On a recent summer night at White Oak Music Hall, the concert venue buzzed with thousands of excited fans, dressed in an aesthetic that can only be described as “alternative cowboy.” Black cowboy hats, boots, and dangly silver piercings formed the unofficial uniform for fans of Houston-bred pop star Keshi. 

As the sun sank behind the downtown skyline, anticipation built. When Keshi finally takes the stage—bare-chested in a black zip-up hoodie and cowboy hat—his hit song “Amen” blares through the speakers. “All of the glory, all of the weight of the world, on my shoulders crashing down on me,” he croons. “But I want more, I want more!” When the song ends, Keshi turns toward the crowd. “Houston f—in’ Texas!” he screams. “Holy f—, it’s good to be home.”

Fresh off a career milestone at New York’s Madison Square Garden, the Vietnamese American singer-songwriter, formally known as Casey Thai Luong, returned to the city on August 4 for his homecoming stop of his Requiem World Tour. His music has taken him everywhere—from London to Jakarta—but Houston, he says, still holds his heart. 

Since uploading his first tracks to SoundCloud in 2017, Luong has amassed an international following enamored with his lo-fi, genre-bending sound. Songs like the mellow “Soft Spot” and dreamy “LIMBO” have become smash hits, cultivating over 300 million streams and more than 7 million monthly listeners on Spotify. But even as his stardom grows, hometown fans have held Keshi down through his meteoric rise.

Longtime listeners Ashley Navarrede and Briza Morales camped out for nearly five hours before doors opened at White Oak Music Hall. They’ve followed Keshi during his early streaming days on YouTube and SoundCloud, well before the release of his debut album, Gabriel. The pair became such fans, they even attended several of the singer’s coffee shop meet-and-greets. “[He’s] definitely representing Houston here, everywhere,” Navarrede says. “He’s our pride and joy.”

While Keshi now performs on world stages, his roots trace back to Sugar Land. Before dedicating his life to music, Luong worked as an oncology nurse at the Texas Medical Center. His passion for music was a side hustle—recording music part time and uploading songs and short snippets to SoundCloud in 2017. Two years after gaining an overnight following, Luong made the leap. He quit his nursing gig and dove into music head-on, signing a deal with Island Records. Early fans may remember his musical “how-to” and behind-the-scenes YouTube videos that offered a glimpse into his creative process and music production. In one of his earliest uploads, Luong, then a short-haired, fresh-faced newcomer, sits on the floor of an unfurnished room with a MacBook, adding in layers of kicks, snares, and triangle sounds to “like I need u,” which appeared on his breakout EP, The Reaper.

Since then, his artistry has deepened and grown more personal. Keshi’s love for the Lone Star State is incarnate in his Requiem hit, “Texas.” In the track, Luong yearns for home, asking listeners to take him back to where the “sun was third-degree” and the nostalgia of driving alongside train tracks, a reference to a stretch of US 90 near Sugar Land. (At the Houston show, fans handed him a Texas flag, which he draped over his shoulders mid-song. “It’s Texas, b—-!” he shouted, while strumming his guitar).

To fans, Keshi isn’t just a Houston artist—he’s a symbol of Houston culture. Houstonians Kathryn Mey and Adam Bueno drove in from Austin and got a speeding ticket during their three-hour drive back to school. “It’s amazing to see an Asian American from Houston succeed,” Mey says, especially in a city with a sizable Vietnamese population. Seeing Keshi perform fosters “a sense of community” for the city’s Asian Americans, she says.

Some fans traveled even farther. Maribel Petraza and Jake Martinez made the trek from San Antonio to hear Keshi's “angelic voice.” “It’s just nice to have somebody from Texas that’s really getting out there and representing Texas,” Petraza adds. Sisters Jazmin Davila and Dariella Davila drove in from Eagle Pass, five hours east of Houston, and superfan Estelle Wang, who hailed from the UK, marked the Houston show her 21st Keshi concert since discovering his music in 2019. The Houston show, however, was extra special, Wang says. “Seeing Keshi perform in Houston is a kind of celebration of his personal journey. It’s not just a concert, it’s…a return to where his story began.”

The hometown love was undeniable. Mid-show, a group of fans held up a poster of Luong’s high school yearbook photo from Stephen F. Austin High School in Fort Bend County. Another fan fainted, prompting a brief pause in the performance. And during his encore, a sea of hands threw up the “H” sign as the crowd scream-sang his lyrics from “Id”: “Three 7s, H-town reppin’…had to play at MSG so y’all could get the message,” referencing Keshi’s hometown roots and biggest tour stop. 

And it seems Keshi felt the energy, too. He debuted his then-unreleased single “Wantchu” live on stage for the first time. And during “Drunk,” he took out his ear monitors to revel in the roar of the crowd. 

“Growing up, [I] played shows where there was no one,” he explained. “To see this big crowd—it means everything to me.”