After nearly two decades producing and engineering for others, credits that include Ab-Soul, The All-American Rejects, Cheekface, and The Kooks. Greg Cortez stepped out from behind the board to make music of his own. The nickname “Killah Cortez” followed him from session to session (a nod to Neil Young and a roomful of musicians who refused to let it go), and when it came time to launch a project, the name felt inevitable.

Written during a season of personal unraveling, family illness, breakups, burnout, Killah Cortez’s debut EP Pronoia became a meditation on survival, structure, and strange hope. “I was in a really tough place,” Cortez says, “so I built small daily systems just to keep myself moving. Eventually, I started writing again.” The project takes its name from the idea that the universe is secretly conspiring in your favor, even when everything feels like it’s falling apart.

That philosophy has since expanded beyond the record itself. Through a steady release of visual content, behind-the-scenes storytelling, and a growing live presence, Killah Cortez has begun building a world around the music,one rooted in emotional honesty, small actions, and quiet resilience.

With new releases on the horizon, Killah Cortez continues to explore that tension,between collapse and belief, noise and signal, turning lived experience into something cinematic, intimate, and quietly defiant.