Ms KO

KO stands for Kelli Owens, a native of Cleveland, OH. She sings, plays keyboards, engineers, writes and produces. She has been singing and arranging both music and vocals since the age of eight. KO was trained in classical piano, violin and voice from the age of eight. She has studied on scholarships at the Cleveland Music School Settlement, Interlochen Music Camp, and the Murtis H. Taylor Center.

She grew up in a musical family as second youngest of four. James G. Stewart, her father, introduced his children to music at an early age since he himself is a jazz musician. It was common place for James to take his children to different nightclubs, to hear the jazz music of course. She grew up listening to several Jazz and R&B influences such as Oscar Peterson, Gene Ammons, Minnie Ripperton, Esther Phillips and Chaka Khan, just to mention a few.

KO started her R&B career as a member of the group BLU BAC where she sang, wrote, played keyboards and performed with her sister Marlena Stewart. She later joined the group Hipnatix, an R&B and hip-hop group based in New York. KO has done background vocals for a number of Cleveland based artists like Fear No Mob on their album "Conversation Rules", Midwest Mafia's "Ain't No Sunshine"(not yet released), and played keyboards on an album released by Brother's of the Struggle. She has performed as an opening act at the Coliseum in Cleveland and at the Cleveland Freak Neak where she and her sister rocked the crowd.

She has recently performed in several New York and New Jersey nightclubs and college campuses including "Le Bar Bat" and "The Elbow Room". You can catch her doing cameo appearances with Cleveland's legendary jazz performers Eddie Bacchus Sr. and Cecil Rucker at Cleveland s "The Wolf's Den", "The Spot II", and "Zin's". She has also performed at the East Cleveland Community Theatre where she left no one disappointed.

KO loves writing, singing, arranging and producing. She hopes one day to be able to share her talent with everyone that can be reached. With influences ranging from jazz to hip-hop, to classical and rock-n-roll, whatever your musical interests are, there is always something everyone can appreciate in this rising stars creations.