Artist Profile: Kwesi James, Professional Trier, Is ‘Not Good at Anything’

The first thing Kwesi J. James did after agreeing to be interviewed for a profile was ask me — his interviewer — a question: “Who’s your favorite person to interview?”

Producer, internet personality, and world traveler, James has always steered away from the norm — of course when he was supposed to answer questions, he asked one.

“I'm not good at anything,” James said in an interview with The Harvard Crimson.

Regardless of whether that statement is true or not, James’s quest for knowledge and experience remains untempered. With an ambitious yet generous approach to life, he doesn’t take no for an answer and would give nearly anything in the world a try — particularly in his role as a frequent guest star on The Try Guys YouTube channel.

“Luckily, with The Try Guys, we’re trying things,” James said. “Throughout my life, I had to be comfortable with just getting a lot of things wrong. And that makes great comedy.”

The premise of much of James’s work is how open he is to trying and failing at anything — from cooking with a Michelin star chef to competing against a Scrabble World Champion.

Since “professional trier” isn’t exactly a job title, James tends to tell people that he’s a producer, especially when talking to his Carribean family and older generations who have limited exposure to internet media.

“Outside of Hollywood, no one knows what a producer does. But they know a producer does something,” James said, laughing. “I produce something, right? I produce laughs. I produce content.”

Clearly this definition is sufficient for James’s mom, who brags about James to her family to his evident delight.

“I was searching for that validation from my parents,” James said, with a grin. “I was the kid who felt like I was behind my whole life. I have dyslexia; I didn't know until I got into college. So for the majority of my life, it was like, ‘Kwesi needs extra time on everything.’”

His experience “working from behind” and “not being the fastest or smartest” translates perfectly to his current job of trying and failing at things professionally. This well-suited career path is no coincidence, though.

“I'm willing to try cool things that people who are smarter, faster, or better may not,” James said, acknowledging that more visibly-successful people are often more afraid of failure. Since he wasn’t the quickest along the traditional path, he grew to be resourceful and resilient instead.

“I had to learn how to go around doors,” James said. “How do I sneak through the window? To get in and get what I want, you know, and to live a cool, fulfilled life.”

A cool, fulfilled life isn’t easy to come by — and certainly not with the life circumstances that James was dealt. After living in Brooklyn and experiencing violence in his early life, he moved to Florida with his family and attended high school there, where he often skipped class and was ultimately expelled. Regardless, James still set his sights on film school.

“I went to this film school where if you have a student loan and you can open a door, you can get in,” James said. “I worked my ass off to try to learn as much as possible about this film industry.” Soon after, James made his way to L.A., eager to try his hand at the industry.

“It was the worst time to find a job in Los Angeles; it was 2008,” James said. He was living with his friends from film school at the time and knew, despite the tumultuous job market, that he owed it to himself to give the film world a “Kwesi James Try.” He put on his graduation suit — “the only suit that I had” — shipped his car from Florida to Los Angeles, and picked three L.A.-based production companies that had been ignoring his emails to visit in person and ask for a job.

“The first place I went to was a company called DNA,” James said. “I went in. I sat down. I named every director on their roster, and every single music video they shot — because I’d studied it. And she was like, ‘When do you want to start?’”

After DNA, James worked at BuzzFeed at the same time as other famous media personalities such as Quinta Brunson, Eugene Lee Yang, Zach Kornfeld, and Keith Habersberger. However, James was ultimately laid off. He eventually found his way back to the now-independent Try Guys, who he had worked with in his time at BuzzFeed. Currently James stars in many of their videos, while still working on other external projects.

Perhaps no one can sum up James’s approach to his life circumstances better than himself: “I'm not the fastest. I'm not the best. But man, I got some gumption in me.”

An exceptional thing about James — one that even he didn’t directly acknowledge in his interview — is how steadfast he is in self-direction. It’s hard not to marvel at his journey, at how confidently he depletes his energy to “try to accomplish dream[s] that I have,” and how he seems to know intuitively the next best move he should make to elevate his life.

“For me, it really feels like breathing. Like, do you think about breathing?” James said. “The only time when you feel like it's really hard to breathe is when something is suffocating you.” James paused, taking a breath himself. “I'm not the best at school. I don't think I'd be really that good if I worked in a cubicle. But performing with The Try Guys, creating videos, feels like breathing. It's that natural.”

James’s natural gift of creativity and his experience-honed tenacity to change his circumstances are exactly what pushed him from the well-trodden path of mediocrity towards one of true excellence — both as a producer and as a human being. In that way, he is more than just the “good at anything” label that he denies himself: James is ambitiously excellent.

—Staff writer Stella A. Gilbert can be reached at stella.gilbert@thecrimson.com.