DOWNEY — Long, slender fingers that, in palmistry, are indicative of an artistic and creative person, strum on a black acoustic guitar in the comfort of a bedroom lit with candles.

“Look in the mirror and all that I see is the person that I thought that I’d never be, it’s not my fault, no I know how it goes, I was only 21 when he went under my nose and I wish that I could have been the person you wanted to see..” 

These are the words that belong to a warm, friendly smile framed by dark autumn hair feathered into a trendy yet delicate shag haircut. 

“Big Sur,” “42,” and “Getting High” are just some of the songs that have been written, recorded and produced by 24-year-old Kianna Znika.

“It was a click one day, I just bought my acoustic guitar specifically because I just wanted to play along with a lot of the pop punk songs that I was listening to, so I had no intention of making my own music.

“But there was one night where I was just strumming and playing with my guitar and I just made up my own song and when I finished it, it was like this big awakening moment where I was like ‘wait a minute, can I make music? Do I get to be a musician in this life?’” said Znika.

Under the name Lizzerd Kween, Znika pours herself into each song, using her music as a way to heal from “a lot of heartbreak that I went through, a lot of things that I needed to process.”

“I listen to songs to help me cope with things and it’s nice to make my own songs because I am listening to my own lyrics and I of course relate to it, of course it resonates, I wrote it, so it’s nice writing the soundtrack to my own pain,” said Znika.

With one voice memo recording at a time, Znika is contradicting the assumption that all independent artists must sit through a stuffy, three-hour-long weekly class about music production in order to get their music ready and streaming.

“So I know for a lot of independent artists, they’ll use music software and stuff, like GarageBand and Logic Pro and to be fair, for my recent EP, ‘The Journal Entries,’ I did finally experiment with GarageBand but I actually don’t know too much about music production so two of my top songs that I have produced were like ‘Big Sur’ and ‘42,’ I literally just played into my phone, like I just recorded straight onto the voice memo, no mics or anything, it’s just already on my phone and then I took the file from voice memo, I went to this free website that masters the audio for you and then that’s what I submitted to my Spotify and stuff.”

The music of Lizzerd Kween tugs at the familiar vein that is independent alternative but is overhauled with healthy doses of emo, pop punk, folk punk and a little bit of Znika’s own invention called, “wholesomecore.”

Znika places an importance on having a safe space when creating her music, with many of her lyrics filled with themes of mental health.

For Znika, pop punk had great influence in her childhood resulting in her being “the biggest emo/scene kid in middle school.”

Her love for pop punk resurrected during the pandemic and that love affair has since embroiled into her EP, “The Journal Entries,” which became available for streaming on Spotify Feb. 18.

With 85,800 followers on TikTok, Znika uses the video-driven social media app as a platform to help promote her music.

Znika said, “I can not go on with my music stuff and not address TikTok because that was like the biggest thing.  Once, I already had a little bit of a following, I started promoting my music and people started liking it, then they just wanted to support it because it was just me and they wanted to support this [my music]”

Although Znika says that she still hasn’t “found a way to promote my music without feeling awkward,” a quick browse at her TikTok profile, under the name Lizzerd Kween, and any sense of awkwardness can not be detected in the curated blend of Znika playing her music or her participating in a TikTok trend.

When promoting her music, Znika prefers to reinforce in her audience that she is a person, not a product.

“I always try to remind people that I don’t want to pick a niche and I like to remind people that I’m a person, not a brand, not a product, so it’s okay to be more than one thing and that it’s okay to branch out and stuff and I feel like honestly that brings me just logically more success, if I just continue to be myself and then people will just naturally listen to my music rather than saying ‘Hey, here’s a product which is my song,” said Znika.

Having a public social media platform can be a double-edged sword for content creators, one side can wield comments of inspiration and affirmation, while the other side can suddenly flash random comments fueled with negativity.

Znika has learned to read negative comments with a sense of patient grace, blocking negative comments that are unmotivated, not taking that energy with her and coming to terms that most negative comments are projections of the commenter. 

It is with this sense of growing surety, that Lizzerd Kween confidently records and produces her music.

“It’s pretty challenging sometimes, sometimes it can get stressful but it’s really exciting, it’s almost like I’m really surprised at how ‘easy’ it is, every time they say just do it, just start, you have to start somewhere, they’re right. 

“So I’m just starting off even though I don’t have all the equipment and stuff, it’s just exciting knowing that I’m releasing music but I’m still such the beginning stages so even if it’s not the best quality it’s only going to get better because I’m going to invest in the equipment and my skills are only going to get better over time so it’s humbling and it’s nice knowing it’s okay wherever you start,” said Znika.

However, despite how effortless Znika makes self-producing look, she does seek the help of a producer for particular tracks as the independent artist solely funds and budgets her production time.

“There are a lot of times where I have to invest when I go to the producer and I have to save up money and I still have to pay bills and then I need food and everything so it’s like literally whatever I have left then I can use it for music and if I don’t have enough, then oh well,” said Znika.

Initially starting her path in music in November 2020, Znika has a total of 1,820 monthly Spotify listeners streaming her music. Lizzerd Kween has been streamed by listeners in another continent, with one of Znika’s top listeners being a 17-year-old named Phil in Germany.

“One of my biggest supporters is this little kid in Germany. I'm not lying, there's this 17-year-old kid in Germany, he comments on all my videos and stuff and they show me they have like countdowns for my song releases. They get notifications and they're like saying, ‘you're genuinely one of my favorite artists’ and they sent me screenshots of their Spotify. And, yeah, it's this point where I'm like, oh my god, like, I am genuinely this kid’s favorite artist.”

Znika’s EP, ‘The Journal Entries’ and singles can be streamed on Spotify and SoundCloud and can be found under her artist name Lizzerd Kween on all social media platforms.

Znika said, “Lizzerd Kween was a nickname given to me by a friend in senior year of high school and it kind of just stuck, like my friend group would always call me ‘Lizzerd Kween’ and there was always like a lot of elements and stuff in my life that made the nickname more and more suitable, it brought me a lot of confidence, so I made my socials that and everything. I never imagined that it would become my artist name but because it was on all of my socials and was my nickname already, I thought it was a good fit.

“I was like, ‘I was meant to release music as ‘Lizzerd Kween.’”