Forward-thinking R&B artist Cautious Clay has a lot to say

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      It’s possibly a bit of understatement to say that 2018 was an interesting one for Josh Karpeh. A few months prior to the start of last year, Karpeh was still a white-collar wage slave who had yet to play a show under his musical pseudonym Cautious Clay. By the end of 2018, he was a full-time artist with two EPs out, an NPR Tiny Desk Concert under his belt, and a rapidly building buzz for his carefully crafted but still soulful brand of forward-thinking R&B.

      Reached at his home in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, Karpeh measures his career growth by the size of the venues he finds himself performing at in New York City.

      “It’s gone from selling out Baby’s All Right, which is, like, 200 cap, to Irving Plaza, which is 1,080, in the same city in less than a year, so it’s definitely insane,” he tells the Straight.

      It’s another mark of Cautious Clay’s rising success that he already has collaborations with heavy hitters like John Mayer, Hudson Mohawke, and Tobias Jesso Jr. on his CV.

      The North Vancouver–raised Jesso, who cowrote Karpeh’s latest single, “Reasons”, is an ascending star in his right, a cowriter of choice for the likes of Adele and Sia.

      “His management reached out to me, cold-emailed after I’d released ‘Joshua Tree’, the second song I released,” Karpeh says. “And they just found me on SoundCloud or Spotify or something, and he wanted to write with me. So we linked up in L.A. on one of my first trips out there, and that’s when we wrote that song.”

      Collaboration can be fun, but Karpeh has already proven, with his self-produced debut EP Blood Type (which features his breakout song, “Cold War”), that he has no problem doing everything by himself.

      Cautious Clay: Tiny Desk Concert

      “When there’s too many cooks in the kitchen, per se, it can just be a little daunting, almost like ‘Wow, I can’t think,’ you know what I mean?” he notes. “And I don’t like to feel that way. So, a lot of times I’ll collaborate with people and I’ll make a bunch of new vibes and it’s great. A lot of times I do like to do things completely solo if I’m feeling a certain type of way, and I’m inspired, and I don’t want to feel hindered by other people’s thoughts.”

      In that way, he can rightfully be compared to the boxer known as the Greatest of All Time, whose birth name, Cassius Clay, inspired Karpeh’s stage moniker.

      “Yeah, it’s definitely a Muhammad Ali reference, but the meaning really stems from my thoughts and perspectives on the way I create my music,” he says. “I’d say it’s best defined by my being particular; being cautious about my music. I’m very thoughtful. I have a way of creating it where every element, whether it’s the lyrics, the production, the mix—I mix all my own stuff—everything is very much in my hands at the end of the day, because I want to be that particular about it.”

      Karpeh clearly has a lot to say—not just in interviews, but through his songs, which touch on everything from how our addiction to social media commodifies human interactions (“Cold War”) to the challenges that come with finding balance between love and worldly ambition (“Joshua Tree”).

      “I do invest a lot in people connecting to my lyrics personally,” he admits. “I do get messages at times from people who are like, ‘I’ve been going through a hard time, and what you said in “Stolen Moments”, or what you said in “Cold War”, I really resonated with that.’ That’s the most enjoyable to me, because people are listening to my music in a way that it’s doing its job. It’s not just background music. People are listening and they’re connecting. They want something deeper.”

      Cautious Clay plays the Fox Cabaret on Thursday (January 17).

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