Kofy Boakye:
All right, so y’all sitting down, but I got to see where the energy is in this place because y’all sitting down. That’s all right. But I know you got some hands, so I need to see them hands in the air real quick. We going to have a party real quick.
Come on. San Diego. Oh, yeah. We going to get real warmed up in here. I know some of y’all just got here. You had some flights. You might be tired, but we going to have a real party, and San Diego real quick.
Hey, come on. 1, 2, 3. Hey, come on and put those hands in the air, and wave them. You just don’t care. Now, if you came to have a good time this week, let me hear you say, oh, yeah. Let me hear you, oh, yeah.
Keep it going. Oh, yeah. One more time. Oh yeah. Keep it going. Keep it going. Hey, come on and keep those hands up high, and wave them from side to side. Ladies, if you looking good, let me hear you say all right. Let me hear you, all right. Hey, all right. Now somebody please.

Alec Patton:
This is High Tech High Unboxed. I’m Alec Patton and you are listening to Kofy Boakye, who performs as Kofy B opening the 2024 Deeper Learning Conference with an absolutely killer set. Kofy Boakye is a 23-year-old keyboard player, band leader, public speaker, and just all around entertainer from Akron, Ohio.
This year, not only did he open the Deeper Learning conference on Tuesday, he also gave the closing keynote on Thursday, but before any of this, before the conference officially started, I got to sit down with Kofy to talk to him.
We cover a lot. The journey that got him here, the importance of both teachers and peers, the way he chooses his repertoire and the kind of piano he will not play on stage. And there’s a whole lot more too. Let’s get into it.
Do you have a memory of being excited about music as a kid, just being like, oh, this is something special.

Kofy Boakye:
Music kind of came into my life at a time where I needed it the most, just within a situation at home with my family, and not being the best. So I needed something to put my time and my energy toward.
So I think when I was introduced into music, at first, I didn’t necessarily gravitate to it as easily as I think most people would, but there was something about the knack of getting better at the instrument and there was a process and that just, I don’t know, it just hit for me one day where everything was starting to click.
I had taken private lessons at, I think the first week we went from beginners book. Second week we were still in beginner’s book. Third week we were still there, but then within that fourth, fifth, six week, intermediate, advanced, it just something clicked within that moment, and I don’t know what it was. Maybe it was just the purpose of what I was supposed to do, but yeah, the rest is history from there. But

Alec Patton:
You say initially it was a little bit, didn’t click the way you expected it to?

Kofy Boakye:
Yeah, it was a heck of a learning curve. I mean, I did not know if that was going to be my thing, but I just knew I loved entertaining people, whatever that looked like, whether that was me doing music. Before that, I was doing speaking even as a kid, I was speaking a lot, dancing too. So yeah, whatever that was.

Alec Patton:
I’m curious about what it was when you had that initial kind of like, I don’t know if this is for me. Why’d you stick with that?

Kofy Boakye:
Right after I said that, I was in a group piano lesson when I was first introduced into playing. Right when I was about to leave, there was an assistant teacher. She pulled me aside. She said, the head teacher, Tricia wants to see you.
She went up, talked to my mom and looked at me, and she also talked to me. She introduced herself. She shook my hand. She said, my name is Ms. Tricia. I was like, hi, nice to meet you. She helped my hand for way more than I thought it was the appropriate, not inappropriate, not that it was inappropriate, but it was just a long time, and she was holding it. But then she just kept looking at me, and then she took my hands and she looked at him, and then she looked back at me and she said, “Kofy, I see something in you.”
At that time, I had never heard anything like that in my life before. So I was like, what does this woman see? I think she also said, just, I want you to stick with this, but more than that, I want you to trust in me. Trust that I can get you to that point that you’re trying to get to in your life, whatever that looks like.
As an 8-year-old knowing that I needed something, I just trusted that tutelage. It was the first time I heard a woman or any adult say, I see something in you. Growing up where I come from. Those just aren’t words that you hear people say like that, not off the top of their head. So I really took that and I ran with it, and I think that was a big thing. I always talk about that to people.
There’s two types of reassurance that we need. There’s student to student reassurance as far as with how peers interact with peers, but then there’s also an educator to student reassurance that’s so important to making sure that we’re providing that better paved path of progression for everybody to follow.

Alec Patton:
Yeah. So that’s like a pivotal moment that uncomfortably long handshake.

Kofy Boakye:
Yeah. Well, yeah. It had to be. I mean, well, it’d just be pivotal because I don’t like shaking hands like that, but I mean, now I do, I do it quite a bit. But at the time, man, as a kid, I was socially introverted.
I was big on just being within the things that I thought were comfortable for me, and that was family, and that was the home environment, and just being myself at home and when I go out into the world, that’s just me having to punch my clock in, if you will. That’s how I looked at things, but she really helped me to see things beyond that.

Alec Patton:
Yeah. And you were early on, this comes up in the documentary. I want to confirm this. So you were giving sermons at your house?

Kofy Boakye:
Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So back when I was younger, I was a big talker. I don’t know if you knew that about me now, but I loved to talk back then, and so back in that time, I would do, I would have church in my home. Basically I’d just have my room and I’d have some chairs set up and I’d force my family members to come and listen to me, and I could go for as many hours as I wanted.

Alec Patton:
Yeah but, okay. This is what I was wondering, because the number three hours is just thrown out and left out there in the documentary.

Kofy Boakye:
Sure.

Alec Patton:
That’s amazing.

Kofy Boakye:
Yeah. Well, it wasn’t like I was saying anything profound, but, you know.

Alec Patton:
Still, three hours is a-

Kofy Boakye:
Yeah. I think there was something that why I’m glad that my mother never shut that down because it’s so easy to be like, oh, get away. You’re annoying. Why are you talking so much? Boom. You just diminished a dream right there because of just a mindless observation.
So there’s something that was precious in the fact that she allowed that to be that moment to where we can talk about it now and laugh. Yeah. I can’t believe you guys really sat in that room for at least an hour before you got up and walked out. It wasn’t a big house, so it’s like when you leave, I knew you left, but I didn’t care.
It wasn’t about them being there. It was about me doing what I love to do, and I was talking in that moment.

Alec Patton:
Yeah. So it wasn’t quite, I see something in you, but it also wasn’t like, cut that out. That’s annoying.

Kofy Boakye:
Of course. And of course, I credit my mom for that. She did that very well. She never stopped anything from being what it could be. Always let us have that option to, or that courage to ask for more. That’s what I like to phrase that as.

Alec Patton:
What do you mean by that?

Kofy Boakye:
Anything in this world that is out of the norm, I mean out of the ordinary, takes a level of courage to really actualize on it. And so we never looked at doubt as a thing that was going to hold us back. We looked at it as a roadblock, but more so a signpost toward achieving the destinies that we want.
For me, doubt is just confirmation that you’re dreaming big. It’s not about what you can’t do in this world. I don’t believe there’s anything I can’t do. I think my life has been comprised of believing in the impossible, just enough to me think that I can do it. I’ve just always lived life that way.
So I do credit my mom, but I also credit my brothers for that too. They taught that early on, because I got two older brothers that I learned about the ways that I can do things right and wrong through their actions. So yeah, there’s just really not a level of uncertainty when it comes to what I want in this world, not on my end at least.

Alec Patton:
Yeah. And what are your brothers doing now?

Kofy Boakye:
Oh man. My oldest brother as a owner of a skincare line that he runs in northeast Ohio, freelance writer. He’s written for most of the larger publications within our area in Ohio. and the other brother is my middle brother. He’s in Orlando right now owning three restaurants, I believe out there. So has a, and they’re all specialty restaurants. One is a Nashville hot chicken restaurant. The other one is a Smash Burger restaurant now, and the other one is a new one. I think it’s a wing, just a genuine, it’s called That Wing Spot. So he makes a lot of great wings. So if you like chicken, go to him.

Alec Patton:
So you’re a pretty driven group of brothers then?

Kofy Boakye:
I would say so, yeah. We’re driven through the doubt, especially, I mean, we heard about the worst things you can hear growing up from our father, which is for many people you have a choice. You have the choice of do I fold and believe those words of negativity that were told to me, or do I flourish and do I believe whatever I believe and do whatever I said I could do? We chose that and we’ve ran with it.

Alec Patton:
When do you think you made that choice?

Kofy Boakye:
We made that choice when we were outside of our house not able to open it because he had changed the locks and we were homeless.
That’s when we made the choice that whatever he said we were going to do or can’t do could not be the reality. My mom made that choice at the same time too. So when you see life change that fast, it’s a fight or flight mentality. And I tell people now, because you could look at my journey now and think, oh, everything’s so sequential. Listen, this journey has been a journey, but I’m really big on making the best out of the moment that I’m given right now.
What am I going to do within the 24 hours that I’ve been given in a day? How can I make that the best and let the rest take care of itself as we get through that 24? But got to keep the main thing, the main thing right now and stay focused in the present.

Alec Patton:
Yeah. So initially, when growing up these three brothers, was there music in the house? Were you hearing stuff?

Kofy Boakye:
Ironically, no. I’m the only person that did music in our family, and for me, it was just another thing that was a hobby that I saw could potentially be turned into a career, because I had my middle brother at the time, he was into card trading and doing that at an early age with the trading card games and all that stuff. So he’d go to these card shops on the weekends, and I just thought he was doing it because he had fun doing it. But my 9-year-old self is seeing this dude come home with a couple of hundred dollars every weekend, and I’m like, man, what is he doing?
Then he goes from just making a couple of hundred, now he’s traveling to Minnesota with his friends and he’s a teenager. So we’re like, how are you doing this? And it kind of hit me. He loved to do what he did, and he made money from it. At that time, I was trying to really find something that I love to do, and I was like, you know what? I remember telling myself, I was like, man, maybe I can make money from music.
I had no idea people did that, because I didn’t even think of things like that at that time. But as a 9-year-old, I guess in my mind, it was just in me to just think, you know what? This can be the thing. And there was so many other things that were reassuring and confirming for me as I got older, my mom bribed me to play the piano publicly when I was 11 in a mall because they had a piano in the mall.
And then I was just playing it, and then somebody ended up putting a tip jar or a Starbucks cup actually on the piano, and then people were putting money in there. That was the principle of me understanding, wow, the work I do musically can actually be appreciated monetarily. That was the first step.

Alec Patton:
Was that somebody’s mall, was that a public mall piano, or were you like-

Kofy Boakye:
Yeah. Which is also another weird thing growing up in Akron, Ohio, or even in the adjacent areas, to have a grand piano in a mall in that city is not the norm. But at the time, there was a mall called Summit Mall, which was in Fairline, one of the more affluent areas within the Ohio or northeast Ohio area.
They had a grand piano, and I would go there every Saturday, and I actually was raising money to go on a school trip, because I was in a choir. We were going out the country, and I ended up raising enough money for not only myself, and I paid for somebody else’s trip too.

Alec Patton:
Where’d you go with the choir?

Kofy Boakye:
We went to Germany, Germany, Prague, Czech Republic also.

Alec Patton:
What was that like?

Kofy Boakye:
Well, I was 12, so I mean, I can’t say anything too crazy, but I just thought it was just a different experience going there. I do remember just the biggest thing was paying to use a bathroom in public. That was the biggest thing. Other than that, culture, a lot different. Food was different. You can smoke at the restaurant still out there. I don’t know if they still do that now, but it was kind of just, all those things were just different for me at that time. So yeah.

Alec Patton:
Yeah. The teacher, was that Tricia Hammond Thompson teacher?

Kofy Boakye:
Yes. Oh you did your research.

Alec Patton:
The teacher with the handshake?

Kofy Boakye:
Oh, yeah. That’s her.

Alec Patton:
And with her, what kind of repertoire were you studying?

Kofy Boakye:
Yeah, she was my classical teacher, so we were going through all the different styles of music from that time, Baroque, we looked a lot of Chopin, Mozart, just a lot. She’s a musical encyclopedia when it comes to just the classical side of music. Similar to how so many guys around me now are into more of the funk and R&B music, and so I just found a wealth of knowledge from her early on that I needed.
But she also knew that I wasn’t just meant to be limited through classical music, and she even told me, she’s like, I think you should start looking into jazz. I think you should start looking into R&B, and not only should you start looking that way, I have resources that can help you get there through the people that I know. So she identified the change and also gave me solutions to help implement the change, which I thought was incredible.
And looking back now, I’m like, this stuff is crazy because nobody does that stuff to me, or does that in general enough, I think. Maybe there are certain environments, but from what I see right now, too many people just say, oh, they’re different, and that’s it. Oh, they just do things weirdly.
Or we categorize people. We just give these phrases and we don’t allow talent to be talent, skills to be skills, passions and purposes to be purposes. It frustrates me when I see that stuff.

Alec Patton:
Yeah. Actually, I wanted to ask you about that because I think one of the things really interesting to me listening to a lot of your music is like, you’re playing jazz, but you’re not playing standards.

Kofy Boakye:
No, no, no. Purposely.

Alec Patton:
Yeah.

Kofy Boakye:
Purposely, intentionally. There’s a lot of people that do that, and they do it greatly, and I would encourage you to listen to them. I’m just not that guy.

Alec Patton:
Yeah.

Kofy Boakye:
I love what I do because I love that it’s fresh, especially right now on social media. What I’m doing is bringing a lot of antiquity and modernity and putting it together and bringing it to life. There’s a lot of music that we look at, and we just think it had its moment, and I find a way to bring things back and mesh them together.
And I was just talking to people just talking about how now the writers of those songs are coming back and thanking me for bringing their music back to life. So I know it’s not just me doing it. Listen, I don’t do anything anymore for the view count.
I can’t because I wouldn’t be fulfilling. To me, I do it literally to, I do it because I love to do it, but I know that if I can just unlock the mind of our generation, of my generation as a 24-year-old into, Hey, you like this person? Well, they got that because of this. I mean, if you like her song, Wait For It. It came because Marsha Ambrosius and Natalie Stewart and Andre Harris did Say Yes back in 2001 and released that.
I want people to continue to understand, hey, because people say, I mean, well, one of my mentors always says, don’t tell me who you’re over until you tell me who you are under. So for me, I’m giving the flowers right now as much as I can. This is the most highest level of appreciation you can give an artist, is to recreate their music and credit them as an homage.
To me, that’s the best way you can do things right now. So that’s what I aim to do.

Alec Patton:
Yeah. And so when you make that initial step of, okay, I’m playing this classical repertoire, I’m going to start doing jazz, how’d that happen?

Kofy Boakye:
We wouldn’t take lessons. Me and Ms. Tricia, we wouldn’t take lessons that much in the summertime. So during that summertime, I still wanted to learn, so I was going on YouTube and there was piano tutorials on how to play this pop song, how to play this pop song. So I was just going through this rabbit hole.
So not only was I learning how to read music, I learned, wow, I’m a visual learner too. I can watch somebody do something and pretty much do it too. So in that moment, I saw that there was a lane for me to do just music outside of classical music. Within doing that, I took those methods of learning and applied it into classical music, and this is where the crossroad happened, because you playing classical music, most people know you do not switch from what is on the sheet music.
That is a no-no in classical music. So I kind of broke the rules. I was playing, and then however the classical song would end, and I kind of gave it a different ending, maybe added a little twang in places where I shouldn’t have added the twang, yeah. And it was definitely noticeable to my teacher, and she said, I think you are improvising. And there was nothing wrong with that.
I love Ms. Tricia Because she always said, she would never say that there was one way to do something. Even if I was playing the song in a different way or had the wrong fingering that was listed on the sheet music, she would say, I think you should try doing this. And she gives you the reason or at least the inclination to try. And if it works for you better doing the way you initially did it, she wouldn’t stop you from doing it that way.
Those are little things that really help me understand. Okay, she taught me jazz while she was teaching me classical in that moment, right? I mean, because you can improvise, do all that stuff, and it’s okay to do it, but it’s a certain level that you have to approach certain things. And within classical music, that might not be the way, but if you do jazz, you’re going to be the guy.
You’re going to be the hero in that area because that’s where that stuff is loved.

Alec Patton:
So I play saxophone.

Kofy Boakye:
Do you?

Alec Patton:
And one of the things that I appreciate about the saxophone is that with very rare exception, you’re playing one note at a time, and it’s very clear for me, and I can improvise. I can play at a lot of different kinds of changes. The idea of learning how to voice chords and that just, when you got 10 options of things, you could be potentially playing 10 notes at a time.
That just seems impossibly difficult to me, and so I’m curious, there had to be a point where you’re like, oh, I was doing the classical and it’s all there. I need to follow the map, and the map gets me there, and then you’re learning the stuff on YouTube, you’re playing the pop songs, and then there’s a certain point seeing the way you play where you’re like, there’s a lot happening all at once. How did you get there?

Kofy Boakye:
It’s easy to tell somebody, oh, you just practice it enough, you’ll get there. Eventually, to me, it became bigger than the music. It became more than the music, more than the melody, and it was more about the feeling. It was about what happens. I think if you nail, some people know how to play a song, but they don’t know how to play a song. You know what I mean?
There’s a lot of people that are really talented at doing a cover of a song, but not many people can make the song feel like theirs. And for me, it’s been about making sure I master that. Because I have to play these songs every day. I have to do the same show I did in this case, San Diego. I would have to do it in Manhattan tomorrow or whatever the case may be. And when we’re touring, I mean we’re doing the same songs every day.
There’s a feeling of it that’s different though. That feeling is built over time and it changes over time. And I kind of want to push back on what you said though at first, when you said you played the saxophone, you only play one note at a time. I think you’re limiting yourself a little bit, man, because I think you have the potential to play more than one note.
And what I mean by that is there’s so many intricate levels to saxophone playing, horn playing in general, wind instruments and things of that nature. The ability to, the more pressure you apply to a note, the more raspy it can sound, the more, you know, all those things are the things that I kind of love. I love the fact that there’s different ways to get to the same destination. You can play an A, or you can play an A, you know what I mean?

Alec Patton:
Oh, yeah.

Kofy Boakye:
There’s a feeling within it. So I really look at things like that. And I also am jealous that you play the saxophone too. That’s another thing that I don’t want to talk about right now because it really bothers me.

Alec Patton:
Let’s get into it. Let’s get, what’s the-

Kofy Boakye:
Okay, now you want to get into it. Look, here’s the thing. I just wish I could play multiple instruments. I say wish as if I know I could if I chose to. But I also like the idea that I don’t know how to play everything, because I don’t know if I would be able to handle myself every day.
I would think I’m too amazing. I would wake up and just never say good morning to people. I would expect them to say it to me. So I’m glad I don’t play saxophone.

Alec Patton:
Are you just strictly keys, or you must have dabbled in other stuff?

Kofy Boakye:
Yeah, I dabbled in other stuff. I actually started off, I was playing violin and stuff in school. I think growing up in Akron, Ohio, nobody really expects to play instruments like a piano per se, because they’re kind of viewed as instruments that are stability instruments.
When you think of a piano, you think of upright grand piano, and for many of my peers, that was just not a reality because we’re moving from house to house, apartment to apartment. So if you’re playing an instrument, it’s something portable, trumpet, sax, and even if you play drums or something, you’re not necessarily getting a whole drum set, especially if you’re living in enclosed area. Last thing your neighbors want to hear is some loud symbols and drums at two in the morning.
So yeah, for me, I mean, I don’t know. I try to do a lot of different things, but I also try to just keep myself around the instrument. The thing I love about the piano is that because it’s a string instrument and a percussion instrument, you kind of find a way to cover a lot of ground with it. And if you can be around and immerse yourself around other instruments, I wouldn’t say you can sound like a bass when you play the piano, but now with technology, synthesizers, things of that nature, you can find a way to cover a lot of ground for what you don’t know.

Alec Patton:
Yeah. All right. And so today, what are you playing on?

Kofy Boakye:
Instrument wise? What are we playing?

Alec Patton:
Yeah, what kind of key, what make, did you bring your own?

Kofy Boakye:
No, I didn’t bring my own. I don’t know. We have out here, I want to say it’s something Yamaha branded, but I mean-

Alec Patton:
So you don’t tour with your keyboard. I was wondering about this.

Kofy Boakye:
I do. There’s typically a keyboard, branded keyboard provided, because I love deeper learning. 2024, I was really just, I’m here for the experience and not necessarily the brand of the instrument.

Alec Patton:
That was real diplomatic. Appreciate that.

Kofy Boakye:
Oh, that’s what I do. That’s what I do here. We’re going to have a good time regardless though.

Alec Patton:
Yeah, got it. When you don’t travel with your own instrument, it feels like a wild thing to me.

Kofy Boakye:
Well, you play a saxophone, somebody, I mean, that’s different. I play piano.

Alec Patton:
Yeah, exactly.

Kofy Boakye:
It doesn’t get too crazy as long as it sounds like a piano. We’re halfway there. As long as it’s nothing like too crazy. If you got a piano, this is the thing. This is why I’m glad you mentioned this, because there are certain people that think that when it comes to having a tech writer and stuff within music, if they tell you, or the person that’s trying to get you at whatever venue, if they say, yeah, we have a piano, and they think that’s good, that’s always a red flag.
That’s always a big red flag, a blaring red flag with bright, bright red. So I always try to make sure we understand we’re on the same page, stage piano, and then we really dive into brands and things of that nature. Because there are non-negotiables. I will not play a piano that still lights up when you play it every note. I couldn’t do that. That just looks crazy on stage, man. There’s no way I could do that.
So there’s definitely non-negotiables, but other than that, when I’m doing events like this, it’s not about the music for me, it’s about the meaning of the moment. We have thousands of the brightest minds in the world gathered here for what I hope to be really one of the best speaking events of my career thus far. So I’m really just excited to be here.

Alec Patton:
Can you say anything about what your set list is, or do you want to keep it a, a mean.

Kofy Boakye:
It’s basically a taste of what I’ve been traveling with on tour. I usually travel with a large group, a large band.

Alec Patton:
What’s your setup? What’s your-

Kofy Boakye:
Yeah, I got keys. I play piano. I got two auxiliary keyboards that my other guy plays, got bass drums, and then two horn players.

Alec Patton:
Okay. What are the horns?

Kofy Boakye:
Saxophone and trumpet.

Alec Patton:
Oh, cool.

Kofy Boakye:
Yeah, so we don’t have that today, but we definitely have my drummer here and myself.

Alec Patton:
Okay, in my exploration of your YouTube videos. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that band.

Kofy Boakye:
Oh, man. You got to go on Instagram.

Alec Patton:
Okay, all right.

Kofy Boakye:
We’re there. I mean, a lot of my content is definitely shifted toward short form content right now because I know less is more on the algorithm. They love that, so I’m really big on just giving people snippets. But the shows are our shows, man. Yeah, we have a whole crew and we be playing.

Alec Patton:
Okay. I wanted to get into this actually, because nothing has made me feel older than looking for your music online because you’ve put out an album.

Kofy Boakye:
I have, I have put out a project before.

Alec Patton:
Yeah.

Kofy Boakye:
I have a reason as to why I haven’t released new music yet.

Alec Patton:
Yeah, what’s the-

Kofy Boakye:
The reason is simply because at the time of when a lot of things were going viral for me on social media, it could have been an easy decision for anybody to say, okay, you’re going viral on the internet. Just post your music or post a cover of this on Spotify or Apple Music and boom, your career is there.
I did not think that was a way to go. There was also another way, another mindset in the algorithm that Instagram was introducing reels, bonuses and things like that. They were paying for content to be on their platform. So beneficially or business wise, it was better for me to do that in that way, but also I didn’t want to lose people from going to one platform to another platform. I wanted people to know, Hey, you can find what I do on my Instagram page, because what that would do would lead to moments like this.
So now they’re finding my music, but then people also found my public speaking abilities. So it opened the door to so much more than just making a song, getting 10,000 streams and making five dollars and twenty-two cents on it, if that, because that’s a lot of money for 10,000 streams, and I say that as a joke because it’s a joke to me.
I mean, streaming and all that stuff is a joke as far as with the numbers and how they try to do it. But I say all that to say, new music is on the way, but aside from that, I’m really big on building things on social media, and that’s probably why it’s a little difficult.
I don’t think it’s a learning curve at all, or a age thing at all. I think I made a decision consciously to release content solely on my social media pages and not releasing it to these streamings.

Alec Patton:
Got it.

Kofy Boakye:
I just didn’t do it.

Alec Patton:
That makes sense.

Kofy Boakye:
I think it makes sense. It may not, but it’s the truth.

Alec Patton:
For anybody who’s listening and wants to know how you got here, let’s just back up a little bit to, you’re with Tricia Hammond Thompson, you’re studying, and then you go to Miller South. Was that a middle school?

Kofy Boakye:
Yeah, it was a performing arts middle school. We were grades four through eight, so I would say one of those kind of middle schools, kind of not.
But that was my performing arts school that I always credit as the one that really changed my life at that time. I came into Middle South auditioning, playing the piano for three months, while my peers were playing for three years. I was at a disadvantage, and I just didn’t know if that was going to work for me.
The turning point though, was that we did a individual project for one of our arts classes where we had to make a fake infomercial for a fake product, and so at home I was energetic and I was exciting. At school, I was really reclusive, and I just did not vibe with the environment I was in. So we went out to do the commercial at home, and I came back, presented the project a couple weeks later to the school.
I forgot that they had never seen that side of me, and then I was like, oh, man. I was so nervous when I put the videotape in, but then eventually I saw the kids look around. They were laughing. They had their jaws drop, and there was one girl, her name was India. I’ll never forget her. She said, now we see who the real Kofy is.
That was all she needed to say. At that point, I realized, okay, who I am and what I do is and acceptable, and I’m like, and you guys are going to get that from the next couple years. Now I’m here at fourth grade and you’re going to see me in eighth grade doing the same exact stuff. So it was really, really cool to experience that school.
I try to go back there all the time. I was just there I think about a month ago in Ohio and just visited and while I had a show out there. So yeah, I love that school.

Alec Patton:
When did that project from when you arrived to-

Kofy Boakye:
A couple months, a couple months. I mean about four or five months.

Alec Patton:
So you had about four or five real quiet months?

Kofy Boakye:
Yeah, because I’m talking, I don’t know how quiet banging your head on the locker is, but I was one of those kind of kids, and nothing wrong with being that.
Nothing wrong with, well, there is something wrong with banging your head on the lockers. Kids don’t do that. But I would say that for me, it wasn’t that I was doing that because I was weird or because I felt like I didn’t belong. I was placed in an environment where I’d never been before.
You take me from one school where I’m getting bullied, ostracized, ridiculed, scrutinized with kids that are at the bottom of the bottom socioeconomically, and then you take me to a performing art school where every student there has name brand stuff. I had never seen Aeropostle, Abercrombie & Fitch, all that stuff. I never seen that stuff until I went to that school.
So for me, I didn’t know what that looked like or why that change was here and why I didn’t connect with it so quickly. Why don’t I have that Ralph Lauren polo? I’m wearing French Toast right now. Have you ever heard of French Toast?

Alec Patton:
I’ve not heard of French Toast.

Kofy Boakye:
Oh you’ve, you’re, wow. I’m dating myself at this point. Yeah, French Toast is quite the clothing brand. I don’t even know if you can Google it. It’s that. Yeah. You’ve heard of Dickies though, right?

Alec Patton:
Yeah, yeah.

Kofy Boakye:
Dickies was high brand for us.

Alec Patton:
Okay.

Kofy Boakye:
I didn’t have it.

Alec Patton:
Got it, got it, got it.

Kofy Boakye:
French toast, we had that.

Alec Patton:
All right.

Kofy Boakye:
Yeah.

Alec Patton:
Okay. And so there’s also an implication in the specific brand names that you referenced. I’m guessing that there was a racial shift going on here too.

Kofy Boakye:
Yeah, absolutely. But not even just that. No, because there was a lot of African American individuals that attended the school too, but they just had solid parents. I mean, parents that were, you got dual parent households.
At that time, I would never subscribe to the notion now to say that, oh, having both parents in your family is just a solid solution to your success as an African American, because I know a lot of peers that had that, and they have not panned out the way that you would think they might have at that time. But they definitely were at an advantage.
They had parents that were more upper middle class, had parents that were a lot, just more established within their career, had degrees, had the nice house, the nice picket fence. I mean, you saw it as I got older. I would hang out with some of them because I’d had friends, and you just saw, wow, the grass is, it looks like it’s greener on the other side, until it isn’t.
But you don’t find that stuff out until later. But as a kid, it was kind of difficult to see that.

Alec Patton:
Yeah. And so you’re feeling this, you’re being quiet, and then you make this video, you accidentally reveal your home self to your school peers. What happened after that? How did it change in the school?

Kofy Boakye:
They just knew that I was funny. I didn’t have the piano talent right away. That came a little later because fifth grade, I was still struggling in the piano class because there was so many people that were just way more talented than me.
But I just was determined that summer of after my fifth grade year, when I came back into sixth grade, I was like, I got to make some things happen. There was a girl that was really, really good at piano. Her name’s Stephanie, Stephanie Lukowski. I’ll never forget her, and I was like, man, I can never be as good as Stephanie Lukowski.
Stephanie ended up going to an all girl school for her sixth grade year, so she left the school and maybe it was a blessing in disguise. She got her opportunity to be in a new environment, and I got my opportunity because I was like, now I can finally try to be a star here. I don’t know, because I definitely thought it was hard for me to really think that I can do the things that I was doing.
But then her exit, kind of was the beginning of my arrival, if you make, but I love Stephanie. She’s great. She’s a great person.

Alec Patton:
Do you know, she’s still playing?

Kofy Boakye:
I don’t know. I don’t know. She was playing really well for a long time. She actually did. I think she did Carnegie Hall when we were in high school or middle school, but I don’t know if she plays like that now. I think she’s into nursing or dental or something, career shift, but I’m sure she’s good at it.

Alec Patton:
The kind of most confusing, I think, for me thing in your journey here is going to the University of Akron at age 15. So you go to the jazz program. Was that like, I’m going to high school and I’m going to the University of Akron for some classes, or is that literally, I am a college student.

Kofy Boakye:
I’m a college student. I’m a college student. My brother went to the university. He went to Akron Early College High school, so it’s an early college program, but I was in my eighth grade year, and I was excelling a lot musically at that point.
My teacher, Ms. Tricia, we still rock. We were still doing lessons, and she was a Suzuki style teacher, she had Suzuki training. So the theory concepts that she would introduce to kids was stuff that were, she already taught me what I needed to know in high school by the time I was nine years old. So I was like, okay, well, I can’t go to high school and try to be in the music program. I auditioned for one school back in Akron.
I’m literally telling the teacher what to do next in the audition, she even looked at me and said, this is not your school. And this was the top performing art school in the high school area for us in Akron. So the next best bet was college. I mean, it had to be. So my brother was a big networker, big marketing guy at the University of Akron College of Business, and ended up being at one of those-

Alec Patton:
Is this the skincare guy or the restaurant guy?

Kofy Boakye:
No, it’s the restaurant guy.

Alec Patton:
Okay.

Kofy Boakye:
Yeah. So he ended up going to a networking event and met the director of music at the University of Akron. He said, Hey, I got this little brother and he can’t just play the piano. He can play the piano, and I just think that he should probably look to go here for his higher learning, because whatever high school he goes to, it’s not going to be the best environment for him.
And I ended up meeting with Dr. Nichols, Brian Nichols, and at University of Akron, and he said, we’ve never really done something like this before, but I think we can try it out. And the way that I was able to do that was by being a student at Akron Early College High School, which was based on the University of Akron campus. That was our high school. So we traveled just like a college student, but I was the only one that was in the College of Music doing jazz classes with all the professors and working with them and stuff.
So I didn’t do the classes I was studying in the classes, but yeah, it was an experience.

Alec Patton:
And university level jazz at a state university. That’s intense.

Kofy Boakye:
Yeah. But it felt like putting on a glove for me at that time. That was where I was at with the music, and I knew I needed to challenge myself and learn. That moment and being that that school helped to set up the transition to go to Berkeley College of Music and studying music out there, and yeah.

Alec Patton:
How many hours were you practicing a day at that point, would you say?

Kofy Boakye:
It was a job for me. I mean, full time, but I loved it, eight hours a day, I would come home, I would go to school during study hall. I would try to find a practice room, put a good hour in. After that, come back home, maybe take a nice good nap for about two hours, wake up, try to do my homework for about another hour, and then the rest of the night is all practicing, listening to music and working. Yeah.

Alec Patton:
Yeah. I guess that’s an advantage of playing electric keyboard too, is you can put on headphones.

Kofy Boakye:
It’s also the advantage of being a college student, because you don’t have to be in class from eight to whatever time the high school kids go to school.
So I was able to leave school at 11:00 AM and get started on my day. So it was really just about maximizing that opportunity of the freedom that I was having. They always say at that school, the best part about it is the freedom, and the worst part about it is the freedom.

Alec Patton:
Is there a point that you remember where you’re like, this is paid off. I’m good at this now. Do you know what I mean?

Kofy Boakye:
Two years ago.

Alec Patton:
I mean, in some ways you’re never there, right? But it’s another way.

Kofy Boakye:
The only moment that I thought when I knew around the age of 14, I was like, I’m going to at least make this the focus. I’m going to make this the career.
Everybody else, I think when I was about 15, 16 years old in high school, everybody was getting their jobs at their fast food places. They were getting their McDonald’s, their Burger Kings and Subways, Panera Breads, and that was awesome for them. For me, I was meant to do music.
And I remember they would ask me, oh, I got my job, Kofy, what job do you have? And I’m like, oh, well, I do music. And they were like, oh, okay. Yeah, they said that back then. And I wonder what they’d say now.

Alec Patton:
What’d your family think of that?

Kofy Boakye:
Family? They never bashed it. They just maybe didn’t see it. I saw it.

Alec Patton:
They had to be kind of nervous.

Kofy Boakye:
Well, I don’t know. There’s a lot of worse things to do. I don’t think they were nervous because they knew that I was academically excelling. I kept that the priority. And within my music I was doing, I played jazz music. I mean, not that there’s anything wrong with being a rapper, but the things that I did promoted a level of positivity and comfort that any mother would be okay with.

Alec Patton:
Yeah. There’s a guy who raps on Made in Akron. It’s not like-

Kofy Boakye:
That’s my brother.

Alec Patton:
Oh, yeah.

Kofy Boakye:
Yeah, yeah. But he’s-

Alec Patton:
Wait, which brother?

Kofy Boakye:
The one that does the freelance writing and owns, my oldest brother, Andre.

Alec Patton:
Okay, got it. Got it.

Kofy Boakye:
Yeah, so we would do that a lot, actually. So that song was actually created for a video that was made back for the Northeast Ohio area, and they wanted to use that song as a way to push the video. Subsequently, it ended up getting an Emmy nomination. So that was our first time really understanding, well, that was a regional Emmy nomination. So that was my first time doing stuff like that.
But even that moment helped me realize, okay, the music I’m trying to make should have a meaning that’s beyond the notes.

Alec Patton:
Yeah.

Kofy Boakye:
Yeah. There’s a popular song by Tupac, rest in peace, and basically he’s saying You ain’t nothing without your homeboys. And I’ve switched that around, I’ve said, you ain’t nothing without your hometown. Don’t tell me anything that you’re doing outside of your hometown if you’re not doing something within it.
What do I look like going around San Diego, not acknowledging Akron, Ohio? What? That place built me, that’s the reason why I’m here. So I stay true to that, but I also make sure that people understand, I’m from Akron, but I’m not there right now. It’s important to get out.
It’s important to get out of a situation that when you squeeze the most out of an orange, I appreciate the tangerine, but I probably don’t want to have it every day in my life. But I love Akron though. Great place.

Alec Patton:
And are you based in Boston at this point?

Kofy Boakye:
Point? I’m based on the East Coast. I am kind of right now in Ohio a lot, and I find myself in New York too, because I’ve been doing a little bit of the hosting duties at the Apollo for amateur night. So from contestant to host the competition. It’s been pretty fun though.

Alec Patton:
All right. So what’s that like?

Kofy Boakye:
It is a preparation that is beyond comprehension. When I got the call to do it, they called me last minute kind of, because there was a week before the season opener, so the season opener was on February 21st, I think.
And they had me, they called me the week before, and they were just saying, Hey, are you available? The producers reached out. Are you available on Tuesday and Wednesday of next week? And I thought it was just something Apollo related. So I was like, yeah, I can go, I can be there for it, because the Apollo’s great and I love the Apollo.
But then he said, yeah, we want you to host the season opener. And I said, huh. Oh, okay. That’s a job. That’s a title. So I did it. So I was nervous, but I had less than a week to prep. Actually, the day of the dress rehearsal, which was on that Tuesday, I came in, they were like, you ready, Kofy? I’m like, yeah, I got my script. You sent me the three pages. He said, three?
He said, there’s no three pages. I sent you 20. I said, well, where’s the other 17 at? So literally that whole day, I mean, I had to memorize 17 other pages of this script and pretty much know it as well as I could, because the crowd, 1500 people don’t know that you just got the call.

Alec Patton:
And I mean, that’s not a famously easygoing crowd.

Kofy Boakye:
And they’ll boo me. I’m the host. You know, they didn’t boo me, of course. But it’s just like anything goes at that place. So you have to be ready for that.

Alec Patton:
Wow, that’s cool. All right. Kind of piecing together your story. So you go to Berklee College of Music, you were raising money for that? That was during, or that was before Covid, right?

Kofy Boakye:
I raised money before Covid, and then when the pandemic hit, I was trying to raise money to get back there because I had to really funnel all that money toward being an actual resident of Boston. I had a job out there, a salary job playing at a church that was helping me a lot, but I still wanted to make sure that I could get back there. So yeah, I was doing my best to raise the money to get back there.

Alec Patton:
Got it. Are you still at Berklee now?

Kofy Boakye:
No, I’m not. Kind of when the pandemic hit, that was the end of my Berklee career. I still stayed around there and still stayed close in contact with the school and things of that nature.
But when the pandemic hit paired with when things started going viral on social media, it was like a switch that was, there was a lot that happened in the post pandemic reality of music where you started to see a shift in going to school for this as opposed to posting gets you to the same destination, if not very much farther than the student that spends the four years spending 75,000 a year.
I just thought, instead of doing that type of investment, let’s invest in a thousand dollar camera and then post on the internet and see what happens. And that was more beneficial for me in the long run.

Alec Patton:
Yeah. And you’ve got a different, I mean, it’s one thing if you’re planning to be a studio musician as your career or play in the pit orchestra for a show, that’s a particular thing. You’re doing something different.

Kofy Boakye:
Yeah. And everybody’s path is different. I always say that. So there’s a lot of parents that ask me, oh, should my child go to Berklee? I’m like, I mean, it’s not for me to tell you no, it’s not for me to tell you yes. That question kind of answers itself as you experience Berklee. Berklee has a way of telling you whether you should go there or not.

Alec Patton:
What do you mean by that?

Kofy Boakye:
Well, I mean the tuition, it’d be tuitioning, I’ll tell you that, and then also pair it with the experience, the experience of being there. A lot of my stuff, so many people, well, there’s so many people that I’ve met there at Berklee. They do this thing, and this is maybe not the best thing that they do, but it’s very real.
They say, look around. We go to these first year seminars, look around at your peers, and they said, the person that you just looked at might be working at McDonald’s in three years. That’s the reality of what this industry is. You can either be really, really good at it or terrible, and it’s really not for you to decide.
So that’s why the question of whether or not the degree or whether or not the program is beneficial, I knew a lot of people that were successful within being at Berklee, and they’re talented musicians, and they weren’t there for the program. They were there because of the profit of the program. They got their scholar, they were from out the country. They came here, they had a place to stay. They got everything covered, food room and board, and they utilized that position to be able to go on tour.
That tour allowed them to save their money. By the time they graduated with a diploma or degree, they went out to Los Angeles or bigger cities and made a career that was sustainable for them. It’s not about how you get there, but it’s about understanding whether or not that path is the best for you.
So that’s why I always say that Berklee has a way of telling you whether or not you should be there or not.

Alec Patton:
Yeah. So at this point, you’re touring with your band?

Kofy Boakye:
Yeah, I’m with my band, and I’m also pairing every experience with me performing with my speaking. So this is a unique environment in which I didn’t expect it to be that. But I think when we had spoke about me doing this a couple of months ago last year, it sparked the interest of saying, “Hey, I want to pair the speaking with the playing.”
So I do a speaking series called Beyond the Keys, where no matter the age group, I go to colleges, elementary schools, educational seminars, whatever the case may be. And we talk about my journey of the growth in entrepreneurship and also through the lens of social media. And so I find that to be the current wave that I’m on right now, and I’ve been rocking it so far.

Alec Patton:
So what kind of venue, so you’re playing any kind of venues?

Kofy Boakye:
Not any kind of venues.

Alec Patton:
Well, not any kind.

Kofy Boakye:
But no, I mean, we’re definitely, whether it’s pairing a show with an artist, so currently the next show, I’m taking a little bit of a break because I’m to start working on that new music for April and May, but coming back in into June, we’re going, we’re going to release a, we’re going to do a live recording, I believe, back in Akron, and that will spearhead pretty much everything else. We’re going to be in DC doing a show with jazz great, jazz legend, Gerald Albright. So me and him are doing a show together in DC, and we got a couple other things lined up. I know we’re going to be back out here in southern California. Is this Southern California?

Alec Patton:
This is Southern California.

Kofy Boakye:
Okay. Yeah.

Alec Patton:
This is about as southern as it gets.

Kofy Boakye:
Okay.

Alec Patton:
Yeah, we’re half an hour from Mexico.

Kofy Boakye:
Oh, yeah. Oh yeah. We’re south. So yeah, it’s definitely good. Going to be a lot coming up here. And also just planning to or pondering about making this the new home, not necessarily San Diego. I do love San Diego, but more Los Angeles a couple of hours away. So making that move, but making sure that it’s the right move.

Alec Patton:
Got it.

Kofy Boakye:
Yeah.

Alec Patton:
What’s pulling you out to Los Angeles?

Kofy Boakye:
The money. No, I’m just kidding. It’s not the money. It’s really just the relationships. I have a lot of people out here that have been great mentors and have just been incredible resources, and sometimes when you’re out of sight, you’re out of mind.
And I just don’t want to be that right now. I want to really maximize on the relationships we’ve built, and if that means I got to take that five hour flight to be out here from the East Coast, I’ll do it. I’ll do it.

Alec Patton:
And then you got the Apollo stuff happening too.

Kofy Boakye:
Yeah, which is why, again, I’m really pondering on the five-hour flight, but I really do think I’m going to make it happen because again, both of those regions right now are really, really where the work for me and the success of building what I’m trying to do is.
As much as I love being rooted, even around places like my hometown, I’m realizing that the timing is really looking for me to make other places the home, but also never forgetting that Akron will always be home.

Alec Patton:
Yeah. And are, your mom still out there?

Kofy Boakye:
Mom is still in Ohio. Yeah. Living it up. She’s out here with me though. And yeah, she’s enjoying it.

Alec Patton:
She’s here? Oh cool.

Kofy Boakye:
She’ll be here. I’m excited to have her here on Thursday as well for the closing.

Alec Patton:
Got it.

Kofy Boakye:
Yeah.

Alec Patton:
All right. You got San Diego plans?

Kofy Boakye:
I’m trying to find some. I know they told me about museums out here and things of that nature and the zoo, so I’m going to try to see the city a little bit, for sure.

Alec Patton:
All right. Awesome. Thank you so much.

Kofy Boakye:
Thank you. Thank you.

Alec Patton:
Appreciate it.
High Tech High Unboxed is hosted and edited by me, Alec Patton. Our theme music is by Brother Herschel. Huge thanks to Kofy Boakye for this conversation. In the show notes, we have a link to videos of both Kofy’s opening performance and his closing keynote to his Instagram and to a documentary about him, Made in Akron.
We also have more information about the Deeper Learning Conference, which has the best music of any education conference I’ve ever been to. And I’m saying that even though they don’t ask me to play anymore. But if the old House band ever gets back together, I’m ready.
Thanks for listening.