Kariko

Benjamin “Kariko” Zakharenko is a 20-year-old American producer, songwriter and electronic performer from nowhere in particular—having moved around with his family across the US and abroad, the only constants in his life were family, Disney, and his love for music. His musical journey started at the age of eight, when watching Nick Jonas sing about cheese in Camp Rock 2 inspired him to first pick up a guitar and write his first song. A few years later, his discovery of music production at the age of eleven changed his world forever from that point—allowing him to finally combine all his inspirations into one art. Writing his own music was often Ben’s way of escaping the daily struggles in life—turning them into their own colorful worlds, each still linked to reality but turned dreamy and fantastical.

In 2021, Ben came to Berklee College of Music under a World Tour scholarship to study music production and sound design. He quickly developed an avid love for live electronic performance, showing a natural aptitude for it as well—quickly catching the ears of industry innovators such as Daedalus, Dan Freeman and Claire Lim, under all of whom he directly studied. Seeing a void in pop/electronic mainstream electronic performances, Ben was inspired to show what modern electronic performance could do. He quickly assumed the moniker “Kariko,” a shortened version of the word ‘Caricature’ (or more specifically, a shortened version of how he first misspelt it into Google’s search engine: ‘Karikoture’).

Ben is in the process of finishing up his debut album, with a name and release date to be announced. His first year at Berklee was filled to the brim with love, new friendships, heartbreak, and overwhelming feelings of confusion and disassociation—all of which he captured within each tiny world that are the songs of his upcoming album. While the styles and sounds of this album are diverse, all of these songs carry a heavy wind of late 2000s and early 2010s nostalgia—a reminder once more of his childhood joys as he contemplates the future ahead.