Biography
Kennedy Calvin Phounsiri (born July 26, 1992), better known by his stage name ERANETIK, is a Laotian American dancer, rapper, and songwriter. He was the first born US Citizen in his family and continues to carry the culture, history, and roots that his family had brought from their home country of Laos to America in 1989. Eranetik is a principle member of his breakin’ (breakdance) crew The Calamities, which started in 2002, and is a solo recording artist. Coming from an underrated breakin’ scene, he was one of a few who had represented his city of San Diego worldwide, and became successful and well-known as a native bboy from that city. In the underground music scene, Eranetik had gained thousands of fans, thousands of downloads, and reached over millions of views on his songs, which was uploaded all over the internet.
Growing up living in Southeast San Diego for 19 years, in neighborhoods such as Chollas View and Lincoln Park, Eranetik was surrounded by “street” activity at a young age. Despite the act of negativity he grew up seeing, Eranetik was influenced to do other things he can express himself with in a more positive manner. In the Summer of 2002, he was introduced to what he had known as “breakdancing” by his older brother Krysada “Binly” Phounsiri, who is better known by his stage name Lancer or Lance La Rock. Eranetik, along with a couple friends from his old neighborhood, learned and practiced the fundamentals of this dance. Day by day, he had gained the essence, passion, and culture of breaking’, and was motivated to continue with this lifestyle. Since then, after many years of trial and error, Eranetik joined his crew The Calamities (founded by his brother in 2002), went to teach at various locations, performed a wide number of shows, won numerous breakin’ competitions, was featured on NBC’s America’s Got Talent: Season 6 with The Body Poets, and became a performing cast member in the Jabbawockeez - “MÜS.I.C.” Show in Las Vegas, Nevada and Gold Coast, Queensland - Australia. With that being said, Eranetik still continues to put in great effort to better his dancing ability and become more successful to reach more accomplishments.
Music was always part of Eranetik’s life. His father was a musician growing up and is a famous Laotian singer and songwriter. It was in his genes to do music. Since his early elementary years, Eranetik was always freestyle rapping with his neighborhood friends. They recorded songs for fun with an old PC microphone and rapped about almost anything. It was not until his freshman year of high school when he got really serious with making music. With all the money he saved during that time, he went to buy himself professional home-studio recording equipment, in which he still uses today. Starting off, he was not the best at editing, recording, and mixing his songs. Just like with his dancing, he went through many years of trial and error to finally master the craft of recording arts. He first approached Myspace to upload his music. It was a shock to him when he was getting good feedback from people he did not know. On Myspace alone, he reached around 10,000 friends in two years. After Myspace had went into a disappointing stage, Eranetik started pushing out his music by making videos and uploading them on Youtube. He knew that Youtube wasn’t cutting it, so he also used a blogging site called Tumblr. Tumblr had spread his music like wildfire. He became a Tumblr sensation and averaged thousands of notes (likes and reblogs) on his songs. Tumblr allowed him to promote his Youtube videos and upload music for his followers to enjoy, so this helped his online music career a lot. After gaining a good following and building confidence with his music, Eranetik was motivated to complete his first full-length studio album in the Spring of 2012. His album “Masterpiece”, was released in April 2012. He uploaded the full album on Soundcloud and allowed access for people to listen to it and download it for free. This was his way of giving back to his fans. In addition, he also made 200 hard copies with his autograph on the cover, for an event he performed at in his hometown, and he sold it all out! This had brought out more motivation for him to continue on making music to speak his feelings and cater to his fans.
