Trusted music producer Zak Khan finds his own creative voice
by Macie Rasmussen and Bump Opera
September 28, 2022
The first time Zak Khan saw a guitar in person, he was six or seven. While traveling through an airport in Amsterdam, he approached a man carrying an instrument on his back. His mom said, “Hey, my son really is enamored with you right now. Can you show him your guitar?” The man unzipped the case to reveal an electric guitar, and Khan was “starry-eyed.” He didn’t know quite how it worked, but whatever it was, he knew he wanted to play it.
On his birthday following the airport run-in, Khan’s dad gifted him a no-name-brand acoustic guitar. He strummed it a few times, then moved on — like kids do. Three or four years later, he picked it up again.
As a younger child, Khan lived in Pakistan and moved to Saudi Arabia with his family at age nine. (Every couple of years, he flew to Minnesota, his mom’s home state, to visit family.) Sitting in his dad’s car, he’d listen to traditional Pakistani music featuring songs that were often 20 to 30 minutes long with chanting, drums, sitars, and harmoniums. As a teenager, he fixated on progressive, guitar-based metal.
Khan’s mom was a “music head” with a radio show. Noticing his interest in music, she taught him about “all these virtuoso guitar players like Hendrix, Joe Satriani and Gary Moore… all these guys who are like, the best guitar players.” Over the years, Khan taught himself single guitar riffs from YouTube, but now he does much more than just play that one instrument.
Forging Minnesota connections
In a cafe by Lake Nokomis, near a collection of magazines and newspapers, sits a stack of brochures listing First Avenue’s upcoming fall shows. Under “Just Announced” there’s a photo of Khan and his bandmates who will perform with Papa Mbye at the 7th St. Entry on October 21. Khan himself enters the space wearing a Carbon Sound (MPR’s new hip-hop and R&B service) T-shirt. Moments like these make Minneapolis feel small, in a comforting way.
Even if his name isn’t familiar, his presence might be. Khan plays in at least four bands, and works as a producer for a younger generation creating sensational music in the Twin Cities. He performed at First Avenue’s Best New Bands 2019 with Fruitpunchloverboy, and at the 2021 event he took the stage twice, playing guitar with Papa Mbye and Honeybutter.
When Khan moved to Minneapolis in 2017, he made quick connections that launched him into the work he does today. “By luck of the draw, the same week that I moved up here for college, I met my two best friends,” he says. “Mr. Ben Farmer who plays synth and keys and produces a lot of music with me, Huhroon and Papa, FruitPunchLoverBoy. And then my other homie and roommate, Brandon Mensa also goes by Kwey. He’s a local DJ and also a producer.” A friend introduced him to Mensa, then Khan got his number. He reached out the following week and got invited to a studio session that was a six-minute walk from where he lived. It could have been luck, but Khan’s warm and welcoming demeanor likely had something to do with it.
Friendship plays a significant part in Khan’s creative process. The people he calls his friends and collaborators are understanding and respectful of each other's energies. They go with the flow. Sometimes meeting up for a session leads to a night of movies and beers, and other times, it conjures up an idea that prompts a productive, three-day-long musical undertaking.
In the producer’s chair
Much of Khan’s career development has been exercising his talent as a producer. It’s a role in which he supplies the vision of the artist and offers them ownership. “I'm producing for them. Obviously, I feel like I have a contribution to that. And I'm a part of that inherently. But it is their song, and in my heart I do accept and welcome that for people to own their art,” he says.
It’s impossible for some producers to fade into the background, but Khan recognizes the challenges and vulnerability of being an artist. He says, “As a producer, I'm like, ‘Ok, if they’re wearing the outfit of the song I helped him create, that's a lot of work for them to do, and I admire that they can do that.’” After all, the artists are the face of the music that people have strong feelings about — positive and negative.
Khan never seeks out recognition, but it is always appreciated. Fortunately, he’s noticed a trend of “behind the scenes” creators becoming more visible to the public. “The culture has turned to where listeners and appreciators of the art are also interested in like these people as well, not just the face of the music.”
He puts it simply: The artist is the writer, and he is the editor. “I'm the guy who designs what the book looks like. Is it hardcover? What do the pages feel like? What font are we using? But the words are theirs, at the end of the day, and how [they are] expressed to people.”
That way of thinking is something that Christian Johnson, the rapper/singer who performs under the name Fruitpunchloverboy, says pushes Khan’s skill set far beyond his musicianship. The two started working together in Khan’s Augsburg dorm room in 2018. Johnson jokes that he calls it a studio when it was, in fact, a dorm room. But to them, it was a studio. Since then, they've worked one on one and in larger groups of people.
“There's nothing like walking into a room where you feel like you can be exactly who you are, especially in [a] music space. And I think Zak has allowed a lot of people to feel that comfort… just being in his presence and making music with him,” Johnson says. He agrees that writing can be vulnerable. “As someone who writes lyrics, sometimes those moments can beg for self-conflict or insecurity, and Zak has never been one to pressure me.”
Johnson doesn’t claim his music as solely his; he has a “this is ours” mentality. “I wouldn't be able to really listen to music that I've made without Zak… lyrics that I've written really came to life because of him,” he says humbly.
Khan has a metaphor that illustrates this idea. At times, he’ll have a beat or instrumental, and multiple people record different verses on top of it. “I'm just supplying a mattress, or like a cushion for them to tell that story on. And that's the coolest thing for me because it just shows you how powerful the voice is. It’s the grand determinant.”
Stepping into the spotlight
Khan started to channel his own voice when he released the single, “WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?” in July. In the process of creating the best experience for the listener, he ended up with more than 40 versions. His meticulous efforts paid off. The song made its way onto Spotify’s “Fresh Finds” playlist in September. The streaming service’s algorithm analyzes trends to produce lists of independent artists’ songs for editors to comb through and pick their favorites.
This solo work developed during the pandemic’s lockdown period. Khan’s previous routine revolved around an 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. schedule followed by collaborators showing up to work on projects. Suddenly, he spent entire days alone in his apartment and needed to fill space and time. As he learned and practiced, experimentation and encouragement from people who he respects were the foundation he needed to stop waiting.
Now it’s Khan’s turn to take ownership. “Songs for me are very much like snapshots or photographs of different moments and experiences in my life and the people I was with during the creation of those songs,” he says. Life can be thought of as a series of images — ones that he translates into sound. Even though it can still feel vulnerable at times for people to hear his voice and read his words, he’s determined to progress.
In order to step into the role of an artist, sometimes people have to adhere to the cliché saying, “Get comfortable being uncomfortable.” In Khan’s mind, this cliché holds truth. He knows that it will take trials to relax in his role as an artist, but believes that’s the beautiful part of the process.
In terms of genre, Khan is open-minded and revels in studying all kinds of music. He would be satisfied if people thought, “What the hell was that?” after hearing one of his songs. He’s “obsessed with contorting and sculpting familiar sounds, voices and instruments into something that feels ambiguous and unfamiliar.” He loves the challenge of creating unique textures by bridging elements of the natural/acoustic and electronic/digital world. It’s ideal to have “something that sounds like you could rub it in your fingers or chew between your teeth.”
Sometimes, Khan views his life as a flow chart — a perspective that identifies essential steps and simultaneously shows the larger picture. Whether it’s a choice he’s made or an instance he didn’t have control over, he visualizes how each has led him to the place he’s currently at. Like all of us, he doesn’t realize how the most minute decisions have directed his path until he’s at the next destination. How would his life be different if he hadn’t stumbled upon that guitarist in the Amsterdam airport? What if he hadn’t moved to Minneapolis? The answers don’t exist, so Khan focuses on the present.
When asked what he’d like people to know about his upcoming work, Khan directs his excitement onto others, particularly that of Papa Mbye, Huhroon, Fruitpunchloverboy, and Rhianna Hajduch, an artist planning to release her debut work under the title Symbioscia. Stepping into independent work clearly hasn’t pushed his collaborative efforts off track.
Khan compares this upcoming year to exam season in high school, when each test would contain specific academic material he learned over the previous two years. Now, years of prepared material and practice will be put to the test by his own performances and upcoming releases with his friends/collaborators.
“I came here knowing nobody, and I feel like just by interacting with people and having good conversation…[I’ve] found myself in the place that I needed to be, with the right people.”
Zak Khan will perform with Kinfu and Mati at Icehouse on Wednesday, September 28. Tickets
