NMNJ Artist of the Week: Kidschiz

DaCorey Smith, also known as ‘Kidschiz’ (pronounced: ‘khid-skitz’) is a multi-genre/multi-instrumentalist artist from Killeen, TX. Kidschiz started to grasp the full idea of being a musician at the age of 16 years old, during his Junior year of high school. Although, subconsciously he’d always desired the idea as a youngen. Growing up Kidschiz was exposed to a variety of soul, rhythm & blues, and hip hop because of his mother’s musical interests. He’d always record rap songs over instrumentals onto cassette tapes in middle school. He would also perform choreographed dances to KC & Jojo songs in his neighborhood with childhood friends.

DaCorey always enjoyed the idea of performing and feeding off the audiences energy. It wasn’t until his Junior year in 2007, when he picked up his first guitar which eventually lead to the interest of other instruments and genres. After graduating high school in 2009, DaCorey had joined and rented out a house with his first actual band, paradisebro! It was during those next few years after that he had gained much more musical knowledge. Paradisebro! was a psychedelic music group of three, and for Kidschiz this was exciting and different. He had picked up playing keyboard and bass during the few years spent with the band.

Eventually the band separated and Kidschiz started the solo act, Myri Ouye. Myri Ouye was an acoustic alternative/ folk/ pop project that started to expand around his city, but there was something missing. It was as if he’d strayed away from his musical taste that he’d been raised on. After realizing this DaCorey joined the Hip Hop group Free Sols, a music group that consisted of two other MC’s, and this was the start of the ‘Kidschiz’ movement. The music group Free Sols only lasted for about a year, but DaCorey knew this wasn’t the end of ‘Kidschiz’. For the next couple of years after the split he spent the time learning different software for music and developing his own unique sound.

First official single, ‘JukeBox’ produced by Bay Area producer Jaay, was released December 21, 2013 which caught the attention of existing and new listeners with it’s energetic hip hop sound and conscious lyrics. Later Kidschiz had teamed up with England producer ‘HedJet’ and they had both released the single ‘Just You Wait’ on March 18, 2014. DaCorey took the opportunity to teach himself how to create his own beats and so forth.

Kidschiz released his first all written, produced, and composed Ep ‘Organics pt.1’ on February 25, 2015 following with ‘Organics pt.2 : Why, and How?’ on Aug 1, 2015. Both Organics pt.1 & pt.2 portray his diverse taste, unique mentality, and all that he has been learning through the years of experience with different genres and instruments. “This is only the beginning”, he says. “I will manifest these dreams unto reality, and I’ll give a piece of me, through music, to the people…”