For years, singer and songwriter Kenyon Dixon was known as R&B’s best kept secret. He began his career in the music industry with writing credits on Tyrese’s “What Took You So Long,” off of his sixth studio album Open Invitation. That led to collaborations with some of the biggest acts in the business, such as Beyoncé, Mary J. Blige, Tank, and Coco Jones, among several others. He also wrote on Justin Timberlake’s Everything Thought It Was, further strengthening his reputation as one of the most talented musicians in the genre. Now, with years of experience and numerous accolades to his name, this Los Angeles-based artist continues to spread his wings in more ways than one.
Dixon, who is nominated for his fifth Grammy Award for the song “Can I Have This Groove,” has the sound and swagger of R&B crooners of old. He paid homage to the “golden age” with 2024’s The R&B You Love: Sounds Of The 70s. “That album was really about showcasing R&B, and the different eras that have influenced me,” Dixon tells ESSENCE. “I just really wanted to tap into just the feeling of those 70s love songs, and the sounds of Anita Baker, Marvin Gaye, and Al Green and just what that felt like. I wanted to match them and see if it was possible to find that feeling today in modern music.”
It has always been said that history repeats itself, so Kenyon’s sound is actually right on time. Having such a nostalgic sound mixed with a contemporary feel, the Watts native has found a unique style of his own. So, whether it’s creating music inspired by R&B’s best era, connecting with fans on tour, or pushing the boundaries of his creativity, Dixon exemplifies the enduring power of the genre.
ESSENCE: So I wanted to congratulate you—this is your third Grammy nomination, correct?
Kenyon Dixon: Yeah, man, this is my third as an artist, but my fifth in total, because I have two as a writer before I got artist nominations.
That’s big because some people go their whole career and don’t get that man, so that’s amazing, brother.
Yeah, man, it’s a blessing.
How do you think your career has grown since your first nomination?
Oh man, tremendously. I think when you start to get on this side of things, you just kind of get a little more clarity as far as how things work. I know as it pertains to the Grammys in particular, there are a bunch of ideas of how I thought this worked until I actually started getting nominated and I started to see just the work and stuff that goes into it. So a lot of pivoting and working smarter than harder and just developing proper strategies to be able to see results instead of just shooting in the dark all the time.
You may feel differently, but I feel like in recent years, the lines of what the R&B sound is have been blurred, but I feel like when I think of you, you’re a traditional R&B artist. In receiving this Grammy nomination, do you feel a responsibility to preserve the “essence” of what R&B is?
Man, that’s a great question. I definitely do think that the lines have been blurred. However, I can acknowledge that I think that there is space for progressiveness as far as when we think about R&B overall. One of the things we never acknowledged is that when we talk about the greats, when we talk about again, the Anitas and the Marvin’s, and even if we move forward and we’re talking about Jodeci and Faith, there were always artists who contrasted those artists. And although we mainly got the artists that we love, there was always some other type of music that didn’t sound like that, that made what we love even more special. And so I think my personal interest is making sure that feeling is always present, making sure that as a music connoisseur, but also a scholar, I always want to make sure that real music is present.
I think that’s important because you’re taught to dumb down your music almost to what they believe that the general listeners are able to comprehend. I believe as a teacher or expert in anything, you should raise people’s expectations and teach them more. So with me, I try to find that middle ground to just make music that we all love, but also heighten people’s listening experience, and show them that there can still be quality music—but it can still be fun. So yeah, I feel like I sit somewhere in the middle, but I’m completely okay with acknowledging the R&B that doesn’t sound like mine. I think that there’s a space for that as well.
Earlier you spoke about some of your heroes and the people that influenced you, Anita Baker, Marvin Gaye, etc. You’ve been praised by a couple of these legends too. How do you feel about these affirmations and do they influence your artistry and confidence at all as a performer?
I feel like it has helped me understand who I am as an artist. I think when you’re doing something independently, especially now and sticking to creating more traditional R&B, you’re already going against the grain. So my metric for success is different and doesn’t look like the wins I see from everybody else. So for me, those wins look like those affirmations from those artists that I admire because that lets me know that I’m doing something right, because these are the people that I look up to and admire. So I think it has given me some confidence and some motivation more than anything.
Going back to the album you spoke about, The R&B You Love: Soul Of The 70s. It was a powerful time in history, especially with things like the Civil Rights movement. But in terms of pride, that was a very important time for our people. What inspired you to hone in on that era and how do you think it resonates with today’s audience?
For me, man, I think again, everything around the album was really just about the feeling, but when it came to the seventies for some reason I just really resonated with it. And I think growing up in the church—I wasn’t really able to listen to R&B—the closest thing when I think about it to the feeling I get in gospel is soul music. So, I think that it’s a weird connection, but I think I identify with soul music in the way that gospel music has made me feel because that’s what I grew up on. But when you think about it, a lot of those artists, times, and those records were very telling of what was happening in society. And so a lot of those artists were coming from those struggles and in the depths of the black church and the black church experience as we know it. I think it has created some interesting synergy, but something about it is very church-like to me.
Do you ever think you would dive into a gospel record or do a gospel album?
I always get asked that, but I have no interest in doing a gospel record ever. I love it. And I think that there are people who are blessed and very effective in that space. I don’t think it’s my calling now. I don’t have a problem with collaborating in that space, but would I ever want to do a gospel album? I don’t think so.
What is touring like for you? How do you look at that in terms of connecting with your fans and how does that shape the relationship with your audience?
Man, touring for me, I use it in so many different ways. One, it’s always a metric for what I’m working on next because I take the energy of my fans and what I see and feel, and I try to take that and create music out of it that really gives you perspective into what they’re feeling and how they rock with it. But I think I love it because when you think about R&B, it’s really for the people. So you have to get out there and touch them, and feel what’s happening. You have to really know that R&B is not one of those genres where you just stay behind a screen if you want to be effective. So it’s important to connect in that way, and that’s what makes the lasting impression—creating that in-person experience.
For me, when the tour happened this year, there were so many different tours going on, and as an independent R&B artist, I was like, “I don’t think it’s a great idea if we go on tour now because there’s all these bigger tours happening.” But the majority of my shows were sold out and all of them were packed. I think R&B does that; it creates this one-on-one experience where if you’re not there and you miss it, it’s different.
If you could expound on that little. You said that there were points where you didn’t think it was the right time to go on tour. What was it that made you take that jump?
I think I just had to be honest about the understanding of my journey. I feel like nothing happens by chance. So when I started thinking about everything that we had been working towards and what we were building, I felt like we wouldn’t have made it that far if this wasn’t supposed to happen. So, I think ultimately it just came down to me finding that level of confidence and comfortability to understand that whatever this is supposed to be about to happen. I always try to be more open to understanding that we are the people who ignite other people’s experiences and things that they may be waiting on. So by that I mean that I felt like there was something I had that people needed at that moment, and if I didn’t make the decision to allow the tour to happen, I could have potentially been stopping somebody else from something that they were supposed to experience.
On the road, after the shows and during the meet-and-greets, I would hear stories like, “I was going through chemo and this happened, and my one wish this year was to make sure that I caught you in concerts.” So it was just the things that were happening around me, I think really gave me encouragement to just push forward.
It was really dope hearing “Can I Have This Groove” on Bel-Air this past season. How do you think collaborations like that can help to expand the reach of R&B music and introduce it to newer generations?
I think it gets into the different sections of culture because without the visual aspect to it, it’s just music. It’s just a song, but it gives you a different way to experience the song. And so for instance, with “Can I Have This Groove” being on Bel-Air, the scene, they don’t know the background on the song. When the music supervisor reached out about wanting to use the song, it’s just because they heard the song, they felt that it was what was appropriate for the scene. And then when I saw the brief and the scene, it was exactly what I had written a song for, but they had no idea.
So I think that moments like that, it gives more perspective and new life to these records. And that it allows people to discover music that they probably wouldn’t have normally. Because you also hear now in music culture, people complain about always having a search for music and they can’t find good music. Back in the day you didn’t have to search for it. So programs like that are a new place for discovery. And there was definitely an uptick in streams when the song was on Bel-Air. So that means there were tons of people who hadn’t even heard the record, who saw it only because they were fans of that show.
With you being a torch bearer for R&B, what message do you hope you convey to both your peers and artists that may aspire to be in your position?
I just want people to fully accept their journeys and put out whatever is inside of them. I think about when I was first starting off as an artist, I had all of these expectations that were really rooted in insecurities because you think that there’s a certain way that you have to do this. But I think that some of the best art and the innovative stuff that we have comes from what we truly feel. When I look back at a lot of my records, like “Lucky,” for instance, I freestyled that record at home. That’s not even one of those records that I thought that would happen on. That’s one thing I always try to tell the new people getting into music and even my existing peers, is just to fully explore your feelings and creativity and to understand that there are no limits. It’s music. So it’s literally whatever you make it. And always, always be mindful of your goal.