Today we’d like to introduce you to Megz Kelli and Chris Beale.
Megz and Chris, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I [Megz Kelli] first started writing and creating music as early as seven years old in New Orleans – where I was born and raised. In 2005, my family was displaced due to Hurricane Katrina. After a brief stay in Atlanta, my family moved to North Dallas, then to Plano. I put music aside for a while to focus on school and getting to know and adjust to my new home and way of life. Toward the end of high school, I picked back up on music and starting to find my music community again.
But then, I moved to Austin, Texas, for college, where I met and formed Magna Carda with my now-producer and musical partner Chris Beale – known as Dougie Do. Austin had always been hard to crack due to our background, genre, style and sound – an eclectic blend of Hip Hop, RnB, Jazz and Soul. Two to three years into our musical journey, and with much success in Austin, we began to branch out to follow other audiences and one of the first communities we reached out to was the blossoming RnB + Rap scene in Dallas. We started playing more shows in Deep Ellum and also doing more collaborations with fellow Dallas artists. We wanted to expand regionally – but found Dallas to be more of a second home than other cities in the region.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
One of our biggest struggles has been getting people to understand the style, sound and vision of Magna Carda. In this rap climate, popularity and likeness tend to stand out and capture most of the audiences who listen to Hip Hop and Rap. We were going back to our roots – records and sounds we grew up listening to and loving, everything from Jazz and RnB to Merengue and Classical.
So, we naturally had a different sound and way of going about crafting. We were a full five-piece live band playing Rap and that confused a lot of people. They didn’t know what to call us or how to classify and contain us, so it was off-putting to some in the beginning. But we were battling two wars at once – being different and also being a rap act in a very white city. It was hard for us to book shows prior to having out band because Rap had been stereotyped and had an ugly stigma following it. It took a lot of proving ourselves to gain respect and notoriety. And moving from city to city – coming into Dallas with our sound, we had to prove ourselves all over again.
Can you give our readers some background on your music?
Magna Carda is an American hip hop outfit based in Austin, Texas. The dynamic mc-producer duo is notable for their eclectic musical style – a genre-defying blend of rap-meets-jazz-meets-R&B-meets- electronic – and for performing with live instrumentation. Magna Carda draws inspiration from jazz, art, history, literature and world experience. The band has been most proud of staying true to themselves and not wavering even in the face of adversity.
If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
If we were to start over and do things over again, we would do a lot of things the same because our challenges have taught us a lot and we wouldn’t have the same knowledge we have now. If there’s anything we could tell ourselves, however, we’d say, stay patient and don’t rush. There’s a lesson to be gained in every loss and it doesn’t have to be fast and easy. Nothing worth keeping or having come fast and easy.
Contact Info:
- Website: magnacardamusic.com
- Email: magnacardamusic@gmail.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/magnacarda
- Facebook: facebook.com/magnacarda
- Twitter: twitter.com/magnacarda
- Other: patreon.com/magnacarda
Image Credit:
Jesus Acosta [cover], Jake Rabin [record store], CJ Cerulean [live show]
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