“It starts with passion. You only go as far as you take yourself.”
That’s the starting point of Pro-Keds’ conversation with Steve Ray Ladson and Mylious Johnson, captured at the showroom in Milan. For Pro-Keds, passion is something you wear every day, with discipline and pride, until it becomes part of who you are. Their story makes the point.
Two music professionals from different backgrounds who found, in the groove, a natural connection and a real friendship. A foot tapping beat, a drum kit answering back, and a banjo taking the lead. The result is a genre-bender: country-trap with hip-hop beats and bluegrass edges.
Mylious Johnson: rhythm from the beginning
“Drummer, producer, musician, dad.” His first real “hello” to music comes early. At four years old, he’s already playing the drums in his church choir. Home is where he learned the basics: his grandmother on piano, him on percussion, building time through simple back-and-forth.
From gospel and church roots, Mylious builds a career that moves between pop and rock. The turning point is P!nk, a new context that pulls him into a different language and a set list he still has to make his own. To close the gap, he goes straight to the Virgin Record Store”in Times Square and buys the records he needs to build a solid rock foundation fast: The Who, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin. It’s a run guided by rhythm that eventually brings him to Italy, where he’s lived for twenty years.
The More Recent Years
In Italy, the percussionist has continued to move effortlessly across major stages. Alongside his long-standing artistic partnership with Giorgia, which has spanned more than a decade, he has also worked with Italian singer-songwriter Ultimo, further confirming his strong and well-established presence on the live music scene. What emerges is the portrait of a multifaceted musician, with credits ranging from Masters At Work, Bad Boy Entertainment, Franco Battiato, Jovanotti, Tiziano Ferro, Emma Marrone, and Gianna Nannini to international names such as Destiny’s Child, Linda Perry, Jessica Simpson, Queen Latifah, and Quincy Jones.
Steve Ray Ladson: banjo, groove and a brand new sound
Steve Ray Ladson doesn’t waste words introducing himself: “musician, producer, artist, banjo player.” Then comes the line that frames him better than any bio: “Every time I open my mouth, people just already know I’m something different… I’m country.”
He started young. At six, he says, his father bought him his first electric guitar. But it’s James Brown on TV that makes it clear what he wants to do when he grows up.
Passion turns into real work quickly. Before Cirque du Soleil, he tours and plays with The Blind Boys of Alabama and Robert Randolph, taking his music across places and audiences far apart from each other. And it’s out of that mix that the idea for the next chapter takes shape: if a lot of kids today aren’t listening to bluegrass or country, that’s not a reason to close in. It’s a reason to move the sound. So he brings the banjo to where the attention is, between pop and hip-hop.
Blackgrass Brothercana
Before the instruments, for Steve Ray Ladson, there’s rhythm. “Every musician I know started on drums”, he says, because even if you're not a great drummer, you still have to be able to hold the beat.
What he calls Blackgrass Brothercana is at the core of his identity as an artist. Even when the music gets funkier and the vibe turns into a party, he keeps coming back to one point: everything starts with the groove. Today, that vision has entered a more visible and recognizable phase: after the national exposure he gained through America’s Got Talent (AGT) in 2025, Ladson continues to shape an increasingly defined solo path, through new songs, live performances, and a stage presence that puts the banjo front and center.
Back of My Truck: from music to story
Our time with the two musicians is almost up, but not before we get to hear them. With Mylious on drums and Steve on banjo, the Milan showroom fills up with groove. They play “Back of My Truck,” Steve’s original song, performed on AGT and called “a hit” by Simon Cowell.
“Everybody knows that Back of My Truck is real ’cause I used to drive an F-150 to school when I played basketball and all that. All my homies and partners know, ’cause they used to be on the back of the truck”, he recounts.
Mylious laughs, in on it, and counts the time in.
