The Met Philadelphia (Philadelphia, PA)
02/21/23
Rony Kordab, better known as RealestK, an R&B singer and songwriter from Toronto, Canada, has quickly made a name for himself in the music industry. At only 18 years old, he is reaching 5 million monthly Spotify listeners and has a handful of viral hits. He’s currently supporting fellow Canadian musician NAV on his Never Sleep Tour, and we caught up with him after his set to learn a bit more about his music journey.
Tell us a bit about how you started making music.
“My start in music was probably around three or four years ago. I always loved singing and doing music, and just kind of watching other artists and just learning from them. My biggest inspiration was Michael Jackson. I grew up off of that, and when I got to high school, I had a very big interest in doing music and just performing in general. That’s what I just been doing, man. Just doing my own music. I started off as a producer, moved on to being my own artist, and now I just kind of do a little bit of everything.”
So you started making music in high school - what were your friends’ reactions to your music?
“I had a small circle of friends that knew I did music. They didn’t really pay attention to it that much, but my school projected a lot of negative feelings towards my music when I first started, just because it was very vulnerable and all that. And then as I kind of got better at it and things started exploding more, people kind of switched up on me and began loving it.”
Your music videos have some crazy visuals. Do you have any part in the direction, or do you just leave that up to your team?
“Oh, no, I definitely have part of the direction. They’ll send me different types of ideas, and we’ll work around them. I like the dark and ambient type of vibe, so anytime you see dark and ambient, just know that’s kind of my sauce added to it. But yeah, shoutout 97! He’s the guy. He is shooting the majority of my stuff and we be working through ideas together.”
Do you remember the moment that you realized you could pursue music as a career?
“Yeah, probably last year when ‘WFM’ was blowing up all over TikTok. I was kind of just like – ‘Oh, fuck.’ Like, ‘It’s blowing up,’ and all that. I think when I went to the mall for the first time after that song blew up and they shut down the mall, that’s where I was like, ‘Oh, shit. I might have blown up a little bit.’”
Could you tell us a little bit about your song “Lost Me” featuring NAV?
“So the song ‘Lost Me’ with NAV on his album Demons Protected by Angels came about when one day I was in the studio. We recorded on separate floors – he records downstairs, I record upstairs. So I was recording my album, Dreams To Reality, and he was recording his. I made a song called ‘Lost Me’ for my album. Cash would always ask me to listen to the music I’d make by the end of the night, and I played it for him, and NAV was there listening, too. And then Cash just looked at him and was like, ‘Yo, you fuck with this one, right?’ They left it at that. Next day I came back, they say to Nav’s engineer, Rod, ‘Play that ‘Lost Me’ shit that Ronnie did with you,’ and then just fucking did it. The next thing you know, I’m hearing NAV on that shit. Then that same day, we went to shoot a music video for it. So it was just a big play made by Cash, and NAV obviously agreed because he fucked with the song. And, yeah, that’s how that relationship began.”
How did you meet NAV and SoFaygo? What brought you on this tour?
“Honestly, I knew NAV because I got signed to Cash as management. Probably when I started blowing up with ‘WFM.’ So around, like, November or December, Cash just hit me in my DMs said, ‘What’s up, bro?’ He knew I was from the city, just wanted to kick it. I met NAV the first day I met Cash, and then from there, we just bonded. And then Faygo, I knew his music, but I just met him recently on this tour – same thing, we just clicked.”
