Take a bite out of “PASSIONFRUIT,” the juicy new track from LA-based singer-songwriter, producer, artist, and innovator TK. Track five from HIGH FREQUENCY Volume 2, “PASSIONFRUIT” paints with technicolor. TK’s intoxicating, velvet vocals dance over a bouncy deep house beat produced by Pete Rango and Matt Lee. An invitation to a wonderland of pleasure, the sensual lyricism foreshadows a tantalizing storyline that will play out in Eternal Garden, a narrative franchise being brought to life by TK’s new creative venture studio GARDEN X. “PASSIONFRUIT” really expresses the feeling of a certain moment within the universe of Eternal Garden,” says TK. “I’m really excited to debut this as we roll out certain parts of the story.”
After dropping his genesis token in March of 2022, TK was inspired to expand the psychedelic inspired narrative into a larger digital world. “My Genesis NFT “Heaven On Earth” was a song about two lovers that find a mythical garden, take shrooms and go on a metaphysical trip, falling even deeper in love,” says TK about the idea that evolved into an onchain concept album called Eternal Garden. “Everybody that minted the NFT was able to access the narrative behind Eternal Garden as a project.” When 700 Eternal Garden NFTs minted, the project became widely considered a case study and led to a series of live performances globally. TK later released Eternal Garden ORIGINS, a prequel to Eternal Garden, his second concept album that resulted in 7,000 mints.
Having created an air of intrigue and mystique around the project, TK considered ways to expand. “I came up with the idea for Garden X, which is a creative venture studio with a core focus on developing Eternal Garden as a franchise. Obviously that involves music, but it also involves literature, film, gaming, and any other medium that can help us tell the story of Eternal Garden,” says TK. “There's the creative layer, but also a protocol layer that we're developing, which will allow outside contributors to come in and create storylines based on the IP that we are generating and releasing out to the public. Derivatives are on the table, and things of that nature. It's a really exciting project that we're building.”
After putting together a team while working towards an ambitious vision, TK and Garden X plan to release their flagship project in November featuring TK and five other artists. “From there, we're going to release individual projects for each artist who all have their own unique storyline within the Eternal Garden and see where things go from there.”
Immersing himself in web3 during the pandemic, TK has been in the mix from the start. He joined the Sound chat before the platform’s launch and became a member of Mochi DAO. Now in addition to his work as the founder of Garden X, he is an active community member participating in experiments such as wavWRLD’s wavGAME where he was recently chosen as the winning collector’s selected artist. “It's been an interesting journey trying to find financial and creative freedom as an artist in this algorithmic age,” says TK. “I’m grateful to be working at this intersection of music and tech. I definitely believe in everything that web3 has to offer artists like myself. I'm the type of artist that wants longevity.”
TK’s lifelong passion for music has always been his driving force. “I've been a musician my entire life,” says TK. “I grew up singing in church and watching Disney movies. A lot of my early influences were early 2000s pop acts like S Club Seven, Madonna, Christina Aguilera, Ricky Martin, and Coldplay. On the R&B side a lot of Brandy, Craig David, Toni Braxton, and Michael Jackson, and when I moved to the US, I got a lot more into hip hop, and rock music – classics like Jay Z, Nas, Eminem and alternative rock like Linkin Park, Green Day, My Chemical Romance, the list goes on and on.”
Spending his early childhood in the UK, he then moved to Maryland where he pursued every available musical opportunity. “Throughout school, I was in every musical endeavor that you could do–concert band, marching band, jazz band, concert choir, gospel choir, classical music, and performing arts where we would sing and dance and play instruments like every genre of music from the1920s up until modern day. When I was 15, I started a band called Cloud 9 to play our school talent show. We went from playing nursing homes and churches to eventually playing theaters and Live Nation ticketed concerts and touring the country playing original music. As I was doing that, I was also writing and producing for a lot of artists.”
After entering a Guitar Center songwriting competition in 2014, TK made the top 10 out of 30,000 applicants catalyzing a life-changing chain of events. “They flew me out to LA and my mind was made up. I was like, “Wow, this is incredible. I want to be out here.” I came second in the competition and got to meet a lot of people that worked in the music industry. That manifested in moving out to LA a year later to write and produce for Will Smith, Jaden Smith, and Willow Smith.”
Doors continued to open for TK as he began ghostwriting for some of the biggest names in music. “It snowballed into me working with Diane Warren, which led to me working with artists like Rihanna, The Weeknd, Justin Bieber, and Big Sean.”
The whirlwind experience only fueled his dreams, though not without challenge. “I did the whole independent artist thing for years, and was able to get some momentum and traction, but it's really, really tough out there and super competitive, especially if you don't have the necessary resources.”
Looking for ways to carve out his own path, TK prioritized web3 and has since become a leading innovator on the forefront of music and tech. Blending R&B, hip hop, electronic music and alternative, TK’s music breaks barriers and showcases his extensive range and talent. The quality of his work speaks for itself with obvious attention to detail.
As TK continues to build success for himself, his destiny is in his name. “I'm Nigerian and my middle name is Adétokunbo, which in Yoruba means royalty from a foreign land, or, in my case, prince from a foreign land. TK is the common nickname or abbreviation for that name.”
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Collect Music NFTs from HIGH FREQUENCY Volume 2. “PASSIONFRUIT” is the fifth track to be released from HIGH FREQUENCY Volume 2. “PASSIONFRUIT” is dropping via Sound at 2pm PST on October 26, 2023.
Collect and add HIGH FREQUENCY writing NFTs to your digital library.
Article by Wallace Morgan for HIGH FREQUENCY, NOISE’s weekly newsletter. Subscribe for more.