In Conversation with Cam Keddy

Cam Keddy makes records that feel inevitable, like they had no choice but to exist. But there's nothing accidental about it. He and IAmSuspectz sit with a beat and ask the cold questions. Who is this for? Where does it live? Does it survive being quiet? Every decision gets tested. And then somehow the strategy disappears entirely. You just hear the song.

"Tom Zendaya" is exactly this. It's a summer record that sounds like summer, like it was always supposed to soundtrack golden hour and windows down and the moment before everything gets good. But get Cam talking and you realise every detail was chosen. We sat down with him to talk about how deliberation becomes naturalness, what his voice is underneath all the production, and why the best records are the ones where instinct and calculation become impossible to separate.

You're known for being incredibly deliberate with your production choices. When you heard the beat for "Tom Zendaya," was it instant or calculated?

Honestly, it's both, and I don't think you can fake either one. With "Tom Zendaya" the gut feeling came first. I heard the bounce and I already knew the cadence I wanted before the first loop finished. But instinct only gets the song made.

Me and Suspectz then sit with it and ask the second question: who is this for, where does it live, what does it set up next? If the answer to that is fuzzy, we park it, no matter how much I love it. "Tom Zendaya" passed both tests straight away. It felt undeniable in the room and it made total sense on the board. That's when you know you've got a single.

So when you were writing this one, what atmosphere were you actually building toward?

"Tom Zendaya" is a summer record, plain and simple. That was the brief I gave myself from day one. The scenario I pictured the whole time: golden hour, windows down, you're on the way to somewhere good. A barbecue, a beach day, pre-drinks with your people, phone propped up, somebody's filming.

It's the song that comes on and lifts everything before the night's even started. I wanted that easy summer confidence. You press play and you feel like the main character for three minutes. Dropping it end of July wasn't an accident either. This record belongs to the hottest weeks of the year. If it soundtracks somebody's summer, one memory, one video, one drive, I've done my job.

When you get a beat in the studio, what's the conversation between what the production is telling you and what you want to say?

Every beat is already saying something before I open my mouth. My job is to work out whether I'm agreeing with it or arguing with it. Some records I lean all the way into what the production is doing. Others, the interesting version is the tension. A beat that pulls you to the floor with a lyric that's actually saying something. It flips my original concept more often than people would think.

Probably one in three times I come in with an idea and leave with a completely different song. "Tom Zendaya" was exactly that. I walked into the session with something moodier planned, more late-night. Then the beat came on and it was a pure summer vibe I could work with. There was no fighting it. Within about twenty minutes the old idea was gone and I was writing the summer record instead. Sometimes the beat knows what the song is before you do, and your only job is to get out of its way.

There's a lot of talk about Jazz/Jersey comparisons right now. What has to be there for something to feel unmistakably like you?

The comparisons don't bother me. Those are talented artists and it means people are placing me in the right conversation. But the non-negotiable for me is the vocal identity. Whatever the tempo, whatever the wave, you should be able to catch four bars with no tag and know it's me. It's in the phrasing. Where I sit behind the beat, where I choose to leave space. Trends move, sounds rotate, but that fingerprint is the thing I protect on every record, "Tom Zendaya" included.

With production this energetic, how do you make sure your message doesn't just disappear into the bounce?

The trap with high-energy production is letting the beat do all the work. You end up with a song that moves but doesn't stick. My rule is that the hook has to survive being played quietly. If the record still communicates when it's not rattling a speaker, the message is safe. So I write the bounce and the meaning as one thing, not a message stapled onto a dance beat. The melody carries the feeling, the lyric carries the point, and neither one is allowed to bully the other.

You mention Jazz/Jersey as your sound. Where does the jazz actually live in what you're doing?

For me it's the feeling and the freedom more than the theory. Jazz, at its core, is confidence inside structure. You know the framework so well you can play with it. That's how I approach vocals. The Jersey side gives me the frame and the drums, and the jazz side is me improvising within it. Melodies that don't land where you expect. Chords that give the record a bit of soul underneath the energy. It stops the music being disposable. There's warmth under the bounce, and that's the jazz.

You work closely with IAmSuspectz on positioning. Was there a moment on this record where he pushed back and changed your mind?

"Tom Zendaya" itself, honestly. When I finished it I wanted it out immediately. That's the curse of loving a record. You want the world to have it the same week. Suspectz was the one asking the cold question: "Does dropping it now serve the song, or does it just feel good today?" His case was simple. It's a summer record, so let it land in the heart of summer, and let's build the moment around it properly instead of throwing it out and hoping.

He was right. Sitting on a song you believe in is hard, but watching the anticipation build the way it has, I get it now. The lesson: I'm inside the music and he's outside it, and you need both views. Trusting the positioning doesn't mean giving up creative control. It means accepting that the person who can see the whole board sometimes sees the better move.

IAmSuspectz

How would you measure momentum before a release? Is it numbers or intuition?

It's both, genuinely. There's the data side. How snippets travel, saves, pre-saves, whether creators pick the sound up without being pushed, what the DMs look like. With "Tom Zendaya" we've been watching how people react to it before the release date, and the early signs are exactly what you want to see. But there's also a feel you can't put on a spreadsheet. When you play a record in a room and people ask what it is before it's finished. Suspectz plays the chess game with the numbers. I read the room. When both are saying the same thing, that's momentum.

If "Tom Zendaya" had to be one sentence, what's that sentence?

One sentence? "Cam Keddy makes records that own the moment and he's only getting started." "Tom Zendaya" is the sound of me stepping fully into my lane rather than visiting it. To the fans it says: this is the energy, come with me. To the industry it says: this isn't a moment, it's a trajectory.

"Tom Zendaya" is out now on all platforms via Crowd Control Records.