Kool Keith: hip hop pioneer, man of many aliases, and (apparently) a madman. With a reputation for being a little on the cuckoo side, Kool Keith has influenced, inspired and entertained millions with his work with Ultramagnetic MCs, as Dr Octagon and Dr Dooom and his surreal, abstract, funny and sex-heavy rhymes.
What was meant to be a 15 minute interview with the rapper turned into an hour long conversation about popcorn, leopard-print couches, pornstars, Athlete's Foot, polka-dot suitcases and new shirts.
Here is a (very) abridged version.
KO: So. Anything exciting happen today?
KK: Nah, typical day in New York. You know. Mostly the same, you know New York is always the same.
KO: You think? I found it a pretty exciting place.
KK: Did you?!
KO: Well, I guess it could be different for you since you grew up there.
KK: Ah, yeah. New York doesn’t change. It’s always been the same, cause I lived here so long, cause I lived here so long, cause I lived here so long.
KO: [laughs] So I wanted to ask, is there any interview question that you’re tired of answering? If there is, I won't ask you.
KK: Um. OK, go ‘head. I don’t know… Um, I don’t know. Just shoot.
KO: Alright. So, you’ve been in the world of hip hop for a very long time, I wanted to ask – since Ultra’s inception to now, have there been any really big shift that you’ve noticed?
KK: Since the transition from Ultra? Yeah, I mean... the loyalty of people in certain types of rap… The loyalty changed from the real original hip hop’s loyalty. The loyalty has changed a lot.
KO: OK, speaking of loyalty, you’re coming out here to Australia with Maseo from De La and the whole of
A Tribe Called Quest, they were around back in the day too – are you looking forward to touring with them? Are they friends of yours?
KK: Who,
A Tribe Called Quest?
KO: Yep.
KK: Yeah, I mean. I knew them way before. They used to be a part of… You know,
De La Soul,
Jungle Brothers, Ultramagnetic was part of… I came up with
Q-Tip and them. We were first, we were hot, and they were on the rise and De La Soul came out… Back then groups used to meet at parties a lot, but new groups don’t really meet. So I ran into them a lot of times. Q-Tip many times.They knew about Ultra. Gangstarr. It was pretty good. I haven’t seen Phife and them for a long time. You know, it’ll be good to see them – a little time to see them and be happy.
KO: And do you write for a particular audience ever? Or just to satisfy whatever creative urge you have inside you at that moment?
KK: Ah, I’m not trying to write a record for a problem or a person to hear it. You know, I’m not trying to put the problem on the person. Some people write for the people and… I don’t know a particular way to write for the people because I don’t think there should be a direction. Writing is natural. I can’t write a song and say the song is for everybody, it’s just for me and what I felt. I’m writing as an artist, for myself. I write something and maybe a lot of people will catch on to it later or mass appeal… I don’t write a song just to project it for a marketing aspect. A lot of artists do that – they write for a marketing strategy. I don’t write that way. I kinda write for myself and whoever catches it, catches it. But not for a marketing tool. I write to my own feelings, what I’ve experienced – maybe another person can relate to it, but I don’t write for a person to feel the same way about a song as I do. I write stuff that maybe people are scared to say or think about or talk about. I kinda touch issues like that. I don’t want to write the trendy, mass – trendy song that is real simple in kindergarten.
KO: What particular subjects have you touched on that you think other artists might feel are too risky?
KK: Um. Well I rap about things that people might not normally talk about. About, you know, the equality of things. I might rap about what a guy might want to say to a woman. He might want to say “I took you out, you take me out this time. You pay for dinner.” Or I might say something that... a lot of guys might write a song about “I’ll give you flowers” and stuff like that, but I might write a song that may say “You don’t deserve flowers.”
KO: [laughs]
KK: Not in a bad way. But
why you don’t deserve flowers. You know, some guys write 20 thousand records about “I’m gonna treat you this way and love you and kiss you and hug you” and I might write a song totally the opposite, like “I’m not gonna do all that, I don’t care how you feel about it”... Some guys might say “I'll wash dishes and cook and clean and I’ll take you out” and I might write “I don’t have to do all this stuff, I don’t want to do all this, whatever.” I’ll make a sex record. I’ll skip over the top of all this stuff and go straight to – whatever, I don’t want to go to movies… and buy popcorn et cetera. You know, I might skip popcorn and the movies.
KO: [laughs] Good to know, no popcorn on a date with Kool Keith.
KK: That’s not the only issue, you know.
KO: Just kidding.
KK: I might say, “It’s your turn to take me out.” Whatever. It depends on the feeling. It’s not like animosity. I write a song that maybe, you know, some guys might write a song like… that’s just one phrase. I’m totally against the grain. I’m not gonna say, what the normal person is programmed to say to sell records. I’m not gonna say something like – I just skip that, I don’t have to say that. I’m kinda like... if there’s somebody in your house and they have, like, Athlete’s Foot, I’ll write about that. I’ll be like, “Such-and-such has stank feet” – I’ll just say that. Rappers have different things… I can write really broad, I’m not gonna hold back.
KO: Do you think that’s part of your appeal – why you’ve had such a long and successful career, because you’re willing to be outside of the box?
KK: Yeah. Well, a guy might want to say something to a girl but he can’t tell he himself, so he rides around in his car and puts on a CD and that might be a record I’ve made. My record might be like, “I don’t want to go out tonight” and he might play that in the car, trying to express something to the girl that they don’t know how to say... Like a singer might say [sings] “I’ll wash your back, I’ll scrub your knees”, but I might skip over that and say “Fuck that. I’m gonna buy a condom. Let’s go by a sex shop, pick up this and that.” He’s sayin’ a bunch of shit to beat around the bush and I’m saying straight forward shit. So, there’s a lot of things; sometimes I go opposite, sometimes I go straight on love… It’s like, some people polish shit up too much. A lot of songs are too mystical, I go straight to it.
KO: Do you think that shock value and your – I guess –
unpredictability is part of your appeal?
KK: Well, some people don’t like it straight. You know. It’s like cut no chase. It’s like Hennessey. Some people want to put water in it, but I just keep it straight. No water. Bacardi with no Coca Cola. Straight Bacardi. You know, a lot of guys beat around the bush when they write. But I write straight forward, straight forward. That’s what fucks people up. [laughs] ... It’s just that, I’m the opposite man in the world... I’m like, I studied life, sociology. I talk to my mother about stuff like that. I talk to a lot of people. You know, everybody is programmed. When I went to LA, I learned that it was more what I was doing – taking pictures and models and, when I made
Sex Style it was a real definition of my life. Just like, every day – I had two or three apartments and girls coming over taking pictures, Rolling Stone and Spin would come over to take pictures and there’d be girls sitting there…you know, in lingerie and we had tiger, no leopard-print couches… I was living the life of luxury… My dreams and fantasies come true. Pornstars sitting in my living room, people that I said “When I become a rapper I’m going to actually see those actual people in my living room.”
KO: Like who?
KK: Just, you know, all types of pornstars. Even guys. Like, Jeannie Pepper, Menage Trois, people I’d actually seen in movies who were friends in my house. Talking. You know, seeing girls who were in the magazines, on the covers of magazines. Actually naked in my house, sitting there. I’m knowing who they are, but I’m not revealing their identity.
KO: OK, that’s fair enough. That’s gentlemanly.
KK: Nah, it’s like. They’re
there but I’m like, “Wow, they been in magazines before.” Things just became true. Things that I never thought. Imagine magazines, and you saw this girl live. This actual person. And actually going out and dating this person. Like if you had a naked picture of Salma Hayek… It could be anybody... It could have been anybody. It could have been any female RnB singer that was around. It could have been anybody. It could have been – Lindsay Lohan could have popped up naked at my house. I didn’t say, I didn’t look at it like – I didn’t brag or nothing about it. I was more calm. So it was a cool type of thing, I looked at it like my life was more than the average rapper – underground of commercial, I don’t care if you’re a popstar, rock star or an undergraound backpack king, I think I had way more fun… I really was like “Wow!” I’m thankful I had a lot of fun times.
KO: So, you kept it quiet, you kept it cool, you say people didn’t gravitate towards you just because of your fame. Is that due to some kind of philosophy you live by, a kind of mantra to keep you grounded?
KK: Well, people have wanted me to reveal myself. People have wanted me to get into the world and give my internal life to the world, but my internal life is to be – not secretive – but private and fun… I didn’t feel like – some people want to reveal that. You know, I had offers for, like um, reality shows and stuff, but I turned it down because at the end of the day, you don’t want to burn out your soul, having people see your inner life. They want you to sell your soul and show them everything you do in life... It's
my leisure. My relaxation, my inspiration – I would go to the mall and buy some clothes. I had a different way of recording… I would go to the mall and shop and buy some new shirts. You know? A pile of new shirts was an inspiring thing to me...
KO: That’s interesting. What other things inspire you?
KK: I do photography. I like, I bought cameras. I hate pocket phone cameras – you know people pull them out and I look at them like “That’s the worst camera in the world.” I respect people when they have big Canon A1s around their neck and Nikons and Minoltas. I have two or three myself. I take pictures all the time. I like taking pictures, I used to take pictures of different cities all the time, women – I became a photographer of my own leisure… That’s a part of my art. I wasn’t the average rapper or singer. I don’t sit around and smoke a bunch of weed and in the cipher. To be a rapper you used to have to be in a cipher and smoke a bunch of weed and burn incense, I never related to that. And to this day I don’t relate to that…
KO: Uh huh.
KK: I consider my lifestyle to be like a basketball player. My rap life. But I didn’t reveal my rap life to everybody. My inner rap life. And basketball players didn’t really have that much fun, I used to see them at Ralph’s supermarket, late at night, with nobody... I was more like, like, like, like, the guy from… not Wes Craven. The guy who did
Hellraiser.
Hellraiser. He does waterpaint. Waterbrushes. Watercolours. People would never think he did that. Doing something very erotic and emotionally different, like he’s not walking around making scary movies all the time.
KO: Is the separate life thing kind of like all your aliases – to free your mind and compartmentalise?
KK: It would allow me space. It’s funny, some rock groups relate to their fans. A lot of people come to my show and they might be into my music and my creation, and there’s other people who go to other bands’ shows and people might be more attracted to them… You know, more people will probably come to my show to give me gifts. Weird gifts. Somebody might make a weird gift to give me. A rock. A pink rock. Or, a rock with a bunch of polka dots on it. A soda pop bottle with marbles inside… Some people might go see a rockstar and make love to him, have sex with him backstage on the tour bus, but my fans are different – they might come to give me a gift. Whereas other people’s fans are more in love with them. [Their fans] are in love with them to have sex, my fans are in love with me to give me gifts, make me think… My music attracts creative people. People might make a polka dot suitcase and give it to me, with something inside. A cat inside the suitcase. And I have to take it home and figure it out… So instead of me going to bug them out, they’re coming to bug
me out. You know? [laughs]
KO: OK... Do you think there’s room for more of your aliases? Will you be revealing somebody new?
KK: Well, it’s weird. I do a show and it’s like, people are coming to see me, but I’m coming to see the people. Because sometimes they have more surprises than I have… I’m never shocked by the gifts I might receive. I wouldn’t doubt what people have for me. They’re not bad gifts, they’re not dangerous gifts, they’re just creative sci-fi gifts. Somebody might paint a box yellow – a shoe box with all kinds of black spots around it. And I’m like “What does it mean?”… I’m not only entertaining them. When entertain each-other.
Kool Keith Australian tour dates:
August 10th: The Stepp Inn, Brisbane
August 11th: Hordern Pavilion, Sydney (supporting A Tribe Called Quest)
August 12th: Festival Hall, Melbourne (supporting A Tribe Called Quest)
August 13th: The Espy, Melbourne
August 14th: Rocket Bar, Adelaide