First Spin

Khatumu on racist kids, self-therapizing, and her upcoming performance at Bottle Rock

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0:00 | 41:36

This week I sit down with the incredibly talented Khatumu. We talk about her experience of racism with a kid at work, how she passed time during covid lockdowns, the influences that developed her unique sound, and the neighbor that heard her singing through the wall and changed her life.

Songs featured in this episode:

hunting days

exposure therapy

blackout

matador

psuedo doctors


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Thanks for listening—see you next week.

SPEAKER_00

Hey, hi, hello, and welcome to another episode of First Spin, the podcast that introduces you to up-and-coming artists before they hit it big, so you can say I knew them when. Well, she did something a little different with that time. We talk about that, dealing with racism at work, using ChatGPT for advice, and how the stranger that heard her singing through the wall changed her life. Here's a snippet of her song Hunting Days, and then my conversation with Katuma.

SPEAKER_01

She laughed on the phone and she's alone. I can hear you from the diet.

SPEAKER_03

Yes, I'm opening for Hannah Cohen, and I'm also playing a set of bottle rock, which would be super fun.

SPEAKER_00

You're playing a bottle rock. No shit. Oh, how cool.

SPEAKER_03

I'm so stoked.

SPEAKER_00

Awesome.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, I've never I've never even been to a festival before. So it's yeah, it's cool that I get to. I honestly should go to more festivals. Um, just really expensive to go to.

SPEAKER_00

So and they've gotten so much more expensive over the last like five years.

SPEAKER_03

20 million dollars to go to one. It's crazy.

SPEAKER_00

So so I mean better, better to be playing one anyway.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, I'm I'm stoked, and I can't wait to meet other artists and just have a fun time. I've like also been to Napa once, and that was back when I was in college. Um, and we were just sort of like passing through. So I'm I'm it seems like it's very, very pretty, and wine country seems cool.

SPEAKER_00

So it's yeah, it's gorgeous. It's is it it's usually Memorial Day weekend. Is it Memorial Day weekend?

SPEAKER_03

I think it's like May 28th or something like that.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah. So that I think that's probably Memorial Day weekend. Yeah. Oh, it's gonna be so beautiful up there.

SPEAKER_03

I can't wait. Yeah. Have you been to Bottle Rock before?

SPEAKER_00

I've never been to Bottle Rock. I've been to a number of festivals, but for whatever reason, Bottle Rock has just never never made I've never been able to make it work. I've been to outside lands a bunch, um, which is fun, and then I've been to Ohana down in Dana Point a bunch.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, so Katumu.

SPEAKER_03

Yes.

SPEAKER_00

That name is uh Mendy from uh Sierra Leone.

SPEAKER_02

Yes.

SPEAKER_00

Uh fun fact, I just got like an email from some like podcast data, you know, they like collect all the data. And First Spin is like one of the top music-related podcasts in Sierra Leone.

SPEAKER_03

What? I know that's really cool.

SPEAKER_00

Isn't that awesome?

SPEAKER_03

No way, huh?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

That's so fascinating. Wow, that's awesome. And I mean, you're a cool guy, so I'm sure people like me would like you. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Well, I'm I this episode I expect this episode to do great numbers. No, great numbers. No, it was cool. Uh I ran into you. I've been a I've been a fan of you music for for a while now. And I'd actually like DM'd you a couple times on Instagram and TikTok. But you know how they have that like other folder that like things go to if you're not following each other. So a lot of stuff gets lost in the other folder. But then I ran into you at a show in February, and I was like, wait, I think that's her. I'm just gonna talk to her and see. So it worked out great.

SPEAKER_03

That was perfect, yeah. Yeah, and I remember I was touched because I had like just released Exposure Therapy, the single, and you were like, I liked Exposure Therapy. And I was like, Oh, he knows the name. Wow. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

It's also the name of your upcoming EP that comes out in what, like two, three weeks?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, in two weeks. I'm really, really excited about it. Um it's so funny because these are like a collection of songs that I like I've they were like written and recorded kind of what what I mean, what feels like a long time ago for me, but like really isn't that long. Um, and it's cool to get to release them into the world now. And I wrote tennis practice last year. Um, I was working summer camp and wrote the song on the bus home. But so it's cool now that, you know, a year later I'm going to be working summer camp again. And it's nice to have that song. Honestly, like for me too. Um because I'm sure I'm gonna be dealing with some of the same sort of stuff.

SPEAKER_00

So yeah, so in case anybody listening isn't familiar, tennis practice is about an experience that you had working as a tennis coach where some little kid said something racist to you.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, I wrote the song. I, you know, I think tennis is a very tends to be an elite space, and specifically in LA, that is that feeling is very, very palpable. And I I get micro-aggressed all the time. And oftentimes I am the only person of color um in any given room, any given court, any given I I'm working at an academy right now. There are about like a hundred kids that go, not one of them is a kid of color. And you know, I get micro-aggressed all the time. And I was working the summer camp, and it just it, you know, it it hurts more, I think, when this kid was like my favorite kid, by the way, and he was six, and like he just said, you know, like Kat, you all black people are ugly, like so you're ugly. And I remember just being like, oh my god, like he has no idea what he's saying. He doesn't know, he doesn't know. Like he's heard that from somebody. Um, and it was just like, man, like I want to be here for this kid and like try to sort of like rewrite that script that he has in his head. But it like it can be tiring when I'm when I feel like I'm doing that over and over and over again. And like that is not my job description, you know. Like I'm their tennis coach, but like I also want to be like a good role model for them and you know, not sort of continue a cycle, perpetuate a cycle of hate and bigotry. And I wrote that song. I remember there's something sort of this cognitive dissonance about teaching these kids who seem to be, I don't know if this is true or not, but more likely the answer is it's true that are way better off than I am. And I'm, you know, taking public transit back home. And would I love public transit? There's nothing wrong with public transit. Um, and I just remember watching him get in his car and drive away after the practice ended. And I hopped on the bus and I I started off my music career producing a lot of my songs. So oftentimes I like have a guitar loop that I like a lot that I'll write, and then I will just I write a lot of my songs when I'm walking around. Like I'll just like get inspired a moment, like pull up a guitar loop. And I had written this thing that I was like, I need to just say something and feel something, and on the bus back, I wrote the whole song. Um, and yeah. And then I didn't really think much of it, but I was showing some people some of my demos and they were like, We like that one. And I was like, Oh, really? Cool, me too.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. So that's gonna be on the upcoming EP.

SPEAKER_03

That's on the EP.

SPEAKER_00

Because it's not out yet, right?

SPEAKER_03

It's not out yet, no.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I didn't think so.

SPEAKER_03

It comes out in two weeks. Um and yeah, it's a special song to me. And I work very closely with my roommate, um, who's this guy named PJ France. He's a great producer, and he has helped me uh sort of get a lot of productions over the finish line. We co-produced this song together. Um, we also co-produced Matador together. Um and Sober, he's the best, and it's awesome because I live with him.

SPEAKER_00

So yeah, that's convenient to have somebody write in the house like that.

SPEAKER_03

Like, hey, knock knock. Like, are you free?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. So being a person of color in kind of elite spaces, I feel like is something that you are very used to. Yeah, I was gonna say, because you went to Yale for undergrad, right?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, I did.

SPEAKER_00

And remind me what you studied at Yale.

SPEAKER_03

I studied um history, specifically history of the global south. So like Latin American history, some African history, but not really too much. Um and yeah, I did that was very, very fun. I think a lot of the classes I were taking was sort of like a pre-law track, a lot of philosophy stuff, um, sort of just like a general liberal arts education. And yeah, I really, really enjoyed it.

SPEAKER_00

But if I remember from the conversation we were having at the venue, though, you some class you took, some professor you had is kind of what encouraged you or gave you that that little push to pursue music more seriously.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. It was, I feel like my trajectory in music is sort of like, you know, there's a lot of a lot of different things bloomed out of COVID. And I my sort of like passion hobby growing up and as a kid, the thing that I was thrown into and very also very um attracted to was tennis. And during COVID, I I kid you not, I was sent home freshman year of college.

SPEAKER_00

And brutal.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, freshman year. I mean, for the better, my life my life changed. I changed, I got home freshman year of college and where's home?

SPEAKER_00

Where was home?

SPEAKER_03

New Jersey.

SPEAKER_00

New Jersey, okay.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, and I opened my laptop and I didn't do music at all, ever. Opened my laptop. The first video that came up on YouTube. I was like, I'm gonna figure out something to do and have fun with, was a video of Daeglo before he was famous, and it was him going through a logic project. And I didn't know anything about logic, didn't know what that was, didn't do music, didn't play an instrument. And I was like, okay, that's what I'm gonna do. That's what I'm gonna spend my time doing. I just I chose it genuinely, so randomly. And for the next year and a half, I would spend six hours a day learning how to produce in logic, learning how to play guitar, singing, and it was all I did. And then I got back to Yale as a junior. I wasn't a part of any music group. I didn't know, I just didn't do music. And I was like, you know what? Maybe it would be cool since I just spent all this time doing music to try to join a group. And then I joined a folk group and that was great. And I didn't, again, didn't really think much of it. It was fun. I learned about folk music. I'd never even heard the word folk music in my life. And I didn't, I didn't even know. I just saw a banjo and I was like, that seems interesting to me. Um, and I didn't I later was a part of a cappella, but I didn't want to be a part of a cappella.

SPEAKER_00

What's the name of the I the Yale uh a cappella group? It's like the whip the the whiffin poofs?

SPEAKER_03

Yes. So I was in that the year later. But anyway, I was just sort of like I I'd done it over COVID and I was like, maybe I'll just like you know join groups here at school. Um and the Whiffin Poofs is a very, very old group, and I felt I felt like I was not qualified to be. I was like one of the only ones who could. There were two of us who couldn't read music. I was one of them, and I was like, oh my God. Um, but I think like being in a folk group before had very much so helped me because that is like the oral tradition. So I was just like memorizing music as I was learning it on the fly, you know, which was hard, but then it beat I memorized pieces faster than most people in the group just because I had to, you know.

SPEAKER_02

Right.

SPEAKER_03

But anyway, my senior year, this is this is not even like two years ago. This is like like a year, it's almost years ago. It's like a year and like 10 months ago. I've been releasing music now for almost two years, not even two years yet. I took a class, and it was a songwriting course, and the professor, bless his heart, his name is Mike Erico. And I didn't even like get into the class originally. I like thought him to be in that class. I just like wanted to take a fun class my last semester of college. And anyway, I'm in this class, and you know, I'm like not really doing the readings, whatever. It's like songwriting. I could I care about it, but it's like it's I'm focused on other things, you know. And I but I'm having a lot of fun and I really enjoy it. And I get I end up getting coffee with a professor, and he's like, that song that you wrote for class, like you have to release it. And I had written and like produced out hunting days for the class, um, which is my top song right now. And he was like, You have to release the song, like release the song. And I was like, Okay, I mean, I don't even like know how to do that. And he helped me figure it out, and then I basically moved to LA. It did well on TikTok as things do on the internet, and really changed the trajectory of my life. And almost here, two years later, I'm sat in LA. I never thought I would move to LA ever in my life. I effectively don't use my college degree. My parents are so confused. They've seen me sing like twice in their life. They're like, What are you doing? And I'm like, no, please, like, I it's it's I can I'm trying to make it work. And they're like, girl. So, but it's been such a journey and it's been so fun. And I think like one of the great things about, you know, I've been doing, I guess, like singing and studying music on my own terms now, I guess, for the past sort of like five-ish, six-ish years. I mean, COVID was a long time ago now. And there's I still feel like I feel like a kid in a candy store, you know, everything feels so new still. And I remember my my manager's husband is also my is my music director. And the first time that I had a show that I I I can't remember, I had like never used in ears before. And I remember he was like looking at me like, Kat, it's so fun to watch you try this for the first time. Because like he was like, I forgot what it's like to be doing that for the first time. And I was like, Yeah, yeah, everything feels so new and so fresh. And I I feel no pressure at all. You know what I mean? Like, so it's pretty great, and I love it, and I feel like I have a lot to say, honestly.

SPEAKER_00

So that's I mean, that's really incredible. That's really, really incredible that you just kind of decided one day that this is what you're gonna do, and here you are. And Hunting Days, I just looked earlier today, like it's creeping up on four million streams on Spotify alone.

SPEAKER_03

Crazy.

SPEAKER_00

Like, that's so many streams. Why do you do you have a sense of why Hunting Days is performing uh so well relative to some of your other songs?

SPEAKER_03

I don't know. I don't know what it is. I think like, yeah, it's just like it's a really fun song. And when I think, when I listen back to my discography, like there's a really cool blend of I sort of like was going for like a neo soul drum vibe coupled with trap, hi hats, and banjo. There's just something really alluring about that. I also do think that the chorus is like, what the hell? You know what I mean? Yeah, back very much. It's like, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

It's dark, it's dark, but like in like a kind of almost tongue-in-cheek way.

SPEAKER_03

100%. And it's it's funny because I that song live, I opened for Monrovia. I opened for Monrovia in the fall of 2025. And of course, I was performing in front of a lot of people who had were not familiar with my music. There were some that were, but the vast majority were they were not. And Hunting Days was a song that I was felt very, very happy, sort of like trans seemed to transcend generations. People were like, I get that, yes. Um, and I really liked that because I think these days I am trying to create music that I feel like will speak to me no matter what age I am. Um and I feel like that's really important for the kind of music that I'm trying to make. And yeah, I really enjoy the types of music that I that I love very, very deeply and always come back to sort of have like um they remind me of what I like to think of as like a naked photo shoot, and like you're like, it could be any time.

SPEAKER_01

We're hanging up my resume at the waterfront, nobody's cared about me like that. Counted your breaths on a car ride back home. I wish I could watch us on a TV screen, kissing in your bed until morning.

SPEAKER_00

What was your like music listening habits? Like, what was it like in your household growing up? Because it's just yeah, I think it's unusual for somebody to have no music experience whatsoever to then just you know, what were you like 19?

SPEAKER_03

I think I was 19, 20.

SPEAKER_00

To just like decide, you know what, like I'm gonna I'm gonna do this now. Um, most people you talk to started, you know, learning guitar when they were 12, 13, or whatever. Um, so I would I'm curious as to what what kind of stuff you were listening to and what influence music had on your life growing up.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, I mean, my parents really were just sort of like radio listeners. My dad was a big Steely Dan fan. That was one thing that he religiously played. And Steely Dan. I have been listening to Steely Dan, I love Steely Dan. And a lot of really cool, kind of like jazzy stuff is happening in that music. Um, so I think that was really cool. Influence. My mom immigrated from Sierra Leone, and she would play a ton of Afro beats, um, specifically a ton of music that used a lot of African electric guitar, um, which was very, very cool. And yeah, I think those were, I mean, sort of like my main musical, I wouldn't say influences, but my main musical, the sort of the context of my music upbringing.

SPEAKER_00

So, but then okay, so you grew up listening to to Steely Dan and some of the music that your mom brought with her. What um what how did you end up kind of working on the music that you started working on? Was it that that club that you joined, the folk club?

SPEAKER_03

Like, truly, truly, truly, truly. Okay, a part of the story that I left out, the reason that I tried to join out for that specific folk group, this is so pitch perfect. My my freshman year of college, I was in this dorm called Timothy Dwight dorm, which is there are four dorms at Yale that like all of the freshmen and sophomores and juniors and seniors all live together. I was in one of them. I got approached in the dining hall by a girl freshman year, maybe like week two or week one. And she was like, Hey, are you in I-24? That was my dorm number. I was like, Yeah, yeah, I'm in I-24. I'd never seen her before. And she was like, I think I can, I think we share a wall. I think I sometimes hear you singing. I was mortified. I was like, oh my God, I'm so sorry. I I I'm so I'll stop. And she said, No, no, no, I'm actually in a folk group. You should try out. And I was like, I don't even know what that is. I don't do music. Like, and she was like, it's okay, you don't have to do music. Just come to, we've got this, like, we're playing a show tonight. You should come to it. Um, it's at this chapel on campus, whatever. I go to that show, I stay for one song and I leave. And I'm like, I'm not doing this. Like, I don't, I don't do this. I, this is just not something that I do.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, what was it about it that you were just like, no, I don't do this?

SPEAKER_03

I was just like, this is like me going to like an axe throwing event. Like, I just I just don't throw axes, you know what I mean? And I don't really have like a deep interest for this at present. And then I had spent a year and a half basically serendipitously doing music after I'd seen that Day Glow video, because that's just part of my personality. I'm like, I want something to like love and invest in. And if I'm sitting in my room, I'm gonna go insane for like a year. Um And it may as well have been like long form prose writing, but it it happened to be music because that was the video that came up. And anyway, I got back to college and I was like, what was the name of that group that girl was saying? And I was like, oh, Tangle Up and Blue. Okay, like I'm just gonna try out for Tangled and Blue. And then I was introduced to the banjo and the mandolin and the guitar. And well, I had been playing guitar at that point over COVID, but that was like my introduction to folk music. And I loved it so much. And I loved the storytelling. And, you know, I by trade, I guess in school, I was doing a ton of prose writing, a ton of reading. History sort of requires as much. And I felt like I liked being able to see a story in a song. And I felt very, very inspired. Um, you know, singing about Cole and wherever. So it was great.

SPEAKER_00

Um it's interesting you mentioned that because I one of the things I jotted down that I wanted to talk to you about was the fact that your your song, like the imagery in your songwriting, does feel almost like it's coming off the pages of a novel, right? Like I'm thinking about Blackout, which is your latest release. And like there's the opening line is about the textured yellow ground in New York. Um, you talk about the wooden table groaning underneath your elbows, like those are such like descriptive adjectives that you normally would read in in a novel and not necessarily in a song. But how did you come upon writing songs in that way and like choosing those words?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. I think like I I write a lot, like how I journal. Um I think that yeah, I just basically write how I have been writing all of my life, but now just put it into song form. I think the other thing too, the best advice, I think, you know, the best advice that I got from that songwriting teacher that I had, Mike Harriko, was if it feels like you shouldn't say it, if you write something and you're like, I probably shouldn't say that, you should 100% say it. And that has been sort of like has been a North Star. There have been times where I'm like, I cannot say that. That is too much. And I'm like, well, now I have to keep it. Those are the lines that when I'm playing playing shows, those are the lines that people are singing back to, which is kind of interesting. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Well, did it take some time to kind of get past any like nervousness or I don't know, like just self-consciousness about being so vulnerable and raw with with some of the things you sing about?

SPEAKER_03

Oh, for sure. I still don't think I'm past a lot of it. I think, yeah. I still don't think I'm past a lot of it. I think I think it's like for me, it should feel I think it should feel really personal. I I like, you know, performing on stage and feeling like I am sort of like leaving a part of myself with the audience. And because you also never know how someone's gonna sort of interface with something that you say. It took time to be confident about it, and I'm still not all the way there.

SPEAKER_01

Think of stepping in now it's proven and my party in the fraction look at five guys. It's don't want it's only got it's close to when I'm feeling hopeful. Drinking around and staying out. I feel like I'll sound when I'm black out.

SPEAKER_00

The first song that I came across of yours is Matador. Um like I don't know, I think shortly after you released it, I was scrolling through TikTok as one does, and Matador popped up and just immediately, immediately grabbed me. There's a line in it, and I actually mentioned this to you when we were uh when we met before. Um, the line, I can be your Rorschach test when blood splatters, I swear it looks its best. Like, hands down, one of my favorite lyrics of any song ever.

SPEAKER_03

Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00

I really how like talk to me about that. Like, where is I I just want I want to know everything about that line.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. I think I I so I wrote that second verse, and I I feel like at the time when I wrote when I wrote those collection of songs, so it's also like pseudo doctors too, and like sober, I was doing a a lot of sort of like self-therapizing, which I think is like, which is not like by that I mean I was like, which is so bad that I shouldn't have done this or been doing this, but I would like go to Reddit for advice, or even worse, ask Chat GB Chat GBT for interpersonal advice. And it was just like the worst, the worst thing you can do. Like you should, you know, you gotta you have to like have conversations with actual people. And um, yeah, I just I feel like I I came across a Reddit entry that was talking about um in one of these when I was trying like sort of self-therapize, like Borschrak test and like what you see in them and like what it means, and blah blah blah. And I was just sort of relating that to like a kind of toxic relationship that I had been in, and you know, seeing something, you know, when blood splatters, it looks its best, like finding the beauty and things that are bad, like when you shouldn't be, when you shouldn't be, you know.

SPEAKER_00

So yeah, because that's kind of the the theme of the whole song, or at least what I take away from it, is the idea that it's like, you know, uh like you're the the bull chasing a red flag. Um, and like the you know, red flag is a term that's used a thousand times a day now about like, you know, green flag, red flag, beige flag, that play on like matadors and the bull. I'd never I've never really seen that comparison before.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, yeah. I like I think it's interesting because sort of ostensibly you would think that a bull is far stronger than a matador. But of course, I mean of physically, yes, of course, but the whole sort of game and theatrics have been, you know, sort of manicured in a way that it doesn't even matter how majestic and how beautiful this animal is. It is part of a bigger like scheme of it's like some sort of like puppeteer thing happening and it's not going to survive, you know. And it's like putting on a show for people, um, sort of against its will in a weird way.

SPEAKER_01

I swear it looks its best.

SPEAKER_00

Why LA? Yeah, when you so when you decided you were gonna pursue music, you know, you could have done the Nashville thing that a lot of people do. You could have gone to New York City, I guess. Um, why did you decide on LA?

SPEAKER_03

I decided to move to LA, one, because I wanted to change. I I'm from the East Coast and I wanted to try living on the West Coast for a little bit. Um and I had a few friends in music that like PJ, for example, who's one of my roommates, who had moved out to LA the year above me at Yale. And so I was like, okay, I know like three or four people. That's I that's four more than I know in Nashville. And I will just check out LA and see what happens. On top of that, too. Um, I knew that I could find a way to teach tennis, and it's far easier to do that, like, and live off of that when the climate is like more predictable, you know.

SPEAKER_00

It's been just about exactly two years since you've been releasing music.

SPEAKER_03

Almost two years now, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

What has been the best part? What has been the worst part, and what's been the biggest surprise?

SPEAKER_03

The biggest surprise, I think, I think this is probably true in a lot of things in life that music people, I feel like I've met people that I'd like seen on the internet, and they're just people, and also people like the music industry folks are we're all working with similar information, and a lot of it is just like a lot of guessing happening, and yeah, I think I feel like I have I'm surprised at the amount of agency that I that I feel like I have, you know? Um yeah, which I think is what do you mean by that? Um, I think like you can really to a certain extent, you can sort of build your own path, like make your own path. I produce ton, like you know, you can learn how to produce something and advertise it. And yeah, like it's it's kind of cool the amount of agency that that one has. And I again am like surprised at, you know, I'll meet people that I think are like stages, like wow, oh my god, what a beautiful, fantastic career. And it's like we're all still trying to figure everything out. And I mean, I'm definitely trying to figure things out, and it's sort of a it maybe makes the world feel a little closer. Um yeah, so that I found I feel like is surprising. Um, because sometimes you like look at people and you're like, they've got it, you know, they've got it all figured out. Yeah, they've got it figured out, but everyone's just the technology's changing, the world is changing, and you know, we're all just trying to keep up. Um the worst thing. I think sometimes it can be a little lonely. Like I live very far away from all my family, and for as fun as music can be, a lot of times it's like, especially the way that I write music, I'm in a room by myself before I bring it to anybody else. And especially on tour too, sometimes things can get lonely, but it's you know it's uh all about having a great community. And I think I've been trying to do a really good job of building community here in LA. I think moving to a new city the first few years, it could be it could be any city, it might feel lonely. Um yeah, I think the best part of music for me, hands down, would be the community of people that I've made here. I mean, like my manager is one of my I trust her more than anything. I trust her husband so much. I love the friends and the peers that I make music with. And it's sort of like another kind of intimacy that's kind of hard to explain. Like I walk into a room and I have never met, there could be times where I've never met this person, and I leave having just hung out for like six hours and vocalizing very, very sort of intimate details of my life because art requires as much. And I feel like I you just make friends fast that way. Um and yeah, it can be it can be really fantastic, and there are a lot of really cool people pursuing cool things.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, there's no time for small talk when you're like getting in a room with somebody and trying to do something creative, like you kind of have to dive all the way in right away, and if you're not willing to do that, you're probably not gonna get anywhere. Um, and I love that about just creatives in general, right? Just being around creative minds, like nobody wants to talk about the weather or you know, other silly things that that you know, small talk with people about. Like everybody wants to jump right in and just talk about you know their emotions and their feelings. That's honestly been one of the greatest things about doing this podcast, is like all the really interesting people from honestly around the world that I've met. And um just yeah, it's of expanding my my my friendship network uh far and wide, which has been really cool.

SPEAKER_03

Cool.

SPEAKER_01

That's just good memory, something like a fairy tale death on the screen and flash more than a reality, back to reality.

SPEAKER_00

The last section of the podcast is called Final Spin. It's just rapid fire questions. First thing that comes to mind. Okay. If you could share a stage with any artist living or dead, who would it be?

SPEAKER_03

Um rapid fire, rapid fire. Um Billy Eilish.

SPEAKER_00

What was the first album you owned that was just yours?

SPEAKER_03

John Mayer, Room for Squares.

SPEAKER_00

They're making a biopic about your life. Who's playing the lead role?

SPEAKER_03

Ooh. I say Jordan Peel. I know I'm not a guy, but Hell yeah.

SPEAKER_00

He'd he would do it.

SPEAKER_03

Like he would be so funny. I'd throw on a wig. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Um, is there an artist or a band that you love that people might be surprised by?

SPEAKER_03

Ooh, I love I'm a huge Pink Panthers fan. That really gets me going. But I don't know if that's surprising.

SPEAKER_00

Pink Panthers? I'm not familiar.

SPEAKER_03

Pink Panthers? You've probably heard of music. It's like more electronic stuff.

SPEAKER_00

Okay. Yeah, I'm not super well versed in the electronic world. That's like one of the one of the weak spots of my music knowledge.

SPEAKER_03

If I need to get the energy up, Pink Panthers.

SPEAKER_00

Okay. I'm adding this to my gym playlist, is what you said. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, cool. Um, and then the final question is who's an artist with less than 100,000 monthly listers on Spotify that you think people should be listening to?

SPEAKER_03

There's a girl that is, I don't know if she's above it or below, but she's sometimes around that line. I mean, we're pretty much the same size. She's fantastic, and she's always in my like uh Spotify sounds, like whatever other people like. Um her name's Beesin, and she's really great. And I saw her perform at a showcase here, and I was like, oh my god. She sounds so incredible live. I was really blown away. Um yeah, she's got got this song called Keeping Score that's really good. Um yeah, B Syn. B-E-E-S-O-N.

SPEAKER_00

I feel like I've seen that name pop up. Yeah, I should I should dive in. Katumu, thank you so much. I really appreciate you doing this. It's so great chatting with you.

SPEAKER_03

Awesome. Thank you, and thank you for being such a thoughtful interviewer. I really appreciate the time you that you spent to you know clearly look at my discography and care.

SPEAKER_00

So I appreciate I appreciate that. My the only thing like for me, this is only about helping promote music that I think is good. Like, I just that's my only expectation. If a if a few more people start listening to your music because I had you on the podcast, then it's a win, as far as I'm concerned.

SPEAKER_03

So that's so nice.

SPEAKER_00

Katuo is playing Bottle Rock in Napa on Friday, May 22nd. She is also playing in San Francisco the night before, Thursday, May 21st at the Swedish American Hall. That is also part of Bottle Rock's After Dark series. And if you're listening to this on release day, Monday, April 20th, mark your calendar for Wednesday because her EP exposure therapy comes out on April 22nd. I uh I actually went to an EP release event she did uh this weekend at a tennis court, and that was very cool. She kicked my ass at tennis, of course. You can follow her socials at Katumu, and while you are there, go ahead and follow the first spin socials at first. Oh, it's time to take my Alexa, bro. You can follow the first spin socials at firstspin podcast. If there's someone you think I should check out, please email me at firstspinpod at gmail.com. Also, I release a new playlist every Sunday. It's a mix of new songs by old artists, old songs by new artists, first spin alum, future first spin guests, whatever is vibing that week, there will definitely be some Katumu on there this week. You can find it on Spotify and Apple Music under First Spin Week of Four 2026. That is all for this week. Thank you for listening. And you know what? Send this to your mom. I think she's gonna like it.