Citto Kain. Remember that name.
Born and raised in Surrey, BC as Ash Nand, Citto Kain hit the music scene with a vengeance in 2010 with the launch of a successful digital record label, Flight Academy Music (FAM) Inc. Responsible for the release of records from various artists such as Caspian and Joey Stylez, as well as his own debut 2016 album entitled ‘Fruition’, Kain is on the map with over 30,000 monthly listeners on Spotify and 330K streams on his track “Made It” and a combined streaming total of over 1,000,000 over all platforms.
Sounds easy, doesn’t it. But it wasn’t. In fact, nothing worth having ever is.
Kain couldn’t help it. He was passionate about it all, and while his actions practically raised a middle finger to the status quo, causing a blasting of criticism on the regular, somehow his charm, wit, You can imagine what growing up in the Hip Hop culture with skateboarding and graffiti art in the Surrey parks as an East Indian kid during the 90’s would have been like. Now add Punk Rock to the mix. It was trouble waiting to happen. But good-hearted nature and determination busted down the wall.
In 1999, while still in his teens, Kain had a vision and started slinging mixtapes out of the back of his trunk. His business hit after his first and quickly grew into a well-known brand called MIXCARTEL, where he also started selling street albums and magazines, leading him to become the biggest mixtape distributor in Canada between 99 and 2008, he has now successfully transitioned the MIXCARTEL brand to web radio.
Ever the hustler, Kain kept his nose down, grinding and swinging deals with heavy industry leaders and fashion connections, gathering valuable music business knowledge along the way. He landed a major tour with Ephin and the Stompdown Killaz taking him across North America, Japan and Europe, where he sold thousands of mixtapes and developed an intellect for the competitive and shifty nature of the music business.
Since then Kain has planted his feet back on his home turf of Surrey and applied all his business acumen to the FAM. He is currently producing tracks for his upcoming sophomore release, ‘Year of the Dog’, which is set to drop in the spring of 2018 and celebrates the Dec 11, 2017 label release of V33’s debut album ‘V Day’ with tracks ‘Deeper’ and ‘Bad Bitch’ reaching 50K+ streams combined.
With an arsenal of talent and experience under his belt, Citto Kain has 2018 in his scopes and continues his takeover of the local scene. Like the kick drum he used to punch on as a youth, Kain marches to the beat of his own drum – and it’s only getting louder.