New Single Processes Dive Bar Encounter

SB Khi, a multi-genre star of the younger, post-pandemic-onset generation of musicians in the New Haven scene, made a stop at a dive bar in Pennsylvania when he had an encounter that would end up inspiring his newest single.

Khi was coming back from tour in Indiana with his band Esmer, led by frontman Justin Esmer. The dive bar was not their first choice of where to eat, but it was the only place they could find.

The spot practically screamed, ​“You don’t belong here,” complete with Trump paraphernalia and disquieting stares at the five people of color and two white people who made up the band at that time.

Khi had been commenting on the weird vibes with bandmate Cam Hall, a.k.a. CamyX!, when another bandmate (at the time) interrupted, ​“Nobody’s gonna shoot you. Shut up,” proceeding to call Khi racist against the white people in the room and cause a scene so bad the band had to leave the bar. The bandmate later proclaimed that white privilege doesn’t exist.

The experience simmered in Khi’s mind for months. He thought about ​“how wrong someone could be and still feel justified.”

Then came ​“What a Guy,” his newly released single.

Khi’s music floats through R&B, alternative, and funk, just as Khi himself slides through the scene as a supporting instrumentalist to other artists, a sound technician, and a solo artist.

For the past year, SB Khi has been away from Connecticut, studying at Berklee College of Music in Boston. I caught up with him by phone Wednesday afternoon to ask how school is going and get the scoop behind his new song.

Perhaps the best way to tell this story is through the song itself, one section at a time (lyrics in italics):

I stayed where I was
Hands balled in my pocket
Teeth restrained my tongue

The syncopated cowbell-like percussion in the upper register throughout ​“What a Guy” sounds like it could be a sample from the universe of Brazil’s baile funk. The actual source is both closer to home and worlds away. This sound, along with a few other whimsical samples in the track, is one that many fans of Khi’s generation are all too familiar with: the metallic clink of a key falling in the 1992 Nintendo game The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past.

Khi said he is ​“really big on sampling,” finding inspiration in J Dilla, Pharrell, and British producer ROMderful, especially in the beats. It is through their influence that Khi says he learned how to ​“put swing in my drums,” pushing the kick late or the snare early, making the drums ​“so much bouncier, livelier.”

Khi took influence from Latin rhythms as well, even if the samples themselves were from the far-off lands of Hyrule. He mentioned an Afro-Latin ​“clave” rhythmic pattern he uses often in his work and said he even planned a full samba groove section in ​“What a Guy,” before deciding it would make the track too long. It’s one of those things he’s looking forward to exploring in a live version.

I deserve applause
A standing ovation
Thank God for my patience

Khi sat on the feelings behind his song from August all the way to Dec. 31 of last year, unable to let the year end without saying something. As he tells it, he just had a restless night, got up to write. Two weeks later the track was written, finished, and sent to distribution. It was the fastest he had ever written a song.

Cuz your eyes look better blacker and your smile looks better gone
I could have your memory jogging if I gave a right for wrongs
And I bet you’ll never realize
And you’ll sing the same old songs
Live and die and rot in bliss if that’s the high that you ride on

The bassline shines at this section, melodic and thick under Khi’s smooth condemnations. Khi performed all the instruments and vocals on this track, a choice that was both necessary for the frenetic way the parts came together — ​“OK, this needs drums, this needs a bassline” — and helpful for the deeply personal nature of the song. Khi said he loves collaboration and happy accidents, but for this one, it was ​“nice to be fully in control.”

Oh, what a guy
What a stand-up guy you are
What a guy
What a guy, oh, bless your heart
What a guy
What a stand-up guy you are
What a guy
What a guy, oh, bless your heart

So, how does he feel about the guy now?

For the most part, SB Khi said, the anger has gone, leaving him feeling ​“ten times lighter” in the post-song-release times. In fact, just a few days before our phone conversation, he ran into the ​“guy” in question while out with Esmer and Hall. He felt a ​“flash of anger,” which left as soon as it came, and then peace.

“It felt so good,” Khi recalled. ​“I’m really grateful.”

Do you feel like a man?
Oh-so tough and masculine
But you’ve no love, compassion

Khi’s song lands in a time when the youth are redefining what it means to be a man, what it means to be tough and brave. While previous generations spun themselves around in tired defenses of tortured artists, men who got a societal pass to wear their problematic behavior as some kind of badge of how serious they were, the new kids on the block are calling bullshit. Especially in the indie music scene in New Haven, the wholesomeness in young artists’ support for one another shines through, and it’s nutritious for the art.

“What a Guy” might seem like an angry diatribe against one ​“guy,” but it’s also a celebration of bandmates who stood up for Khi when it all went down, eventually leading to the guy’s removal from the band. 

Khi gave a special shoutout to Esmer in his conversation with me, emphasizing, ​“That was a very hard situation for him as the band leader, the frontman.” Beyond frontman duties, as a friend, ​“he went to bat for me.”

And so you raise your hand
Sake of your theatrics
You’ve torn it all past patching

This verse is the last of these magic groups of threes, a pattern that evokes unfinished business from the start of the song. The listener isn’t left to linger in that anticipatory space too long, though — Khi follows these sections with stable, heavy-hitting pre-chorus lead-ups of four lines all rhyming together, culminating in that catchy repetition of ​“What a guy” over and over again in the chorus.

You know, your pride looks better broken and your ego better dead
Claim to praise a higher power but your lies paint your hand red
Righteous boy who couldn’t handle if a man stepped in his stead
Must be bones inside your closet or the monster in your bed

I asked Khi how it felt to know that people are singing along to his song now, that they agree or at least vibe to what he is saying. ​“It’s very reassuring,” Khi responded. ​“In that moment, I truly felt alone in that situation.”

Since the song has come out, he’s had many people ask him about the story, and he has been able to see how it resonates with them. Even people enjoying the song for the beat, Khi remarked, does something special for him.

Oh, what a guy
What a stand-up guy you are
What a guy
What a guy, oh, bless your heart
What a guy
What a stand-up guy you are
What a guy
What a guy, oh, bless your heart

One month out from the track’s release, Khi is already working on a live version of the song through student-led record label Green Line Records from Northeastern University in Boston. Though at times he has encountered a ​“bit of a weird culture” in Boston, where ​“you have as much value to some people as you have talent” and ​“they will not rock with you” unless you prove you have the chops, Khi has found pockets of community who are more his style.

“I’ve found my group of people,” Khi said, ​“which I’m grateful for.”

Cuz I know what your mirror tells you
Fooled yourself, I see right through you
And I hope all that still clings to you
It slips off when they see the true you
Cuz I know what your mirror tells you
Fooled yourself, I see right through you
And I hope all that still clings to you
It slips off when they see
(Bass)

Like Timbaland calling for Justin Timberlake to ​“Take ​‘em to the bridge” in 2006’s ​“SexyBack,” Khi calls for bass right before his 30-second instrumental solo that closes out the song. Originally a keyboardist, SB Khi discovered bass ​“about three or four years ago,” and it has become his main instrument ever since.

“You said, ​‘Where you going?’”

Absent from the official lyrics of the song, the last thing audible in the piece is SB Khi’s mother asking about his plans for the day. He recorded every second of the song either in his dorm room at Berklee or at his home in Connecticut, and when he finished the last part of the song’s instrumentals he didn’t realize his mic was live as well. His mom poked in to ask a question and Khi ended up liking the way it sounded, so he left it in.

“I want to take everything I learned and bring it back,” Khi said about the current and future geography of his music practice. He plans on coming back to New Haven, a city that he says has taught him friendliness, coziness, and a sense of community, and sharing the resources he gained in his time away. I trust he will do all that and more. If SB Khi can turn months of anger into cool, mellow vocals on a lyrical flow that bites hard, over a funky bassline and samples from The Legend of Zelda, he can transform anything.