For Kiran Vedula, sharing light has always been a guiding principle.
“I think that’s what music is for,” says the Milwaukee musician and producer. “Even when you’re expressing sadness or anger or frustration, you’re still trying to do it in a way that makes yourself and other people feel better.”
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He believes being an artist means being an educator. It’s why he’s taught music production to kids through mentorships and workshops since 2010. The idea also powers his concert series Hip Hop DNA, where he and other musicians trace back the worldwide sounds that shaped the genre.
Good News, Vedula’s new album, is his latest effort to spread positivity. He swirls together house, R&B, jazz and gospel influences around an upbeat hip-hop nucleus. The lyrics are optimistic, encouraging and simple for audiences to learn quickly. “I want people by the time they leave, they know all the songs because they’ve actually sung and become part of the show,” he says.
The album sprung out of a collaborative show Vedula staged in 2022 for the South Milwaukee Performing Arts Center. He gathered songs he had written years earlier and arranged them into something new.
“From the jump, I had the intention of making this an album,” Vedula says. He recorded the piano and vocals before the show, and hosted another recording session with a choir that included former students of his. He then built the finished tracks around these recordings.
The result showcases many voices that serve one artist’s vision – a contrast to most of Vedula’s musical career.
Under the name Q the Sun, Vedula rose through Milwaukee’s music scene in the 2010s as a member of Fresh Cut Collective and New Age Narcissism. During that time, though, he felt his late-night lifestyle was hurting his relationships and souring his character. “Luckily, I had some really important people come into my life who snapped me out of it,” he says.
He started therapy and met his wife, Karlies Kelley, who runs the Latin dance company Panadanza. Her positive leadership inspired him to put in the work as a creative, and as a person.
“I’m just in such a better place now – in getting married, and now being a father and finding this whole new community of people that I’m working with,” Vedula says. “Not approaching music like a sport, more so as a spiritual practice of coming to it every day.”
Good News is the culmination of this rebirth. Vedula released the album on Aug. 18 – his 40th birthday. It’s also his first album under his real name.
“Part of this album is my own self-discovery, tapping back into what it means to be Indian American,” he says. “You’re not hearing tabla and sitar on the album, but the mentality and mindset of this kind of spiritual music connects back to something called a bhajan, which were these gatherings at people’s houses. The local Indian community would get together, and it’s this call-and-response style
of singing.”
Vedula’s goal is to teach his songs to schools across southeastern Wisconsin and bring them together for one big choir. “I just want to create cool, beautiful, healing things for people, and I think that would be a really powerful thing.”
