Q&A: 17-Year-Old Moore Kismet’s Journey Through Festivals and the EDM Scene
WHEN YOU THINK OF “FIRSTS” IN LIFE — graduating high school would typically come before playing a major festival like Lollapalooza and EDC Vegas. Omar Davis, also known as Moore Kismet, can check both of those off their bucket list, along with playing Coachella, Bonnaroo, and a handful of other festivals nationwide. The young electronic music producer has garnered plenty of high profile praise and support within their respective genre, from Martin Garrix to Alison Wonderland, and their age doesn’t seem to be much of a factor. Instead, it’s Kismet’s industrial and highly-refined sound, enamored stage presence, and zealous confidence to play on the same stages as EDM giants, all the while not even being old enough to attend the same shows they’re performing at.
Despite just being 17 years old and one of the youngest professionals in their field, Kismet is poised to cause a disruption of sorts. In a predominantly white and male-dominated genre, Kismet is Black, non-binary, and pansexual. They’re not only galvanizing themselves into these spaces that are desperate for more representation, but doing so with an undying love for the art of an electronic dance experience.
I first saw Kismet when I was shooting photos for Summer Camp Music Festival in Chillicothe, Illinois. They were nestled into a small yet beautiful stage within the festival grounds. I was dragged there by a coworker who insisted that Kismet would shatter my prior EDM conceptions. Lo and behold, my EDM-obsessed coworker was right. The performance felt effectively personable with its insular presentation, as this brash yet supervised sound pulled me in and never really let go. Three weeks later, Kismet’s grasp on me maintained as they took the stage (twice!) at Bonnaroo 2022, and I got to chat with them in between sets.
Read below to learn more about Moore Kismet, their journey with EDM, how they feel about performing, and more.
LUNA: [When I first saw you], it was definitely a time for me as someone who's not necessarily super familiar with EDM to get exposed to that. Truthfully, I was most mesmerized by your performance on the small Illumination stage, which I found myself never leaving. I think everybody that was on that stage deserved to be on a bigger stage.
KISMET: I absolutely agree because it makes no sense why Wavedash got put super early on that stage, like their whole setup absolutely deserved a bigger set. They literally opened up for Porter Robinson on his tour and y'all are gonna stick them on, like, three before, with a changeover in the middle. I'm like, dude, that's just so sucky. But they're so amazing and they're so talented. That whole lineup definitely deserved to be on the mainstage.
LUNA: Despite that, they gave just a killer performance and you did too! I found out about just how young you are after that, and it recontextualized the performance. I started doing my research and saw that you are the youngest to play Lollapalooza and EDC Vegas. With those comes a story that people want to shake around a bit. Does that manifest into any anxieties for you? Does it build pressure for you?
KISMET: Yeah, I think for me, it's like, I always get super nervous before a performance. That's never not been a thing for me. So I've always just tried to be very careful when I start planning my performances, especially because more recently I've kind of made my first foray into doing pride shows. Obviously, not everybody's cup of tea is heavy electronic music. So even though I play a little bit of everything, sometimes I have to play a lot more different stuff than just a little bit of everything… tailoring to an audience. So I always just get super nervous because I never know what to do in a situation like that. I never know how to kind of genuinely tend to somebody else's wants in a musical performance. So I just try to do my thing.
LUNA: It's your own, but you also kind of adapted to the audiences.
KISMET: Exactly.
LUNA: When I saw you performing at Summer Camp, the emotions that you delivered with just your physicality and everything on stage was really felt. I also looked and saw that you have other interests, such as voice acting and screenwriting? I'm a big, big supporter of taking outside influences into different artistic mediums. I'm really curious how you sort of balance all of those different interests and music? Do they influence each other?
KISMET: In some cases, yeah. Those are like for the particular projects where my music is directly influencing whatever script I might be writing or whatever idea I might be concocting for a film. And then other times, it's just me trying to find my own lane and work on a film that isn't directly attached to my music that still comes from my own life and from what I'm experiencing and just going from there, you know?
LUNA: Yeah, absolutely. I just think it's so interesting to see people on an upper echelon in one part of their life. But also, that doesn't mean they don't have outside interests that they have as well. With that, I'm kind of curious because it's not just you up there performing and hitting play. That's a misconception. There's so much that goes into this when you started at such an early age. You probably have a ton of experience. Do you have an artistic element within working in electronic music that you like the most, whether that be producing on your own or playing in front of hundreds of thousands of people?
KISMET: I would definitely say it's producing. I think it's just because I have so much more freedom when I create my own stuff. And then sometimes, it may not always be the most live-friendly thing. I think I've just kind of come to terms with that, and whatever I do make that's good for a setting like that, then I just go on ahead and go full force with it.
LUNA: Right. We were just talking about wavedash. You mentioned how Porter Robinson brought them on tour. Something that I've begun to understand really heavily within electronic dance music is that it's a community: people support each other more than any other music genre or industry. Can you talk about that?
KISMET: I absolutely agree with that. I think the main reason why is because of the fact that it's a lot harder to come up in electronic music because you have to find your own way in things. The best way to do that is by meeting new people and kind of expanding your horizons. I think a lot of people fail to realize that [in] other genres until they start getting in the studio with other songwriters, and even then, you're in the studio with the songwriters, you write music with them, you finish the song, and then you put the song out. A lot of times artists don't even credit them on their profile, especially if they're major label artists. They just say, “Hey, this song is out now.” None of that attention goes to the other songwriters who obviously stick together because songwriters in music — in general, like actual lyrical songwriters — are treated horribly in music and are being put in a position where they're not being paid as much as they should be, where they're not getting the rights that they deserve, whether they’re getting the right amount of attention that they deserve for essentially putting their all into helping write the song in the first place. So with electronic music, collaboration is such a big aspect of a lot that we do. Sometimes somebody's solo discography could be like hot ass, but when they work on the song with somebody, it's not that bad. Or if two incredible artists come together to work on a collaboration, it sounds like the best fucking thing to ever grace the planet. And so, you know, I really just think it's a genuine thing that a lot of people who start off in electronic music realize. Meeting new people, understanding new people and their workflows and their styles is such a huge part of growing as an artist in this community and also in general as a musician. So yeah, absolutely.
LUNA: I've seen that you have a lot of collaborations and a lot of co-signs from people you've worked with. But is there a collaborative moment that sticks out for you that really gave you either confidence or made you really excited about what you're doing?
KISMET: I would have to say Laxcity, and Laxcity and I have known each other since about 2017 or 2018. When he and I first met, we both were just absolutely enthralled by each other’s songs. We love everything the other was working on and we genuinely just wanted to have fun and work on a bunch of music together. We've written, like, two albums worth of songs together in the past few years that we've known each other. But the one that actually finally made it to a good point to get to the finish line was “Flourish.” “Flourish” was the first song that we ever finished together that genuinely made an impact, and that genuinely allowed us to put ourselves in a position to get something good out of one of our random sessions or one of our random idea shares. We're still working through that … we're still working on a bunch of new music together. It's all super beautiful, but “Flourish” is so special to us, and that's why we wanted to put it on the album as well.
LUNA: It sounds like you do so much collaboration that there almost has to be that moment where something just clicks exactly with another person. That's really what collaboration is all about. Collaborating, working with other people — all this stuff takes time and resources, and you also just graduated high school. I was watching your [Instagram] stories. That's awesome. I mean, it's almost out of a movie — during the day, you’re at school. At night, you’re playing festivals. I'm really curious as to how you balance being essentially a full-blown professional with being a teenager and doing those things that you want to do?
KISMET: It's very hard. There are some points in my life where I wish that sometimes I didn't take a show or I didn't do an interview. There are also some times where I wish that I didn't just sit at home texting my friends or that I didn't sit in my grandpa's living room like eating a bunch of chips and watching Forensic Files against my will. You know, it's like a touch-and-go thing. I'm trying to become more grateful of … the moments of normalcy that I have in my life. But also, I'm also really grateful that this is a big part of my life now, doing these shows and touring and everything. It's very stressful, but it's also very enlightening when things go wrong.
LUNA: Having things go right, in your case especially, comes from that hard work, dedication, time, and effort. Balancing your life and work is a constant struggle for everybody. But it’s bigger when you're a teenager. Within all of this, what's something that keeps you afloat, maybe somebody that you can turn to in terms of safety and when you need something solid?
KISMET: My mom. I think my mom has been a genuine shift in the right direction, as far as learning how to take better care of myself and being safe and being responsible and being self-sufficient and being healthy. I think she's helped me out so much with that. She's always been there for me when I needed her. So … she is that person.
LUNA: Same for me.
KISMET: I love that so much.
LUNA: Having a constant support system is not only important for artists but creatives in general. So I really liked your answer there. Your list of accomplishments could max out a PDF file on your resume. With all of that, you're here at Bonnaroo. You're actually playing twice this year at Bonnaroo — that's incredible! What does “up” look like from here? What do you want to accomplish?
KISMET: I want to embark on my first successful real headline tour. I would like to hopefully get my album nominated for a Grammy — maybe even win that Grammy. Fingers crossed for real for real. Then I would also just like more time for myself to write music, to spend time with my friends, to just find a new place so I can work with more people. It's just, there's a lot that I still want to do and that I still need to do. It's just a process.
Moore Kismet’s debut album “UNIVERSE” is out now.
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