Tahj Keeton exists in a web of tension. His emotions plummet from skyscraper heights to oceanic depths, rising again just as quickly. Rather than quietly unraveling these complicated feelings through song, Tahj’s music sounds like he detonates an explosive on his nerves, then arranges the shrapnel in Logic Pro.

The 23-year-old native of College Park, GA, a city on Atlanta’s south side, comes from the same artistic camp as Tom The Mail Man and 6 Dogs, who tragically passed away in January 2021. Tahj made a name for himself with the release of SARF (South Atlanta Rage Fest), a 2020 project laced with psychedelia and arson that landed him a placement on HBO’s Euphoria. This effectively “introduced him to the music industry,” he explains, but was only a glimpse at his true potential.

On Everyone’s Scared, released this November, Tahj inches closer to full form. He produced or co-produced every song on the album. Crass synthesizers are woven in with woozy guitar chords. Tempo and distortion are toyed with liberally, making for 12 tracks that range from in-your-face Atlanta rap to Beach House-adjacent serenades. Lyrically, Everyone’s Scared isn’t as paralyzing as its predecessor, but Tahj unlocked a new range of melodies by simply “having a glass of wine, smoking a blunt, then singing until it made sense.”

On learning how to produce… I didn’t start getting good at producing until COVID. With my project SARF, I produced two or three of those songs, but the rest were from YouTube producers. I got tired of them not being able to deliver the sounds how I envisioned them. I just thought, “I have to fucking do this myself.”

I did acid on my 21st birthday and I made this beat, which in retrospect is pretty trash, and I sent it to my manager, Sam. After hearing it, he quit his job. He literally quit his job that same day and said, “Bro, this is only the start of what you’re about to do. I can already see it.”

On the making of Everyone’s Scared… I had a whole album done at the beginning of 2021. But our friend Chase, 6 Dogs, passed away. Then I had this phase of questioning myself, of questioning everything, because I was in a huge depressive episode. But then the same month that Chase passed, I met my friend Eli, who is one of my best friends now. Eli is the catalyst of this project. As soon as we started working, I scrapped the other album.

He and I made a couple hundred songs, made the album, but then I was like, “We literally have another album.” So he and I are gonna drop another project in the next month or two out of nowhere—Audiomack exclusive!—under the name of our duo, awarehouse. It’s gonna be super weird and sick, like, Deftones meets Kanye West.

On making beauty through chaos… All of my favorite artists do this: Ye, Flame, Shake, Cudi, Tyler. They all know how to make something so heavy, yet so beautiful at the same time. And that’s my shit. It’s either gonna be really heavy and beautiful, really heavy and dark, or just plain beautiful.

On the industry being two-faced… I’ve had a couple of instances where people told me to come out to LA and have meetings, where record labels give me the okey-doke and persuade me to do all this shit, then completely stop talking to me. That’s why I made “Threat.” I was on some “fuck the industry” shit.

I’m not gonna say no names, but there was this one person, who I looked up to, who brought me out to LA and made me pay for my own flight. I was broke as fuck, bro. He was throwing me all this shit about what they could do for me, then, instead of me, they signed the wackest n****s you could imagine. And that’s why in the song I say, “I’m better than 100% of them n****s you signed.” Literally, all they gave me was a keychain and a sticker. I had spent every dollar I had to come out there, just for them to basically shit on me.

On performing… No matter what the scene is, I’m always gonna perform my heart out. I could absolutely still be working at an acai bowl shop listening to beats in my headphones. Every time I get to perform is a fucking privilege. I want to be the best performer. Before my shows, I’m running three miles a day, jump roping, stretching, all of that. I wanna be doing this for a long time.

On meeting Jeff Hardy… Bro, I’m not gonna lie to you. I’ve met a lot of fucking celebrities, and nothing comes close to the feeling I felt when I met Jeff Hardy. Not fucking Travis Scott, not fucking nobody. Jeff Hardy means so much to me as a person. My childhood revolved around that man. He’s the reason I paint my nails now. He just inspired me to want to have my own swag and be a little bit weird. I met him outside of Smith’s Olde Bar in Atlanta, and I was like, “You changed my life, bro.” Later, he met up with my friends and me and we kicked it with him for like two or three hours.

Photos by Jamari Colbert.

Tahj Keeton Makes Beauty Through Chaos