1. Kenna Zemedkun, known professionally as Kenna, is an Ethiopian-born American musician, philanthropist and technology creative.
21 Facts About Kenna
1. 2.
Kenna is the founder and producer of the Summit on the Summit clean water initiative, and partnered with Justin Timberlake to re-imagine the social network Myspace before Time Inc purchased it.
3.
Kenna was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where he was raised by his grandfather for the first three years of his life.
4.
Kenna's parents had escaped persecution and immigrated to England and later America; Kenna reunited with them in Cincinnati, Ohio when he was three years old.
5.
Kenna was later raised in Virginia Beach, Virginia, attending school with friends and eventual career-long collaborators Chad Hugo and Pharrell Williams.
6.
Kenna began to express an interest in music upon receiving a copy of U2's The Joshua Tree.
7.
The album inspired Kenna to teach himself piano while studying singers like Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye, as well as groups like The Cure and Duran Duran.
8.
Kenna was featured in Malcolm Gladwell's book, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking.
9.
In Malcolm Gladwell's book Blink, which is about the way people judge and make decisions in their lives, a portion of one chapter focuses on the stops, starts, and difficulties that Kenna experienced in getting his music accepted by the general public, despite the tremendous reception and enthusiasm that music executives, other musicians and a small, loyal fan base had when they heard his music.
10.
Kenna's climb took him to 18,200 feet before he fell ill from taking a sulfur-based altitude medicine, to which he had an unknown allergy.
11.
Kenna released a track from the album, entitled "Better Wise Up", in time for the Super Bowl.
12.
Kenna rerecorded and reproduced all the songs, reworking the concept for the entire series.
13.
Kenna announced the third and final volume, to be called Genius.
14.
On July 7,2007, Kenna opened the New Jersey portion of the Live Earth concert.
15.
Kenna toured with Nelly Furtado throughout various stops on her "Loose" tour.
16.
Kenna was a featured celebrity in the HP You on You project advertisement.
17.
Kenna appears along with Pharrell Williams in the music video for their collaboration with Clipse, "Life Change".
18.
In 2013, Kenna released a cover of the U2 song "Gloria" to his SoundCloud and Myspace pages, as a way to reach out to Bono, one of his biggest musical influences.
19.
When Kenna learned about the global water crisis affecting even his home village in Ethiopia, he decided to create the SUMMIT ON THE SUMMIT project, when he and friends Lupe Fiasco, Jessica Biel, Emile Hirsch and others climbed Mt.
20.
Kenna was featured in the April 2013 Details Magazine issue as one of their 2013 "Digital Mavericks" entrepreneurs.
21.
Kenna continues to curate and consult on many projects in tandem with his own music endeavors.