Moses Lake rap artist looks forward to better days

MOSES LAKE — N’kosi Lattimore, a rap artist who performs under the name KOSHWESTKOAST and graduate of Moses Lake High School, grew up around a lot of different kinds of music. He loved alt-rock band Cage the Elephant, thrash metal band Slayer and ’90s hip hop, and also often listened to jazz, or whatever else his family was listening to.

Though he began making music in middle school, where he played the clarinet, he started his current experiments in rap when he reached high school, where he would freestyle for his classmates.

At first it was just a fun pastime. Lattimore began recording music in his friend’s living room with a cheap microphone from Walmart, posting his songs to Spotify and Apple Music. As he got more absorbed in the craft, he took trips to Shoreline to a recording studio.

The studio’s rates were steep, so eventually Lattimore took the next step, purchasing his own recording equipment. Friend and fellow local Justin Newton, who goes by the pseudonym Retired Bum, produced a lot of his music, teaching Lattimore along the way.

“He’s one of those guys, you could give him something and in a couple weeks he’s a master at it,” Lattimore said. “He’s behind most of my songs, most of my beats.”

For a while, though he enjoyed making music, he didn’t take it seriously, he said. But after graduating and moving through different jobs, including a stint with industrial supply distributor Fastenal where he was laid off and his current gig working on Amazon’s warehouse robots in Oklahoma, Lattimore said he began to think more about what he wanted to spend his life doing.

Though he hasn’t quit his day job, he chose music.

“I always loved it, so I just thought I might as well take it serious,” Lattimore said. “Getting into the work world, doing construction, working at UPS, they’re decent jobs but it’s like, ‘dang, do I want to do this for the rest of my life?’ I love music, and I’ll never get tired of it.”

Lattimore has always turned to social media and the internet, tools that are ever more prevalent and ubiquitous in the music industry, to help promote and distribute his music. But with the decision to refocus some of his life on his art, he had been hoping to start spending more time on stage, too.

“I guess I used to be more, ‘if it happens it happens,’” Lattimore said. “Obviously social media is unbeatable with what you can do, but I feel like being there — a lot of people remember performances.”

“Sometimes, not even being a musician but being a fan of music, I notice myself, I could be on social media and see something go by, and it could look good maybe, but I’ll bypass it,” he continued. “A performance is right there, it’s in your face.”

Though those goals have been delayed during the pandemic, with venues closed or restricted across the country, Lattimore hasn’t been idle. Earlier this month he released “All Cap,” his eighth single, sharing space on his album cover with his longtime collaborator Newton, and he plans to drop another single later in the summer.

Songs released in the last year run the gambit in tone, including “Better Days,” a personal song about just that.

“It’s definitely a song that means something to me, a song I really had to put together,” Lattimore said. “Just being in my family’s basement by myself, I have friends at college and working, and I don’t know what I’m doing, but I have music, so it’s just about looking into the future and working for it to happen.”

Always a fan first, eager to explore a sound that appeals to him, he’s also begun to branch outside of rap, exploring more instrumental music while also looking to create his own beats, going wherever his ear leads him.

“A big part of why I do it, I just love listening, I’m such a fan,” Lattimore said. “I feel like, over time, I’m shifting genres, I’m not just rapping as much, I’m singing more, I want more guitars in my music. I’m just a big fan of music, and it’s for the love of it.”