Meet the young Minnesota rapper recording with Kanye and performing at Lollapalooza

He has recorded with some of hip-hop's biggest names, is now signed to one of the industry's biggest record labels, and this weekend will be performing at one of America's biggest festivals.

Now if only KayCyy was more of a big name in the Twin Cities, where he grew up.

"I'm still getting to that next level," the 24-year-old graduate of Oakdale's Tartan High School conceded, but not without confidence.

"The next year will probably be crazy. I've got a couple more months of working before it turns into a blowing-up type of thing."

A sure sign the Kenyan-born rapper/singer isn't just blowing smoke about blowing up: He's currently featured on the cover of XXL alongside 11 other newcomers named to the hip-hop magazine's Freshman Class 2022.

One more bragging point: He's scheduled to perform Friday at the Lollapalooza festival in Chicago with a lineup that includes J. Cole, Metallica, Dua Lipa, Green Day and Lil Baby — the latter of whom is featured on KayCyy's 2020 mixtape "Patient Enough."

And Lil Baby isn't even the Minnesota kid's best-known collaborator.

"I'd say working with Ye has been the main thing to get me where I'm at now with my foot in the door," KayCyy said, referring to the rapper better known as Kanye West.

KayCyy (real name: Mark Mbogo) served as a writer on West's Grammy-winning 2021 album, "Donda." He was even featured singing on alternate versions of two of the LP's standout tracks, "Keep My Spirit Alive" and "Hurricane."

That connection with West came about via Abou "Bu" Thiam, the brother of Atlanta hip-hop star Akon, who now manages West — as well as KayCyy.

After being turned on to KayCyy's SoundCloud page and other online recordings — including some released under the name KayCyy Pluto — Thiam signed up the young go-getter to a development deal about three years ago. That, in turn, led to his work with West as well as KayCyy's own record deal with Columbia Records via Thiam's imprint with the storied label Buvision.

"It's been like three years of working with Bu, starting with just locking in with the studio in Atlanta," said KayCyy, who resides in Los Angeles.

"I was basically living in Bu's studio, the Music Box. I would be there recording every day, practicing every day, and then me and Bu would go see his brother Akon or like Chris Brown, Future or Young Thug. In my thought, Bu was like showing me around. That all worked out well with the timing of Bu starting to manage Ye."

Now also a vice president at Columbia, Thiam praised the record label's work so far with KayCyy in an interview with the industry trade magazine Variety in April.

"We all know breaking a new artist is very difficult, and to see the Columbia team be so committed in the early stages of KayCyy's career — from marketing, strategic branding, his EP rollout etc. — was very impressive," Thiam said.

While his formal debut album is still in the works, Columbia helped tout a diverse-sounding mixtape that KayCyy put out in early June, titled "Get Used to It," which shows traces of everything from Lil Wayne to the Weeknd and Tyler, the Creator.

KayCyy also just dropped a more focused three-song EP, "TW20 50," featuring synth-heavy tracks produced with French DJ/producer Gesaffelstein, who's made beats for West and the Weeknd.

Still, his best known recorded work so far is probably his contribution to West's "Keep My Spirit Alive," even though Ye opted to re-record the gospel-y parts that KayCyy contributed in his own voice.

"That's how it works for any new artist trying to get into the game," KayCyy said. "I was on the album, my voice, when it first came out, but it came to a point where I guess he wanted the world to hear him singing that part.

"I appreciate how the song came together in the end, and I appreciate that when people first heard it, it had my voice on it. It brought a lot of attention to me anyway."

Also, he said he was simply glad to be in the same room as West, and hopes to be featured in his music in years to come (though he couldn't say if and when that might happen).

"I will always consider him a genius, whether I'm a fan or how I know him as a person," KayCyy said. "He keeps you on your toes. If you're gonna walk into a room with him, you're gonna try to do your best every time."

The gospel-music style heard in the Ye track also came out in the Freshman Freestyle video KayCyy created for XXL, for which he enlisted a six-member choir to perform with him. That influence was a part of KayCyy's upbringing even before he moved at age 9 from Kenya to the Twin Cities' east metro area, where his dad went to work driving dump trucks and his mom served in group homes.

"It started with like Seventh-day Adventist churches, Saturday church," he said. "That's how the culture is in Kenya."

He also got turned on to hip-hop while still living in Nairobi, but it wasn't until a talent show at Skyview Middle School in Oakdale that he began to seriously pursue it. He took his stage name based on the initials of a nickname that his mom, Nillah, gave him: King Confidence.

"After that first talent show, I just started working on music at home, like on a rock-band mic kind of thing and mixing my own stuff," he recalled. "It wouldn't sound very good, but I got into it, and me and my homies taught ourselves how to do it and worked hard on it almost every day after school."

He and his friends eventually started performing around town, too, racking up appearances usually in multi-act lineups at Myth, the Cabooze, Fine Line and 7^th St. Entry.

"I put in a lot of work there, and had some doors open to me there," he said. "It'll always be like my home base in a way."

Look for another hometown appearance to likely happen as part of a fall tour. KayCyy said he still has a lot of work to do in the meantime, though, starting with Friday's Lollapalooza set.

"I'm rehearsing a lot, just getting my whole sound together," he said.

"I don't expect to bring a lot of people out yet, so I'm just going to go in there and be myself and show what I can do, use it to prepare for next year when I'll be headlining. I guess I'm on the verge of breaking."

You can see why his mom gave him that nickname.