Boski: The Trial and Error of Making Local Music
Written by Darius Mullin
PHOTOGRAPHED BY Keita Robertson
Boski is a musical polyglot. “I had a friend introduce me to another producer recently as ‘a weirdo,’” he told me with a laugh when I asked how he describes his own music. “I feel like it isn’t too far off the path. I love all types of music. You couldn’t throw a song or a genre at me that I didn’t feel like I could put something on.”
Born in Memphis as Robert Kitzman, Bo moved to Jackson at a very young age and, with a few brief exceptions, “I've been here ever since.” As far as music goes, that seems to be one of the only constants. Kitzman’s main instrument is the drum kit, but he also plays guitar (upside down), mandolin, and a host of others. His musical output is no less assorted—bedroom pop, aggressive rap, and alternative rock are all labels that could be applied to various songs from the Boski catalog.
“Genres, to me, are like masks that I wear,” Kitzman told me. “I think my biggest advantage that I feel like I have over a lot of people is that I hear the voice that I want to make, and if I sit there and practice it long enough I can make it”
Though his earliest experience playing music was as a child, playing piano between second and fourth grade before giving it up, music first became a passion for Kitzman in his teenage years. After focusing on a tennis career, he tore his ACL at around the age of 14. “At that point I didn't really have anything to do for like a year.” So, Kitzman focused on mastering the drumkit. “That's kind of like what kind of dumped me into it.”
Drums kept Bo’s focus until he enrolled at Jackson State Community College. There, he sang in the choir to bring in scholarship money while pursuing a career in nursing. When it became clear that wasn’t going to work out, Kitzman turned to music once again, playing as often as he could.
After leaving college, he was able to roll his passion for playing drums into gig work, playing at festivals and on tours for various artists and bands. But, as for so many of us, the events of 2020 changed that. “COVID happened, and all of the work I had been doing kind of dried up. It was like, at that point, take on music production and keep that dog paddle going for as long as [I] could or, you know, go get another job.”
Bo did both of these, starting a job at a café and working with small labels to get started on distribution. Though he started writing and recording his own music around 2017-2018, he’d never released original music before. COVID was ultimately the catalyst that began that process. Boski’s debut album, Greatest Hits, released in September 2020.
Just a couple years later, Kitzman was launching into the release cycle of his 2023 album, What Are Friends For, when he mentioned to his manager that he was probably going to stop releasing music as Boski after his sophomore album was out. “[My manager] was like, ‘okay, well, let me send this around to some people.’”
“He sent it to a dude who happened to be head of creative over at Kobalt [Music Group], and he really liked it.”
That was the domino that resulted in Boski getting an “admin deal” with Kobalt, a company that also represents artists from Childish Gambino to Paul McCartney. “It’s more or less like, ‘here’s a chunk of money—keep doing all the stuff that you’re doing.’” Kitzman says that Kobalt allows him the rare opportunity to be a full-time musician, plus has been really helpful for connecting with other artists—he mentioned working with musicians in Denver and Europe, for example. At the end of the day, though, “most of my time is spent going towards the Boski stuff that I'm doing.”
And a productive time it has been! So far, 2024 has seen a new Boski release almost every week. Not only that, but Kitzman’s vault of unreleased music is practically overflowing. “I’m working about a year ahead,” he told me. Feels Like the End, Boski’s next full-length album, was already finished by the end of 2023. Plus, there’s an additional album of 14 b-sides that didn’t make the cut for Feels Like the End.
“I equate it to fishing,” Kitzman said about his creative process. “I show up, I check the lines two or three times a day. On my best day, I've got two or three solid ideas I can run with. On my worst day, I might have half of one. On those days, usually I just pick up the slack from something else and finish that. The name of the game is just finishing. Most people just can't. They don't know when a song's done. I don't feel like I've ever struggled with that”
Something that came up frequently in our conversation was Kitzman’s concerns surrounding the current climate of the music industry, both worldwide and locally. Things like the difficulty musicians face to make a living, the diminishing returns that artists see from live shows, and the unfair payout allotted from streaming services like Spotify came up multiple times. Kitzman has had a front-row seat to see things shift for the worse from multiple perspectives: artist, instrumentalist, and producer. I was interested in hearing his perspective on music here in Jackson, specifically.
To Kitzman, Jackson, Tennessee, simultaneously feels like it has changed too much and not enough. “The fourth record is called Tornado Town. And that's exactly what it sounds like: I've lived here long enough to see all different parts of the city get ripped apart by any number of tornadoes. What happens is, that part of the city becomes unrecognizable. So, what ends up happening is you start feeling like a tourist where you're from. That's not like a bad thing, but you realize just how different things are.”
At the same time, it’s good to see arts built up and bolstered, but it often feels like nothing really changes.
“The wrong people have the right amount of money, if that makes sense. So, the things that do get built often don't really feel like they're actually getting to the right people.”
It’s not all glum, though. One thing that Kitzman does see happening, and would like to see more of, is just touchpoints for youngsters to develop a love for and relationship with music.
“Porchfest and stuff like that fosters more young kids developing a relationship with music—and art in general—which is ultimately what I would want for Jackson. I didn’t have that growing up, really.”
He also mentioned that he’s happy to be a part of developing a healthier music scene, and would encourage any artists in Jackson who are interested in learning about music production or building their brand to reach out to him. “I'd be more than happy to try to work with them. Just based off of my trial and error. Nobody helped me, I just started doing it.”
That trial and error has yielded a lot of fruit. By now, there must be a Boski song out there for everyone, no matter your musical tastes. Kitzman says that the next full-length Boski album, Feels Like the End, will release by the end of 2024.
“I feel like there have been a lot of times over the past three or four years that I've really had to deal with my idea of certain things ending, or at least having to re-landscape and reshape them. … This is music that you listen to when something is ending, when something feels like it's ending. In all different cases: whether it be a relationship ending, or family dying, or not being able to come to grips with the death of a dream.”
Several songs from Feels Like the End are already out now on all platforms, including the title track, and the Boski back catalog is also certainly worth your time. You can connect with Boski on TikTok, Instagram, and Discord.