Artist Profile: Kina Grannis

Over the past weeks we have learned so much about so many different kinds of creative technology and creative means of expression. From seeing the African screen media presented by Sheila Petty to the creative technology used in Visual art and new media with Rachelle Viader Knowles; we really have seen such a vast amount of creative tech being used in art. For my artist profile I have chosen to focus on an artist by the name of Kina Grannis. Kina is a 26 year old singer/ songwriter who found massive success with the online community using YouTube and through social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook. Kina won the "MTV O Music Awards Best Web-Born Artist" in 2011. What makes Kina such an influential artist in the category of visual art is the fact that Kina dedicated nearly 2 years of her life on filming a stop motion music video done entirely in jelly-beans. Kina's cleaver use of YouTube to make her music distribution so easy that she doesn't need a major record label really reminded me of the work we discussed in the "Working with online video" class as well as some of the subjects we discussed with Rachelle Vider Knowles and the immensity and influential capacity of online videos in our day and age.
Kina Grannis grew up in Mission Viejo, California and that's where her love for music began. Kina began her musical career as a piano player but soon made the transition to the violin, an instrument she would play throughout high school. By the age of 15 Kina had taught herself how to play the guitar and this was the instrument with which she fell in love. In 2007 Kina was asked by staff members of the University's Thornton School of Music to produce an album with their music industry department and later that year Kina came out with her first album: Sincerely, Me. On November 14th 2007 Kina created her YouTube account and began posting some of her original songs online. With her first video "Message From Your Heart", Kina entered into Doritos Crash the Super Bowl contest. After winning the contest, Kina's video was played to ten's of millions of viewers watching the Super Bowl. Shortly after Kina signed a contract with Interscope Records. Kina's YouTube videos have reached more than 77 million views and have made Kina one of the most watched personalities on all of YouTube to this day. In January 2009 Kina announced that she would be leaving her label and would be working as an independent artist. On February 8th. 2010 Kina released a video directed by Ross Ching called "Valentine". The loving song struck a chord with 11,600,343 people online with 83,786 likes and 14,397 comments. The video is also an interesting look into the artistic viewpoint of Kina Grannis as she walks through a line of falling blocks each with a small picture on it and as they fall they create a small moving video for us to see. Kina expresses her main themes through her gift of song, with which she writes about many life experiences and situations that many people go through. What makes Kina special is the fact she is so amazing with her use of YouTube that her music can reach any number of people.

On February 23rd/ 2010 Kina released her current album, Stairwells. Many of the songs on this album were featured on Kina's now infamous YouTube channel. On November 3rd/ 2011 Kina finally unveiled the long awaited stop-motion music video for the single "In Your Arms". This viral music video used 288,000 Jelly Beans and the video took nearly 2 years to complete. The video for "In Your Arms" spread like wildfire; accumulating nearly 1 million views within the first three days. Today the video has nearly 5 million views, 67,286 likes and 13,837 comments. "In Your Arms" took 22 months, 1,357 hours, 30 people, 2 ladders, 1 still camera, and 288,000 jelly-beans to make. Kina Grannis is not only a true talent but also a very smart entrepreneur who understand the ins-and-outs of the YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Social media community as a whole. Kina's easy going attitude matched with her contagious smile makes her an enjoyable internet King pin of music and entertainment.

Sources:

http://aarising.com/aprofiler/kinagrannis.htm

http://www.beatweek.com/music/musicianinterviews/3175-kina-grannis-interview/

http://www.kinagrannis.com/?page=bio

Other Links:

Kina Grannis - In Your Arms (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOu0DuxFAT0)

Kina Grannis - Valentine (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=840NbiFF1zM)

Kina Grannis' Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/kinagrannis)

Kina Grannis' Twitter (https://twitter.com/#!/kinagrannis)