Malik Keith (born May 9, 1996), professionally known as Lege Kale (pronounced /lej/ /kale/), is an American record producer, songwriter and vocalist. In 2016 he gained critical acclaim as one of the producers of Kyle's single iSpy featuring Lil Yachty.[1] His joint EP, "Tidal Graves" with frequent collaborator Khary released on July 28, 2017.[2] In 2018, He worked with rising pop artist mastermind Still Woozy to create his new hit song "Habit", quickly amassing over 49 million streams on Spotify alone.[3]
Lege Kale | |
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![]() Lege Kale Performing in 2018 | |
Background information | |
Birth name | Malik Keith |
Also known as | Lege 伝説 |
Born | (1996-05-09) May 9, 1996 (age 26) Columbus, Ohio, U.S. |
Genres |
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Occupation(s) |
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Years active | 2014–present |
Website | legekale |
Malik Keith was born on May 9, 1996, in Columbus, Ohio. From an early age he took an interest in music after his grandmother would play jazz and blues records throughout his home. At the age of twelve he joined his middle school's percussion music program, leading on into most of his high school experience. This would eventually lead him on his path to become a producer. He later attended Ohio University as a student before choosing to pursue music production full-time as a career.
Lege first gained prominence in January 2014, while in his second semester of college at Ohio University. Recording and producing songs out of his college dorm room, he started to slowly gain the attention of other up incomers on the platform SoundCloud such as Oshi, Madbliss, Masego, Brasstracks & Medasin after releasing unique remixes and flips of popular songs. He slowly gained the attention of industry level artists such as Roy Wood$, who would commission him to do an official remix for his song "All Of You".[4] After continuing to rise, Lege released his first ever project "The Colours Ep", which gained him recognition from collectives such as Soulection, who would use his music to launch their first show on Beats 1 Radio.[5][6]
In 2016, Lege would go on to join the art label As We Arrive. Afterwards he would go on to produce American rapper Khary's first hit song "Find Me", which after reaching success as an initial release, saw an equally successful remix release featuring Sylvan Lacue via The Fader,[7] and an addition to the official soundtrack for NBA Live 2018.[8] Spanning the whole of 2016 starting in the summer, he released a series of original works which he collectively dubbed the "2016 Singles Series" which gained him support from fans & blogs such as Huffington Post.[9] In September 2016, he released an official remix for Amine's Hit Song "Caroline" to popular acclaim.[10] In December 2016, he accumulated a lot of attention from the music industry after co-producing Kyle's hit song iSpy, which arose to Number 4 on the billboard charts,[11] and currently is certified at six times platinum by the RIAA[12]
In 2017, he would go on to team up with American hip hop rapper Khary to release their joint Ep project "Tidal Graves" independently. Tidal Graves was released to major acclaim, and gained the attention of blogs such as XXL,[13] Genius,[14] Okayplayer,[15] 2DopeBoyz,[16] Mass Appeal[2] & more. The project was produced entirely by Lege Kale, with Khary providing vocals for the majority of the project.
Growing up Lege was exposed to a lot of different sounds and genres, which ranged from the banging Hip Hop or smooth R&B that his mother would play on car rides to school; to Jazz, Blues & Soul that his Grandmother would play while cooking meals when he was a child. Later on he came to be influenced heavily by even more diverse genres, delving in sounds from Bossa Nova Legends such as Stan Getz & Sergio Mendez, to Rock and even sometimes country artists. During his college years he would go on to discover more electronic artists and was introduced to what would become known as future beats, a newly emerging genre combining key elements of all of these things.
Khary - Intern Aquarium
Singles
Khary & Lege Kale - Tidal Graves Ep[14]
Caleborate - Real Person Lp
Singles
Singles