Exclusive Interview with Rising Star – Tragically Magic

My legal name is Chad Kinnear. I never felt like that fit me so most call me Magic. Right now I’m 23 years old.

Stage name is Tragically Magic. Originally my nickname growing up was Black Magic since misfortune stuck to me like a magnet. Over the years ‘Magic’ is what everyone called me and it fit every aspect of my life.

Becoming an artist though, I wanted that two part name to separate from how everyone knows me already. I wanted something that described the story that would survive me through my music and suited me as a person too. I’ll be honest I was stuck on that for months until one day I was telling a story from my youth and the only words said in response was “That’s tragic”. That was the epiphany of a lifetime for me, my story told tragically, Tragically Magic would be my title.

I was originally a boxer, training constantly and extremely passionate about everything I did. Partly because of training too hard, partly for reasons I’m still slowly learning now, my feet and ankles started pulling themselves apart from the inside. I went from quite minor pain to extreme pain every day and every moment of my life and I couldn’t fight anymore. I broke down inside in ways I hope no other person ever has to feel. To lose your dream and passion forcibly, have everyone around look at you with only pity or sorrow as you limp and drag yourself through each day only declining with time. It put me through a dark spiral for 3 years until one day I realized I’m only pushing forward because of the music in my ears. Now, I didn’t know how to write or anything like that but I sparked the idea that if music could help me even when it wasn’t made to, I could create something meant to help people in hard times. In short I became an artist knowing pain on a level most may never know, hoping to help heal and inspire others to push through their own pain.

I’ve heard the theory and I can see why. When your whole world darkens, tragedy strikes, pain, sorrow, emptiness, all the most deep hitting and real emotions surround you. Depression or anything like it doesn’t just take a smile away, it affects everything in your life around it. So an artist, whose outlet is music, isn’t creating for a buzz or attention at that point. They’re creating for themselves with purity that can’t be matched and it’s felt in every line they write. Even personally it’s attributed to my seemingly rapid evolution in songwriting and performing over the last four years. The more I got lost in myself and felt everything a second time, the more flowed into my work and became something worth a listen.

I don’t know if I would call it a mantra but a driving phrase I say often is “I was never taught how to quit”. I’ve heard some people say quitting is harder than perseverance since you have to throw away everything and start over somewhere else. I’ve always had impossible odds stacked against me, and every task will be hard when you know nothing walking into it. Quitting doesn’t make it easier, it’s wasted time that you don’t get more of. So I learn, I adapt, I improve, I keep going so I won’t have to ever learn how to quit.

Predominantly real. Not like how most rappers mean real, but real to the everyday person you’d meet. I’m a dark conscious rapper, speaking on pain and emotions and conflicts of the mind. You can broaden it to speaking on mental health but I won’t act nor let on that I can speak from every perspective of the mental health umbrella, only the view from my own life. If you’re feeling low or need to process emotions within yourself, if you’re fighting doubts or dealing with the ups and downs of day to day life, my work has a home for you. As of 2021 every song I make is entirely non-explicit so no matter the age it’s safe to listen to and can be played around your kids without worry they learn a word they shouldn’t know.

My latest release is my single Crossroads from November last year. I ended the year with a song speaking on perseverance, on searching for hope, and the darkness that clouds the paths we take and the choices we make. Before my next album release this summer with Painfully Blessed, my collaboration with TAINA, Own Ways, will break from the darkness of its surrounding releases June 9th, 2023.

My best advice is to read into it. If there’s no description, no detail or advice attached to it for improvement, ignore it. That’s the realm of criticism that’s created from hate and won’t help you at all. The ones that talk about timing, about lyricism and focus, maybe on your sound have root somewhere. Doesn’t mean you should change but keep it in mind and listen close to yourself. If you can see where its coming from then you can fix it your way not theirs. Your creations will always be your creations, how you evolve them is up to you, but some things we can’t hear in the moment so what I call intelligent advice can help highlight imperfections.

My time right now is making sure Painfully Blessed, my first album in 3 years, is complete on every level. From recording, filming, to scheduling with the media on how much I can talk on a personal level with everyone about it. I put so much of my time into the design of every aspect knowing most won’t ever be seen but they will be there to complete the full image. We’re only months away a collaboration release and an album after and every song has a part of me in it so I’m giving my everything so a part of me can live fully.

This is big with me personally and career wise. My biggest drive, biggest goal in life, what I see as my purpose, is to be remembered after I’m gone. The coin of being remembered is two sided though. On one side, I don’t want people to remember my pain or suffering, the days I felt lost and broken. I don’t want to be seen as someone to pity. The other side is I want to be remembered for helping others, saving them from feeling pain, from feeling alone. Maybe even saving a life. I want to be remembered as someone willing to sacrifice everything personally so everyone can move past their struggles and live at peace with themselves. The coin can’t have one side without the other though, so I hope one side becomes stronger than the other but in the end, I hope to be remembered, my name to mean something, regardless of which side the coin lands on.

To stay updated on Tragically Magic’s work, follow him on Instagram