Name: Kiyan Foroughi
Nationality: French
Occupation: Producer, songwriter
Current release: Kiyan Foroughi's new single "Beautiful Distraction" is out now. It is taken off his upcoming full-length inner light. OUTER SPACE, expected for February 27th 2026.
Global Recommendations: I grew up in Dubai. Get the yogurt infused kebab at Al Ustad Special Kebab.
And I’m currently living in Singapore. Go to Brooklyn Bar in Ann Siang Hill. One of the few bars for hip hop heads in town. Say hi to Mark the owner.
Topics I am passionate about but rarely get to talk about: It’s more like a guilty pleasure. I love hip hop dancers and dance battles. I love watching them become one with the music. Les Twins and the whole Criminalz Crew are some of my favourites.  

If you enjoyed this Kiyan Foroughi interview and would like to stay up to date with his music, visit him on Instagram, and Soundcloud.

The path to becoming a producer is a process - but from many interviews, I am under the impression that there are nonetheless one or a few defining moments. If this was the case for you – what were they and why were they so incisive?

It was during COVID lockdowns, 2020. I produced an EP with Funky DL (legendary UK hip-hop artist, producer and friend) for my team after a brutal year. It was meant to lift spirits. What it actually did was crack open a limiting belief I'd carried my whole life: "I'm not creative."

Until that point, I was a listener. Someone who knew liner notes, samples, the stories behind the music. In depth. But producing? That felt like someone else's world.

After that EP, I couldn't stop experimenting. Song after song. Late nights in Logic Pro. I realized I didn't just have a story to tell … I had the story I was living.

Tell me about one or two of your early pieces that you're still proud of (or satisfied with) in terms of production – and why you're content with them.

"Shadow of the Enchantress", actually. It’s the climax of inner light. OUTER SPACE. We recorded it years before the rest of the album even existed.

8 minutes. 8 distinct sections. A trip-hop epic. The protagonist confronts her shadows: anger, doubt, guilt. It's a mythic battle for self-ownership, inspired by Carl Jung's shadow work.

I'm proud of it because it was the first time I built something that felt inevitable. Not forced. Not chasing anything. It just … was.

In how far, would you say, was your evolution as an artist connected to the evolution of your music set-up and studio? Were there shared stepping stones?

My setup is intentionally minimal. Logic Pro. An AKAI MPK mini keyboard. Headphones. That's it.

The stepping stones weren't hardware, they were actually more internal.

2020: I started to believe I could produce.
2021-22: I practiced.
2023-24: Life collapsed (previous startup, marriage). I shelved the album.
2025: I rebuilt. The album came back. But now the story was a mirror of my own journey.

The setup didn't change. I did.

From the earliest sketches to the finished piece, tell me about the production process for your current release, please.

It starts with a feeling, lesson or scar from life I can't name yet. A texture. A loop. Something that pulls.

For "Seas of Space", I built the KAYTRANADA-style bounce first and the bass which is groovy, danceable. I then added cosmic layers to it.

Then Rachelle Ruby laid down the vocals. Then Jude (Singaporean rapper) came in as the ship's captain, warning the protagonist not to fall for illusions. The Persian poet Rumi’s quote anchors it: "Fling me across the fabric of time and the seas of space. Make me nothing and from nothing, everything."

Mixing and mastering with Taiyo Shirai (Japanese-American who also is an amazing lofi artist that goes by “Taiyo Ky”) polished it. But the soul and the life lesson was there from the first sketch.

Late producer SOPHIE said: “You have the possibility with electronic music to generate any texture, and any sound. So why would any musician want to limit themselves?” What's your take on that?

Tough one! It’s very grey. In many ways, SOPHIE was right. But infinite possibility without intent can also just be noise.

I limit myself by choice … not because I can't access the texture, but because the story doesn't need it. inner light. OUTER SPACE. needed cosmic R&B, trip-hop, soul, boom-bap, jazz across the journey. It didn't need dubstep or hardstyle or hyperpop.

The limitation is the art. It creates a universe and feelings around them. Constraints create meaning.

Tell me about the role collaboration played in your recent productions – and how you see the potential for machines as collaborators compared to humans.

Humans bring lived experience. Machines bring efficiency. I used AI to suggest chord progressions, maintain principles of music theory, and speed up workflows.

But the soul? That's Rachelle Ruby's voice cracking with vulnerability in parts. That's Substantial (Nujabes' most frequent collaborator) delivering the point of the whole album in 3 lived-in verses. That's Darius Homayoun (actor from Succession, Tehran) narrating the poem like he's lived it. That’s George Azzi finding his voice after staying away from music for over 10 years. That’s Masia One bringing her interpretation of the desires that seduce us all.

Machines help set the foundations. Humans create the mythology on top by bringing their essence into. You can't automate remembering who you truly are.

Production, as opposed to live performance, can be a lonely process and feedback from listeners isn't always tangible. What is it about it that gives you satisfaction?

The satisfaction isn't external for me. It's internal. And it’s kind of the point of the album.

When I finish a track and it feels inevitable (like it couldn't exist any other way), that's the moment.

The feedback I care about is when someone messages me and says, "This track made me feel seen." That's the whole point. Music as a mirror to whatever you are feeling at the time.

AI is already capable of making something most people would recognise as music. I am curious, though, and will keep this question somewhat broad on purpose: What do you think that means?   

It means we're about to find out what actually matters.

In a world where everything could sound and look the same, or even unreal … then authenticity is going to come back to the forefront. AI can generate melodies, harmonies, beats. It can't generate lived experience. It can't generate vulnerability.

Music that matters will always come from people who've lived something and need to say it. The rest is just noise.

Creativity can reach many different corners of our lives. Do you personally feel as though producing a piece of music is inherently different from something like making a great cup of coffee? What do you express through music that you couldn't or wouldn't in more 'mundane' tasks?  

Making coffee (or tea in my case!) is more like a ritual. Making music is an expression.

Coffee serves a function. Music makes you feel, and asks you questions that you didn't know you were carrying.

Through music, I express what can't be said in conversation: the collapse of masks, the shedding of approval of others, the journey back to yourself.