The second time Reiki Michael Hall played guitar in public was when he stood on First Avenue’s mainroom stage last July. The first time was at a basement punk show a week earlier. The mainroom performance was the debut Rock Lottery, in which the venue’s staff selected 25 Twin Cities musicians, separated them up into five bands, and gave them 48 hours to write new songs together. 

“Courage, I guess, is the word for it,” First Avenue booker Dylan Hilliker says over the phone when I describe Reiki’s limited experience playing guitar in front of an audience. “He just kind of went for it. I think it's paying off for him now.” Hilliker and his colleague James Taylor hadn’t heard of Reiki when they saw his Rock Lottery submission form, but after listening to a few Spotify tracks, they decided to give him a shot. 

Reiki and I sit in Spyhouse Coffee in northeast Minneapolis as we discuss his career — from gospel choirs to punk basements; from the Minnesota Centennial Showboat to First Avenue; from Chicago to Minnesota to LA, then back to Minnesota, and a few places in-between. 

Reiki has just finished band practice at a City Sound rehearsal studio, and his arms ache from carrying amps. The punk-fueled R&B musician carries a warm and kind demeanor and surrounds his intimate stories with an air of mystery. He has lived in LA on two occasions — but the first time is too long of a story for him to tell. He visited his mother’s home country of Liberia for the first time in 2022 to assess land his grandmother owns and navigate local business and politics — but doesn’t get into the details. He is currently experimenting with a newer sound with inspiration from aggressive acts like Turnstile, Jesus Piece, Zulu, Gojira, and Black Sabbath — but doesn’t want to give too much away.

What’s clear is the role Reiki has played for most of his life: performer. He began singing solos at church at age five. Soon, other churches recruited him, and eventually he was singing national anthems at Minnesota United soccer and Minnesota Lynx basketball games. Five-year-old Reiki also started acting in commercials and films, including the internationally acclaimed short film “Ana’s Playground.” After high school, he performed in 45 plays on the Minnesota Centennial Showboat.

Reiki’s mother managed these gigs in his youth, and the two have maintained a close relationship. His name is directly inspired by reiki, a Japanese form of energy healing that she practiced during her pregnancy. When Reiki was a child, his mother played classical CDs in the car, and he mockingly imitated Andrea Bocelli’s voice. He preferred listening to rap on his own at the time. In his mid-teens Reiki developed vocal cord nodules, vocal cord bumps that cause hoarseness and can result in lifelong damage, due to voice overuse. When a doctor said he could choose surgery or voice lessons, his mother decided to sign him up for lessons at MacPhail Center for Music.

“Reiki had incredible perseverance, a rarity in a teenager,” says Thaxter Cunio, Reiki’s classical vocal coach at MacPhail. In an email regarding his experience working with the singer, Cunio states, “It always comes down to an open and receptive mind to new ideas, and Reiki definitely had that. In fact, more so than most. There was something about his openness to learning that made him a joy to teach.”

The skills Cunio taught Reiki are applicable to his current work. “He helped me to understand the breath support needed to project, which is what I'm using when I'm doing this hardcore music,” Reiki says.

Although their work focused on building a strong technique based on a classical vocal foundation, they also applied the technique to jazz and pop material, too. “When I listen to some of his music now, I can hear the big voice and wide range that we worked on so diligently,” Cunio says.

With recovered vocal cords, Reiki began writing songs and releasing original work in 2019. He shares intimate aspects of his life story: A childhood moving from suburb to suburb in Minneapolis, beginning at the age of three. His mother had moved her four children from Chicago to Minnesota to distance them from Reiki’s father and an environment of drugs, addiction, and violence. 

At age 16, he says he received a notice of his father’s death from Chicago’s child support services, including payments. The piece of paper with life-changing information left him with questions. As a child, his “why” was a hope his father would someday see him on TV and try to find him. Now, through authentic songwriting and performance, his “why” is a mission to inspire people who have similar life experiences to overcome hardship by loving themselves.

In 2021, Reiki headed to LA to network and record a not-yet-released EP. A planned three-month stay turned into a year and a half. He compares writing music — which can begin in a variety of ways; with piano notes, guitar chords, a melody, or words on paper — to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. He left LA when it eventually became clear that in order to tap into pure creative expression, he’d need the safety, financial stability, and family waiting for him back in Minneapolis. 

When he returned to Minnesota in 2022, Reiki wasn’t familiar with the tight-knit circles within the Twin Cities music scene, but quickly made connections by simply showing up to gigs. “Minneapolis is such a small music community, that when you’re getting out to shows and you're meeting people, it's really easy to work your way in,” the booker says. “I think [Reiki] has a real knack for that.”

Comparing Reiki to Minneapolis noise-rock band killusonline, Hilliker notes the wide range of sounds that are angsty, but not necessarily metal. “RUN!,” a collaborative song with ROC BARBOZA, includes fuzz-tone production and frenetic stamina. The single “WATER” feels feverish as the songwriter repeatedly raps “Ain’t nothin’ clean in the water.” 

Even when he careens towards rock-infused rap, it’s with the inextinguishable spirit of swaying grooves and hints of gospel he grew up with. “He’ll play something that sounds like a Ken Carson song into something that sounds like a Frank Ocean or a Daniel Caesar type song,” Hilliker says. The contemplative ballad “chaos” opens with hypnotic guitar string finger picks, and “End of Time” swoons with serenity. 

Reiki’s angst can be felt even more viscerally live. He considers performance an exaggerated version of oneself. On stage, he plays unreleased tracks and wants to engage a crowd from start to finish, “You have to unleash and embody a level of not giving a fuck and a level of confidence in yourself to do that,” he says. “It’s not only just playing your instrument, or singing your song, or rapping your song. It's also letting go.”

“He had what I like to call the ‘it’ factor — that charisma that’s so needed on stage, but with Reiki, this was accompanied by a pure and authentic likability,” Cunio says, reflecting on how he identified the artist’s potential. 

Reiki says he has high ambitions and wants to play “arenas only” in the future. Far-reaching words of self-assurance — inspired by his belief in God and the workings of the universe — are wrapped in humble confidence. He attributes his conviction to the joys that he believes he owes to his inner child. On days he lacks motivation, he thinks, “You gotta keep going for him — the kid that wanted his father around, the kid that wanted to be understood, the kid who had so much energy at the school and [people who] didn't know how to handle that energy.”

Despite envisioning extensive long-term goals, at this moment, he’s honored to play First Avenue’s upcoming Best New Bands show and deeply appreciates the local connections that have allowed him to do so. When he steps onto the mainroom stage again, Reiki will be joined by guitarist Jake Beitel (Prize Horse), bassist Henry Breen (WHY NOT), and drummer Jon Lindquist (Raffaella, Brunette, Denim Matriarch), musicians whose live performance styles he respects as much as their technical skills. 

As the conversation comes to a close, Sheryl Crow’s “If It Makes You Happy” comes over the coffee shop’s speakers. As Crow sings the cathartic anthem about embracing one's own path to contentment, Reiki reflects on trusting himself while carrying a guitar onto the mainroom stage last July. 

He concludes the risk was worth it. “When you're stepping into a season of life, or you're trying to step into a new version or a new level of yourself, it never feels solid,” he says. “You never feel like all 10 of your toes are down, but you can embody that and have courage in the midst of that fear.”

Reiki has upcoming performances at First Avenue on Friday, Jan. 12 and at 7th St. Entry on Sunday, Feb. 11.