By Liz McBreen
During the year 2001, Kitt wrote a record 772 songs, a feat that has recently been officially recognized by Guinness Book of World Records.
"I write all kinds of songs," said Kitt, "Inspirational, R&B, Gospel, Hip Hop." Kitt writes the lyrics for his songs, most of which are about five minutes in length. "Sometimes, if I have a melody in mind, I will sing it into a tape recorder, and bring it to the studio. They will mix in an accompaniment for it there."
In 1997, Kitt was given a single song contract for his song "Let It Be Written". The contract was for publishing rights, according to Kitt. JPMC Music now has the right to do what they want with the song, and Kitt is hoping that they will decide to release it.
The 52-year-old music writer says that he didn't originally set out to break a record. "It started out as 118 songs, then 200 since the beginning of the year." After looking through some Guinness Books at the bookstore, Kitt decided on a goal of writing at least two songs a day. Things didn't always go according to plan, but the songwriter made due with the time he had.
Kitt, a father of two, works full time for New York City Housing as a Community Relations Specialist. He explained that he could not always find the time in one day to write as many as two songs. "Some days I didn't write at all, and some days I wrote four or more."
He eventually decided to contact the people at Guinness. "They told me that anything could be called a song, and that they would need some verification."
The songwriter then began compiling information to send to Guinness. Several of his songs had already been placed in the Billboard Song Writing Contest and had received a score of seven points or better, which places the song in a catalog of "excellent acquisition," an industry standard which makes the songs more likely to be picked up by a recording company.
After Kitt supplied this information to the Guinness record keepers, he received an application form.
Kitt went to the Post Office in order to register all the titles to his songs and later obtained copyrights for them from the Library of Congress, taking audio and video tape of the entire process, which is required by Guinness.
On Sept. 7, Kitt received a certificate in the mail stating that he currently holds the record for writing the most songs in one year. The certificate does not guarantee that Kitt's name will appear in the published record book, but his name has been entered into the database for potential future use.
Kitt received a Bachelors degree in Education from City University and a Masters degree in Urban Education from New York University. He was named to The International Poetry Hall of Fame in 1998, and wrote a compilation, 'Poetry To Live By,' in 1999. His song catalogue includes over 2,200 works.
