Centralia Native Edges Into The HipHop Limelight

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As a Centralia native, Jason Kennedy feels the gravitational pull Centralia has on a young person, and it’s not always a good thing. Now, at 34 years old and an up and coming rapper, he wants to use his music as a lesson that the next generation doesn’t have to be trapped by it. 

“When I was there it was meth; now I see it’s heroin,” he said. 

Kennedy goes by the moniker “Krisis” for his music. Recently he’s partnered with Jack Skiles to form a duo called State of Krisis. They haven’t hit the big time yet, but Kennedy thinks the “make it or break it” moment is coming next summer. 

In the last few years, Krisis has shared the stage with world-famous musicians such as T-Pain, The Ying Yang Twins and Tech-9, so he’s optimistic about what’s ahead. He’s piqued the interests of the record labels Def Jam and Atlantic and found himself performing in front of their talent scouts, he said. Now that he and his partners are on their radar, they have to convince the labels they’re good enough to be signed. 

There’s a lot of work to be done between now and next summer when their new album is released, and he and his partners are funding it themselves. 

 

As a young teenager, fitting in wasn’t easy for Kennedy, but finding hip hop helped him find confidence and give him a vision of his future. Suddenly the self-described “class dufus” created a new version of himself and decided not to be insignificant, to impact people’s lives.

But even with that new motivation, escaping Lewis County and stepping into the limelight hasn’t been easy.  

Kennedy grew up at the tail end of what’s known as the Golden Age of rap. It was a period between the late ’80s and mid-’90s where rap dominated the music scene. Notorious B.I.G., N.W.A. and Tupac Shakur, to name only a few, chronicled the raw and usually violent tales of life in the inner city. 

Songs about gang violence, drug use and violence toward women terrified parents in middle America, but excited their children. Most people of his generation didn’t embrace the violence but they did embrace the music. Kennedy is no exception. He loves the artform, but resists what he considers the fake gangsterism of modern hip hop and doesn’t include it in his own music. 

“We play to fans who work 12 hours a day, go home and take care of the family then drink a six-pack of beer,” he said. “Our philosophy, so to speak, and our content isn’t violence, drugs and nonsense driven. …We’re here for the working man because we are the working man.” 



Currently he lives with his girlfriend in Pullman. She’s going to school and he works two jobs, splitting his seveb-day work week between bartending, cooking and performing. 

Kennedy said he’s worked behind just about every bar in Centralia while he honed his style and scraped and saved for recording time. For a short period of time, he was even homeless. 

“I had nothing, but through music I was inspired to keep going,” he said. 

 

A few years ago he moved to Longview for a job, but after the business failed, he considered coming back home, but a good friend in Centralia convinced him to do otherwise. 

“He told me don’t come back, if you come back it’ll be a failure,” he said. “He wasn't’ telling me that to hurt my feelings, he was trying to motivate me. If I wouldn’t have listened to him then it wouldn't have happened. It’s like a guy digging for diamonds that gets an inch away and gives up and walks away.”

The move proved fortuitous. He’s connected with a couple music promoters and found himself as the opening act for some big names in Spokane, Portland and Seattle. He said he still tries to come back to Centralia once a year to perform. His latest show at The Hub featured an associate of the Wu-Tang Clan. 

Some good things have already happened, but the year ahead will be something of a decision point for he and his partners. The new album, video and singles will hit the Internet and fm radio stations in the summer. Kennedy and his partners will support the album with a tour, but  the question is, will they build a big enough fanbase to intrigue the record labels enough to get them signed?

“We’ll take one more step put us at the door,” Kennedy said. “It’s kind of make it or break it moment, but we’re putting ourselves in the best position.”