In January, K.Carter — born Kevin Carter — performed at Table 33 as a part of the Levitt UpClose series, which puts on intimate and surprise performances at venues audiences wouldn’t normally experience live music. Carter told the restaurant’s owner he wanted to introduce an event called Cocktail Hip-Hop — an alternative to the piano background music common in similar establishments.
“It’s not about me in this situation,” Carter said. “I want to be able to provide and add to the atmosphere Table 33 already has. There’s not gonna be any backing tracks or DJ scratches and all that. I want to give it that acoustic feel.”
The trio — Poppy on drums, Dre Manuel on keys and K.Carter rapping — will perform two 45-minute sets. Guest singers and musicians will occasionally sit in, switching up the experience every Thursday.
“People who may not know anything about hip-hop already got stereotypes about hip-hop,” Carter said. “But they’re going to hear this and it’s going to break whatever stereotype in their mind already. They’re not going to know it’s hip-hop until I start rapping.”
K.Carter is a hip-hop artist, improviser and co-producer and co-host of “The Novelizers” podcast. In 2019, he started For Dayton, By Dayton, a free, one-day music festival with hip-hop as its driving force. Many of these aspects of K.Carter were documented in the 2022 indie documentary, “Son of Hip Hop: A Rapumentary.”
Kevin Carter, as opposed to his artist alter ego, is private. The documentary pulls back the curtain, deconstructing his studio process and the bureaucratic hurdles of organizing a local music festival.
“K.Carter is a little more open. K.Carter is more vulnerable than Kevin. But it is me,” Carter said. “What I’m thinking about is the content of my music, and most of the content is about me, what I look to in life.”
In his 2025 album, “S.T.E.M.” — “science, technology, entertainment and music” — K.Carter offers listeners all aspects of his life. Carter is a cyber security analyst for his nine-to-five, so the science and technology of “S.T.E.M.” remained, while entertainment and music replaced engineering and mathematics.
“Every time, I’m giving people all of me,” Carter said. “I don’t know how to rap about not being me.”
In lieu of physical copies of the album — though those may be printed later — K.Carter instead turned the album into a framed poster. He says not only is he giving you music in the form of art, he’s turning the album into visual art too.
Carter also uses improv comedy to push his art forward. He’s been improvising since 2013, and is an owner of The Black Box Improv Theater in Dayton.
“Improv helps me with stage presence, to be more open with the audience,” Carter said. “I can add a little more character to the set, to the show and everything like that. And I think improv is something that gives me more confidence in doing that.”
When it comes to creating, Carter works well with a group, as shown through Safe Money with TINO and his upcoming Cocktail Hip-Hop residency. The “yes, and…” principle has been key in that discovery.
Still, it’s sometimes those late-night solo writing sessions when K.Carter can safely regress to Kevin Carter.
“It’s just me,” he said. “The city’s asleep. There’s more freedom that way.”
That solitude fuels the art. On Thursdays, he brings it to the table.
Brandon Berry covers the music and arts scene in Dayton and Southwest Ohio. Reach him at branberry100@gmail.com.
HOW TO GO
What: Cocktail Hip-Hop, with Dre Manuel, Poppy and K.Carter
When: 6-8 p.m. Thursdays
Where: Table 33, 45 W. 4th St., Dayton
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