Kaki King

Kaki King always wanted to be a drummer, but the guitar—in all the distinct ways she’s played it, subverted it, used it to compose pieces that sound like little else—has certainly prompted an interesting journey. King was raised in Atlanta by two lawyers; one, her father, was an enthusiastic guitarist who took blues lessons and taught his daughter scales. Music lessons stuck, and becoming absorbed not just in her instrument but in the emergence of Britpop overseas provided outlets of escape. She eventually escaped to NYU, setting up a drum kit in her dorm’s basement so she could be in bands while she finished her degree. She was going to be a lawyer, too, but—in need of connection and money after 9/11—she began busking in the subway, a whim that led to gigs, a management contract, record deals, and tours. Rooted in the independence of her hands that she’d learned through drumming, her rhythmic and harmonically rich guitar playing seemed like a magic trick to many, sorcery that earned her a very high spot on a Rolling Stone index of young guitar wizards in 2006.

But King was never content to be the next Michael Hedges or Eddie Van Halen. Instead, after one major-label effort, she started singing and incorporating Chicago instrumental legends like John McEntire on 2006’s …Until We Felt Red. An extraordinary EP with the Mountain Goats, a collaboration with Timbaland, a guitar that served as a projection screen in a multimedia concert—King has remained artistically restless. Her exquisite 2020 album Modern Yesterdays explored electroacoustic sound design and rippling drone, all in support of guitar passages that felt like breathwork. Her 2025 LP with Tamar Eisenman, Sei, was gentle, romantic, inquisitive, and surprising, songs with definitive structures (“Canon”) giving way to work that seemed to stretch across the horizon, like “The Desert” and “Coda.” King is a technically dazzling player and has been for a quarter-century; her imagination is not, however, limited by that ability.