If you’re a fan of musical gear you’ve surely heard of the NAMM show in Anaheim California.  If you’ve never been, it’s an overwhelming bliss of musical stimuli that opens your eyes wider at every juncture.  As a musician, it’s where you go to see the newest—greatest—latest—bestest-of-the-best gear that will soon hit the market in the upcoming year, but it’s also where you go to meet like-minded musicians who all share the same passion of music creation and performance.

In that spirit, this year KRK came up with light-hearted idea to hold the 1st Annual KRK Guitar Solo Contest at NAMM in conjunction with Gibson and Epiphone.   Each day, 12 fearless battle-axing warriors had 15 minutes to get acclimated to a short piece of music before recording one live take of their solo performance through ROKIT G4 10-3 monitors in front of NAMM-goers.  Word of the contest spread quickly as each daily winner took home a new pair of ROKIT G4 RP5 White Noise monitors and a set of KNS8400 Headphones.  Each daily winner then went on to a final post-Namm round where a panel of judges from Loudwire ranked each solo anonymously based on four criteria to determine a grand prize winner who was awarded an Epiphone Uptown Kat ES guitar.

We at KRK thank all the great musicians who participated this year and look forward to seeing them again next year.  Without further ado, congratulations to the following daily winners and Grand Prize winner:

DAY 1:  Lemek Yisrael (Louisianna)

DAY 2: Michael Lis (California)

DAY 3: David Aizuss (Oragon)

DAY 4: Scott Lomaglio (California)

CONGRATULATIONS TO THE FINAL GRAND PRIZE WINNER OF THE EPIPHONE UPTOWN KAT ES GUITAR:

LEMEK YISRAEL

WINNER PROFILE:

Lemek is a young accomplished guitar player from Louisiana who first picked up the guitar when he was 5 years old.  He is a diverse player with a wide array of influences some including Charlie Parra, Syu (Galneryus), Stevie Ray Vaughan, and above all his dad Quintin Gerard W who is an amazing jazz saxophonist.  He grew up at a young age listening to a lot of funk and R&B, but as he got older, he started listening to a lot more technical music such as prog-metal, power metal, jazz fusion, and even classical.  Some of his favorite modern artists are Billie Eilish, Post Malone, and Zedd.

Lemek lives in New Orleans and has played with many bands and has had many performances in the city.  At the moment, he’s currently a solo artist and in the process of working on his debut album that will be released later this year (hopefully the new ROKIT G4 and Epiphone guitar will help that cause 😉).

Lemek’s goals are to continue making music and hopefully one-day compose music for video games or movies.  “I get awestruck when I listen to my favorite movie themes or soundtracks and they inspire me to write more and continue coming up with new creative ideas.”

Click here for information on the new KRK ROKIT G4 10-3 Studio Monitors

For more information on Lemek Yisrael, please visit

Instagram: lemekyisraelguitar

Facebook: Lemek Yisrael

YouTube: Lemek Yisrael

Twitter: @LemekYisrael