January Student Spotlight: Kobe Anthony

Kobe Anthony Mascot Character

Growing up in Tucson, Kobe Anthony spent his early years playing loops on his father’s computer. The self-taught music producer now goes by the name Memodemo and puts his passion to work as a Music Technology major at the University of Oregon School of Music and Dance (SOMD).

Kobe came from a musical home, so his love for making music started when he was very young. “My first memory of noticing music in video games was when I played Sonic Heroes for the first time as a three-year-old. I remember hearing the theme song and it was, quite literally, life changing,” Kobe explains. From there, he started playing with GarageBand and, eventually, as he got older, started making original music on a much more advanced system MIDI. Kobe published his first song at eight years old called “Chaos Angel Error Emerald,” a remix of the theme song to Zone 7 of Sonic Advance 3, “Chaos Angel.”

“Since I was already teaching myself a lot of stuff about music production on the computer, it seemed like pursuing a music technology degree would help me to learn some of the more complicated parts of music production with a bit more guidance,” says Kobe. The deciding factor which ultimately brought him to the UO School of Music and Dance was the comprehensive Music Technology program. At SOMD, Anthony is a part of the Oregon Electric Device Orchestra (OEDO), an ensemble where students experiment and interpret different types of visual scores, arranging them for a wide range of different electronic instruments. He is also involved with the UO Hip Hop Ensemble, blending Hip Hop with ideas from different musical genres.

As for his own artistic vision and style, Kobe is dedicated to making his work personal. “It is important for me to bring a touch of melancholy to most things that I do in some form or another,” Kobe says. “In my personal experience, growing up as an only child gives rise to a very specific kind of loneliness that often serves as a reason for pursuing new hobbies and interests, so I feel like it is something necessary to bring out in my music, even if the music itself is cheery and upbeat.

As Kobe approaches the end of his senior year at UO, his accomplishments and accolades are piling up. He won the 2022 Black Culture and Identity Award at the UO Undergraduate Research Symposium and an Undergrad Research Opportunity Program mini grant from the Provost’s Research and Innovation Initiative. One of his most astounding accomplishments is his original music for the mobile video game “Nova Island” by Thirteen Games.

Under the pseudonym Memodemo, Anthony has over 5,200 monthly listeners on Spotify, over 4,500 followers on Soundcloud, and over 370,000 subscribers on YouTube.

For someone interested in pursuing music as a career, Kobe advises to start practicing your craft as much as you can. “Start clocking in your hours early. Really go for it. If you're interested, commit wholeheartedly. Growth is not linear… even if you feel like you've been working hard and you haven't gotten better, you have.”

As an emerging artist with original music published on many platforms, Anthony knows he’s come a long way from that computer in Tucson, but he doesn’t plan to stop making music anytime soon.

Follow Memodemo!

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/3ko5DgW7C8cS3VDvpozPag?si=W6buFIdzRre7blT7lwhx7Q
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@MEMODEMO
Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/us/artist/memodemo/1497435525
Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/memodemo