Words by John Morrison.
Originally released on August 22, 1995 on the small independent start-up Up Above Records, Key Kool and Rhettmatic’s debut album Kozmonautz is a snapshot of Los Angeles’ historically rich and diverse underground Hip Hop scene. Two southern California kids, Kikuo Nishi (Key) and Nazereth Nirza (Rhettmatic) were among the first generation of L.A. youth to be impacted by the birth of hip-hop.
Hip-hop, and the socio-cultural explosion it set off, stretched out across the country from its flashpoint in the Bronx. This wave of influence shaped the lives of countless young people who were eager to participate through the arts of b-boying, graf writing, MCing and DJing.
Spurred on by the founding of KDAY (the country’s first 24 hour hip-hop radio station), the movement created by the Uncle Jamm’s Army DJ/Party promotion crew and countless other cultural, social and political variables, the hip-hop scene in Los Angeles flourished.
After honing his skills as an MC and DJ, Nishi joined Ice-T’s Rhyme Syndicate crew, which included members such as Divine Styler and future House of Pain star Everlast. During this time, Rhettmatic was rocking parties at L.A. clubs like Unity. A series of chance meetings through mutual friends would bring them together as a group and lay the foundations for their crew, underground hip-hop mainstays, The Visionaries.
Although it touched a select few underground hip-hop heads when it was initially released, more than twenty years after the fact, Kozmonautz has aged beautifully. The album retains a special place alongside unheralded West Coast underground gems like Ras Kass’ Soul On Ice, The B.U.M.S. Lyfe N’ Tyme and Mannish’s Audio Sedative. From tracks like “Can U Hear It?” to the classic posse cut “E=MC5”, with dope beats from Rhettmatic, Vooodu, Ras Kass and Miko.
The album’s heaviest emotional moment comes in the form of the track “Reconcentration” where Nishi retells the harrowing true story of how the U.S. government relocated and locked up over 100,000 Japanese Americans in military-designated internment camps situated along the West Coast during World War 2.
The story of how this album was made is as varied as the story of West Coast hip-hop itself with all its diversity and DIY spirit. From Nishi’s youth spent buying music at the legendary Roadium Swap Meet to Nirza’s involvement in the Filipino American Mobile DJ Scene of the 80s this piece is made up of the shared recollections of the people involved.
The story of Kozmonautz is not only the story of a group of talented young people being creative on their own terms, it is also gives a sense of what hip-hop means to the city of Los Angeles.
Key Kool: MC, DJ and Father. Key Kool is the MCing half of the Kozmonautz duo.
Rhettmatic: Turntable Virtuoso and co-founder of the World Famous Beat Junkies DJ Crew.
Dannu: Member of the Visionaries crew. Appears on the Kozmonautz posse cut “Visionaries (Stop Actin’ Scary)”. Also handed Key & Rhett’s cassette tape to Janet Jackson at the Kozmonautz release party at Club Roxbury. According to Key “She was randomly there”.
Lord Zen: Also a member of The Visionaries. Appears on “Visionaries (Stop Actin’ Scary)”.
Ras Kass: The waterproof MC. Member of the mythical Western Hemisfear crew. Released the West Coast classic Soul on Ice in 1996. Also co-produced “Reconcentrated” on Kozmonautz and appears on “E=MC5”.
Doug “Papa Doug” Kato: Former DJ and Founder of Up Above Records. Also appears on “Be A Hoodlum”.
LMNO: West Coast hip-hop veteran. Member of The Visionaries crew. Don’t Fuck with him or he’ll send your demo tape to Jerry Heller.
Vooodu: MC/Producer and founding member of Western Hemisfear. Appears on “E=MC5” and also co-produced “Reconcentrated”. Also produced many tracks on Soul on Ice.
Meen Green: Western Hemisfear member. Appears on “E=MC5.”
Origins: The Big Bang.
DJ Rhettmatic: I’m a first generation Filipino American. My parents moved to the US in 1968; they settled in Southern California. I was born in Huntington Park (East LA) then moved to Cerritos (a suburb in the LA County, 15 min next to Long Beach, 30 min from Downtown LA) in 1972. I pretty much discovered hip-hop growing up in Cerritos. My 1st introduction to hip-hop was in 7th grade when I saw a bunch of cats forming a circle & started to bust out Popping dance moves.
Someone sneaked in a Boombox with Planet Rock playing out the speakers. As soon as I seen the whole thing happening in front of my eyes, I was totally hooked. Of course, I didn’t even know it was called “Hip-hop” at that time….this was like 1983. During those times, it was normal to do 2 or more out of the 4 elements of hip-hop. I was a popper & a graff writer first until I eventually got into DJing. As I got older, that practically became my calling
Key Kool: My parents were super into music, jazz, soul/r&b. I didn’t realize they were cooler than me until I asked them if they ever saw James Brown live, and they said they saw him at the Hollywood Palladium on New Year’s Eve, sometime around 1965. I was exposed to locking when I saw my brothers friends doing it at a school talent show in 1978, ironically their younger cousins started teaching me how to poplock in 1981. That’s what got me into hip-hop.
My older brother Jin (not the rapper), also had a friend that had a set a turntables and a mixer but didn’t know how to use it. He told me to take it home and show him how to use it after I figured it out (I had already began scratching on my dad’s old stereo and apparently, he thought I had potential.) I picked it up pretty quickly, and by the time I was in 9th grade, people were hiring me to do guest DJ sets at college parties because not a lot of party DJs at the time were really scratching and blending. In LA, we also had 1580 KDAY, the only radio station that had hip-hop programmed 24 hours a day.
LA in the 80s: Popping and Locking. Beats and Swap Meets.
Key Kool: My friends and I would listen to all the KDAY mix masters and be inspired. I think the biggest thing is that I lived on the back neighborhood of the Roadium swap meet. The owner Steve Yano (RIP), was Japanese American like me, and he treated us like nephews. My homie Glen and I would hop the back wall and hang out there all day listening to every new hip-hop record he brought into his stand. Yano was the one who sold the famous Roadium Dr. Dre mixtapes and he actually introduced Eazy-E to Dr. Dre. Being right there as a pee wee in what people call the “ground zero” of LA hip-hop, and seeing NWA’s rise was influential as well.
Rhettmatic: Prior before meeting Key around 1993, I was heavily involved in the Mobile DJ scene in the mid to late 80’s. I was already hanging out with some of the members of the Beat Junkies such as J.Rocc (who founded the crew) & Dj Curse (an OG member & a mentor of mine growing up), coming from different mobile DJ crews, before we actually became a crew officially in 1992.
I was also actually a member of the Rock Steady Crew, LA Chapter in 1991 with Rakaa of Dilated Peoples, B-Boy legends Zulu Gremlin & Easy Roc, & LA DJ legend DJ Rob-One as members as well. My 1st taste into the music business was being the DJ for a group called Brotherhood Creed, which had a hit at the time called “Helluva”. My best friend was part of the group at that time as well. Needless to say, I got to experience a lot & even got to meet some heroes of mine during the brief stint, but I also learned a lot. It truly taught me to start learning more about the business, that not everything is gold, & to follow my heart & instincts.
Key Kool: DJing seriously kept me from selling drugs or running with gangs…they all told me that it’d be a waste of what they saw as talent. Pretty much every DJ in SoCal would travel to Yano’s record stand cuz he was one of the few that bought from the Big Daddy one stop, so he’d have a bunch of East Coast records that just came out. If you listen to those Dr. Dre mixtapes, you’ll hear all the records that had Just come out at that time, stuff that Yano gave Dre to mix. Those mixes would also play in KDAY. You can hear all of that influence on the NWA Straight Outta Compton album.
Visionaries: Stop Actin’ Scary.
Rhettmatic: After the Brotherhood Creed stint, I pretty much just went back to the drawing board & concentrated on DJing. And by that time, the Junkies were formed. I also was able to buy my 1st drum machine sampler: the EMU-SP1200 & pretty much just hone in, trying to make beats like my heroes such as Marley Marl, Premier, Pete Rock, Large Professor, Dj Muggs, Dr. Dre, Dj Pooh just to name a few. I worked with a few MC’s but it never really worked out. Thru the grapevine & some parties, I would hear about Key. Remember, there weren’t that many MC’s of Asian descent at that time in the West Coast, let alone in Southern California (with the exception of the Boo-Yaa Tribe, who were from Carson & are of Samoan descent) that really had skills. If I remember correctly, we actually met at a club that a common friend of ours was the main promoter, and Key was actually the host MC…and I think I was doing a guest DJ set.
Key Kool: In 1989 I got recruited by Ice T’s management company Rhyme Syndicate to be in a group as a DJ. Our first demo was recorded at Prince’s Paisley Park Studio in Minnesota. That was my first recording experience in a “real” studio, and I really wanted to rap on a song. As the DJ of the group, I felt confined behind the tables and always wanted to be out front rapping, it just felt more natural to me. We were a group called UNC (United Nations Committee), and the concept was to be a multicultural group. While it was corny and contrived, it was visionary (pun intended). Ironically, it was what The Visionaries actually are, we just happened to be friends that formed a crew, and in fact, that’s how I met LMNO. He was the replacement white guy when the original member quit. Sinful from the group Tha Mexkinz (Mad Sounds/Motown), and Kel C (from the pioneering Minnesota I.R.M. Crew) were the other members of that group. The group disbanded when our manager went to prison. I was MCing at Prince’s club Glam Slam in downtown LA, (yeah, a bunch of Prince references), and Rhett was the guest DJ.
First time I met Rhettmatic was pretty mind blowing. I was at this club in Hollywood that was always jumping off. In one night you’d see people like Steven Tyler from Aerosmith, one of the Milli Vanilli guys, and Chuck D, and random movie celebs just walking around. We spoke about every hip-hop fact, record, etc – we’re super hip-hop nerds, and he told me he’d send me some beats. I never got them, but about a half a year later my manager says he ran into his old friend Rhett, and so we finally linked to record a song or two. Rhett’s homies from Cerritos who were MCs we’re focused on mashing in their industries, and rightfully so. Rich One founded Creative Recreation Shoes, and Emil (Soriano) is one of the founders of Crooks and Castles. So needless to say, they’ve been successful. So Rhett and I formed a group, and the name Kozmonautz was actually a name that Rich One came up with.
Dannu: I met Key around 93…met Zen in 92 doing shows around LA. Key and Zen were already linked and one day I rolled with Zen to a recording session for Key. That was our first encounter. Rhett was DJing for Key and that’s how I met him when we all rolled to support Key for a show. It was for a tofu festival in little Tokyo.
ZEN: I met Dannu and we started working on music together. Key knew LMNO from a group he had before and we talked about meeting up. Doug Kato started Up Above Entertainment and we had a studio in the office in Carson, called the Bomb Shelter, where the five of us would create. Key was going to UCLA at the time and had a radio show there. Rakaa from Dilated and 2Mex came thru one night to rock the mic. We invited 2Mex to the Bomb Shelter sessions, he showed up and the rest was…well, The Visionaries history. The beginning.
“Stop Actin Scary” is the 1st official The Visionaries song. That pretty much jump started the whole crew. Key knew LMNO already from his early days with him in a group; also during that time he was also part of the Blak Forest crew (what up Wiz!). He was also already working with Zen & Dannu when they were known as “Disciples Of The Sound” before they officially change their group’s name to Writer’s Block. 2Mex already had a buzz as a dope MC in the underground as being part of a group from the Good Life cafe called OMD (Of Mexican Descent) with XOXOLAXINCO. I met 2Mex thru Rakaa (Dilated Peoples) during my Rock Steady Crew days. Rak & Evidence were known as the Fatliners at that time (pre-Dilated, pre-Babu days) & they had a little loose fit crew with OMD, Joey Chavez, & a crew called Project Ill Brothers…it was called “Nerve Defness”. It wasn’t an official crew, but more like homies hanging out together and making music. I actually invited 2Mex just to hang out with us and vibe. I don’t officially remember how exactly how he got down with us but I think we asked him to be down with the crew during a freestyle session (minus me not rapping of course…haha!).
Up Above: Recording Kozmonautz:
Doug “PapaDoug” Kato: Key and I go back pretty far, almost back to high school days. I met Rhett through being a DJ. I was a DJ and my partner was from Cerritos. I started doing these charity dances and live performances and at one time we brought Key along to perform. We were pushing it to get them signed. We were getting quite a bit of action (from labels), but it was just kind of mis-playing the whole “Asian rapper” thing and we just felt like it was just going to go in the wrong direction. So ultimately with the encouragement of (music industry veteran) Violet Brown…she said “Hey, why don’t you guys just start a record label?”
Rhettmatic: We chose to be indie, do it yourselfers by necessity. Major labels were saying shit like Asian people don’t listen to hip-hop, or they wanted to exploit us on some disrespectful level. I like to think we started working on the album around 1994 because the album came out in 1995.
How the name “Kozmonautz” came out about, originally it was a name that I wanted to use for a production crew that was supposed to consist of my best friend Ty (who was also in Brotherhood Creed) but it didn’t really pan out because he lost interest in making beats & went more into freestyle dancing. Then I suggested to Key that we use the name instead, cause I really like the name, plus Key said that it was dope, because it reminded of him that we’re going into “new territory”, being that we might be one of the first Asian American Hip-Hop duos on some Gang Starr steeze, even though we really didn’t set out to be that. We wanted to be respected for our skills regardless of the fact that Key is Japanese American & I’m a Filipino American.
Key Kool: We recorded it at a home studio in East LA with Stan Kaneshige “Moki”, the one who produced Can U Hear It. Really talented musician. His family was so cool, they used to leave the back sliding door unlocked so that we could walk in the house anytime to record. Was crazy when you think about all that equipment.
Rhettmatic: We recorded everything onto ADAT Tape Machines then we transferred onto 2 inch reel tapes to have it mixed at a professional recording studio (Milagro Sound Recorders ). What’s crazy was that our engineer (Vachik Aghaniantz) is the same engineer that mixed Low Profile’s only album We’re In This Together on Priority Records. If you didn’t know, Low Profile was DJ Aladdin’s & WC’s group (yes, THAT WC of Westside Connection).
E=MC5: Bust The Scientifical (feat. Western Hemisfear)
Rhettmatic: “E=MC5” is probably the only song that had the original Western Hemisfear crew (Ras, Vooodu, & Meen Green) ever recorded onto wax before Ras left the crew. I was doing scratches for Ras’ original “Soul On Ice” demo album before I met Key. I already knew of Ras when he was a dope “Freestyle” dancer. We both have a friend in common: Kalani (RIP) was a dancer & member of Divine Styler’s Scheme Team. He was the one that introduced me to Ras, personally giving me his “Remain Anonymous” 12” on vinyl.
From there, he asked me to contribute scratches to his album (I did scratches on “On Earth As It Is”, “Core Audience”, & “Jack Frost”). This is when I also met Vooodu & Meen Green. All three of them are incredible emcees! Because of me working with them during these times, I was able to ask them to get down on our posse cut & we were lucky to get Vooodu to produce “Reconcentrated” & “Lyrical MD’s”. Me personally, I’m very thankful to have Ras, Meen Green, & Vooodu on the album.
Voodou: In a nutshell me, Ras and Bird we went to high school together and we was dancers at the time. We was called Club House back in the day. We ended up going to different clubs and everybody was on some dancing stuff. Even when we were dancing, we were rhyming. And Bird was the first one out the crew that was a producer. Battlecat took him under his wing and that was his prodigy. So, he learned from Battlecat and I learned from Bird. I would sit in the studio and watch Bird get tutored by Cat. At the time the SP-1200 was the shit. I liked the SP, but the MP was my thing and I work on an MPC 4000 to this day.
We was a group at that point, I named the group West Coast Avengers. There’s was a song Ras was working on were he said “Western Hemisfear” and I said “I should name the group Western Hemisfear”.
Mean Green: I met Vooodu and Bird in Trax studios in Hollywood CA (circa 1992). We clicked and formed a group called The West Coast avengers. Ras at this time was in jail and when he got out we merged and became the Western Hemisfear. We were in Long Beach CA at Rhett’s studio and I remember hearing the beat feeling the comp(etition) level or energy in the room going outside getting high as moon craters and penning then spitting that verse. Each verse set the stage for the next man. Key and LMNO were crazy then to go up against Ras and Vooo, it was a challenge I accepted with open arms LOL.
Vooodu: It was dope because I had never met a white MC and LMNO was the first one. LMNO was dope as…..man! I knew Mean Green, he was just my dude from LA but I didn’t know he was sick like that. We went up in the studio and laid that shit and I was just blown away by LMNO and everybody just blessed the record.
Ras Kass: From what I remember that was Rhettmatic’s idea. pretty sure I met the guys first and would frequent the studio and then eventually my whole group ended up hanging with Up Above and the next thing you know we were all rapping on a sick beat (laughs).
Reconcentrated:
Key Kool: As a DJ, we would play instrumentals, and of course as a fan, I would know entire songs like Run DMC “Sucker MC’s,” and rap it over the instrumental, you know, karaoke rap. Eventually, I started writing little basic raps to put on mixtapes and stuff. It wasn’t until I heard Public Enemy that I realized I could speak about my family’s experience and I wrote a verse about my family going into the concentration camps during World War II.
Ras Kass: Early on I did a lot of my own production. Rhett knew this so I was honored when they asked me to help formulate some ideas for that song. I think Key, knowing I had just written “Nature of the Threat” could help organize his thoughts because “Reconcentrated” is effectively the Japanese-American “Nature of the Threat”.
Key Kool: Rhett was doing scratches for Ras Kass at the time we were working on our album, so we were hanging out a bunch at Kitchen Sync Studios with Ras and the Western Hemisfear Crew. When Ras was recording “Nature if the Threat” I had told him about “Reconcentrated” and how I had researched with the leading Japanese American History Professor Yuji Ichioka, but was needing to finish it feeling the pressure and burden of representing for my family. He was the one that told me to finish that shit for your people, and Voodoo gave me the beat for the song, which was actually supposed to be for the Western Hemisfear posse cut.
Ras was pissed at first, but later said, just let me add some shit to the track, and came in with a Koto sample that completed the track. I’m forever grateful to those brothers for that. The song means so much to me. When my grandfather was sick, and I visited him in the hospital daily, we spoke a lot about his history. I asked him how could he not be angry about being a self made multi-millionaire that came out of the camps to find out that his attorney stole everything from him and was even driving his car: he told me that money means nothing to him as he’s lying down in bed near death, the important thing is his grandson is there to comfort him, spend time with him, and that he was able to make more money anyway, but love and family is the most precious thing.
LMNO: As a fan of edutainment I thought/think “Reconcentrated” was/is necessary for all of us to hear. Key has always been proud of who he is & was never hesitant to express that, makes me proud! His whole family took me in like a family member which means a lot to me despite America’s not so glorious history.
Doug Kato: “Reconcentrated” was kinda revolutionary where universities were studying that song. It memorialized a piece of history that was really forgotten.
Can U Hear It? Closing Impressions
Rhettmatic: I’m not really sure how much of an impact we’ve made with this album, but we definitely have had people come up to both Key & myself over the years & have said to us how much the album & our music has inspired them. I also have heard over the years as well that supposedly our album & the song “E=MC5” is a West Coast underground hip-hop classic. When cats like Vinnie Paz of Jedi Mind Tricks and Apathy have told me personally that they were peeping our music back in the days. All of this truly means a lot.
LMNO: The Kozmonautz took me around the world. I am proud of them for going for it and still going for it to this day, I love Key & Rhett! I am very grateful for everything they’ve done and still do to this day.
Doug Kato: I think that thing that really left an impact of that album is that we did it independently. We were a small fish, swimming with the big fish. We were able to make music the way we wanted to make it. There’s a lot of records out there that 20 years ago, you look at what they did and think “Dude, what were they thinking?” But I think we can pretty much hold our heads up high and say “Dang, that Kozmonautz album is still relevant” I think there was magic in what we were able to do with the little amount of money we had.
Key Kool: I asked my grandfather about what he thought about me rapping, and he said everyone thought he was crazy for leaving Japan at 16 with a few hundred bucks. He said do what you love and go be a pioneer.
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John Morrison is a Philadelphia based DJ, producer, and music journalist (Red Bull Music Academy, Jazz Right Now, Bandcamp Daily etc.) His debut instrumental Hip Hop album Southwest Psychedelphia is a psychedelic trip through a day in the life in his Southwest Philadelphia neighborhood, and available now on Deadverse Recordings. Follow John on Twitter and Instagram.