Meet the youngest performer at the Uptown Get Down festival, Tri-Cities singer-songwriter
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Uptown Get Down Artist Features
Get to know some of the artists scheduled to perform at Tri-Cities’ Uptown Get Down music festival. These features tell a little about who the artists are, their sound and their connection to Tri-Cities.
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Being in high school is one of the busiest times in life — this is especially true for 16-year-old Kaylie Dawes. But she still finds time to write music. The singer-songwriter is the youngest act scheduled to perform at the inaugural Uptown Get Down music festival on June 3 in Richland, and she’s ready.
Dawes lives in Pasco and is going to Columbia Basin College as a Running Start student. She’s got her sights set on attending a four-year college after graduation, hopefully somewhere on the west side of the country.
She also works every day at Nothing Bundt Cakes, which her family owns. On top of this, she plays tennis, is involved in church and writes her own music.
Her songs fit into the new-age “Sad girl aesthetic” subgenre, more in sound than in context. She told the Herald in an interview that she doesn’t love the implication of the genre, that it’s sometimes misconstrued as being all about boys and depression. For her, the lyrics are about authenticity, being true to who you are and what you feel.
High school singer-songwriter
Dawes started writing music about a year ago. She started listening to more indie bands and wanted to try her hand at songwriting. This brought her to the Tumbleweeds Songwriting Contest for 2022, where she made it as a finalist with her first song ever, “Love and Friendship.”
“It was terrible,” Dawes said, laughing with a slight cringe.
Since then, she’s written a handful of songs, improving as she goes. Dawes hopes to record and release an album or EP independently sometime soon. But before that, she’s performing at an even bigger event, Uptown Get Down.
Dawes is scheduled to perform on the Unplugged stage, the all-acoustic section of the festival. Her music can be enjoyed by anyone, she says. It’s based on her own taste, which is identical to her dad’s, Matt Dawes.
Like many others involved in the festival, Dawes hopes the festival is a stepping stone to more recognition for the Tri-Cities music scene.
You can follow her music journey on Instagram @Kaylie_Dawes.
This story was originally published May 12, 2023 at 7:04 AM.