collaboration with Jersey Life and produced by VTZ. Now with three tracks, he started promoting his page in a daily routine. Sending out mass amounts of friend requests and messages to other members in the Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware area; as well as to New York and Maryland. He began averaging 1000+ adds a week. also He received attention from A&Rs at Cash Moneys Records and Power from the The Power DVD Show in New Jersey. Hooking up and forming a relationship with Power led to tracks from the mixtape being played on the air during The Power DVD Show and his first live performance in Edison, NJ. Later he released the "singles" "Write Me Down" (a song directed towards people who spread rumors and formulate opinions about him without even knowing who iKenj is as a person) and "Nonchalant", a collaboration with LyRiX and Money Carsin. Both tracks received many positive reviews and air play on The Power DVD Show. The tracks on his MySpace page have also appeared on various compilation mixtapes. Other collaborations on the album include hometown artists HanZ and Old Skool Kid and Barstow, CA resident SheaGreenz. The release date of the highly anticipated mixtape was set for July 26, 2008. To further promote the mixtape he would perform songs off the album at The Power DVD Street Jam concert in Edison, NJ on August 30, 2008.

Work Outside of Music

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See Also

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