Keiko ready to sing about letting go

MANILA, Philippines — Listening to Keiko Necesario sing reveals a voice, ready to share good music and thresh out the narrative coming from a sincere place.

“I feel blessed that I could get to do both and that I could get to be both,” said Keiko on her being a singer-storyteller in a recent virtual media call. “And I love that about my art. I’m able to just express more of my songs also through my singing. I’m just happy that I could get to be both.” Keiko’s decision to make a career or a calling out of singing seems destined (yes, it was like written in the stars) since her parents are also singers.

“I think it’s also really in my blood. But the songwriting also came out naturally,” recalled Keiko. “I started writing songs when I was in Grade 3. I would come up with melodies and I would also come up with different lyrics.” The then very young tunesmith was into ballads and the theme of her first song was love.

This phase, said Keiko, focused on expressing herself and thoughts about young love. Fast-forward, she now sings a different tune. Keiko sees that singing is about purpose (let’s say to entertain listeners and touch their hearts) and also about fulfilling one’s dreams, if one may add. With what she generously shared with the members of select media, one could say that Keiko is passionate about her craft and dreams for Original Pilipino Music (OPM) artists to break into the international recording scene. She admitted that singing is also tiring even if one has a purpose, and “what more if you don’t have,” said Keiko. Having purpose is her musical motivation to keep on creating her own brand of music, which she describes as “folk.”

“The songs that I create are basically about love,” she said. “A lot of people would say they’re hopeless romantics. I would always say I’m hopeful romantic. I’ve always loved love, (like) everything that revolves around love and (its) different forms. That’s why on this album, all the songs are all about love in different forms, it can be about your crush. It can be about the one that got away. It can be about your family, your friends, your work and your purpose.”

The Warner Music Philippines artist’s latest album is Ready, Let Go, a product of her collaboration with UK-based producers Rusti Russouw and Tristan Charmichael, also known as Chasing Fantasia.

Based on the information provided to the media, Ready, Let Go is composed of tunes written before and during the recording by Keiko. Two of them were recorded in London and the rest were done here. Keiko worked on the album for six months and three weeks of it saw her doing the arrangement of 10 songs with Rusti and Tristan in Baguio. The creative process of putting together the album was described by Keiko as a fun adventure for they had to figure out which one sounded good or not and listen to different ideas and synthesize them. There was also a point when she considered it “a bit nerve-racking yet exhilarating” for the team had a timeline to deal with. Keiko is the first Filipino artist Chasing Fantasia did a collab with.

“It is about surrender,” said Keiko of Ready, Let Go, the album title, and reflecting, “that when you surrender or you let go, it is more of letting go of your fears, your worries. So you can move forward… sometimes it’s also okay to let go and see what happens.”

(For details, follow Keiko, Chasing Fantasia and Warner Music Philippines on social media.)