Student Spotlight- Keaton Curtis
By Timmy Keil
Owasso High School beatmaker Keaton Curtis has demonstrated the true path of an artist and has achieved accolades that even the most experienced wish to achieve.
Photo of Keaton Curtis taken by Timmy Keil
Keaton Curtis is a 17-year-old Owasso senior and has been making money for his beats on youtube since 2018. Since then, Curtis has achieved many accomplishments, such as hitting his first million streams with a self-produced beat. The song was published under the Rap duo “Homicidesquad” and was performed live in Brooklyn when the duo opened for Playboi Carti earlier this year.
“Hitting my first million was cool, but it’s also weird in a sense. Lots of producers like myself would say the same thing. We do all of this work hoping to get the music into the right hands, but then it often seems like that’s where the progression stops. Like, I won’t ever see the royalties for the song, but I’m also okay with that because I get my satisfaction from knowing that other people are enjoying something that I created.”
The community has made Curtis grow tired of the genre, for now. His mind is vast, and he has found himself dissatisfied with the lack of creativity that he can express solely through making beats.
“I just found myself not being satisfied with music anymore. I wanted something that felt new and to find the community that comes with it. I’ve dealt with a lot of nonsense from the community and a lot of the beef seems to come from petty issues. I’m just ready to see what it’s like in other genres of music. I still make beats because I’m good at it, but I’ve changed a lot as a person, and my musicality has too.”
Through Cutis’s dissatisfaction, he has opened up his musical arsenal by learning to play guitar and shifting his sound from a signature sharp and distorted hyper pop to now being influenced by vast and euphoric shoegaze.
Curtis’s social presence may not be as wide-reaching as it is online, but he is looking to change that.
“I’ve done so much work with people online, and I always will, but as I’m changing fundamentally, I find myself craving to work with people in person. Music is so expressive, and I just want to be in the room whenever that kind of work is taking place.”
Curtis’s self-awareness puts his creativity into perspective. Rather than beating the same bush of familiarity, he understands the beauty behind uncomfortable situations, such as making music with new people in person.
Aside from his Prada sunglasses, Curtis, on the outside, is a simply quiet and polite guy who would never dare give the illusion of an almost famous producer and brilliant musical mind. Yet his online footprint puts into perspective how talented he is and his variety of musical capabilities.