Category: Legends

Playlist: Best New Music – February 2019

This month’s playlist includes new hip-hop from legends like Smif-N-Wessun, Sean Price, Ghostface Killah and Inspectah Deck, plus Nolan The Ninja, Crimeapple, Blu, Oh No, Quelle Chris, DJ Nu Mark and more.

Listen to the playlist below, and then go support the artists with a purchase from wherever you buy your music. Check us on Spotify for more curated playlists.

Interview: Small Professor on making ’86 Witness’ with Sean Price

86 Witness is a deeply personal album for producer Small Professor. He and Sean Price were already working on the project before P’s death in 2015, making this a genuine Sean Price album, not something stitched together from disparate, archived sound files. Its a worthy tribute to one of the sharpest writers in music, and a fine addition to the catalogs of both artists. We recently spoke to Small Pro about how the album came together.

Considering it’s been three and a half years since we lost Sean Price, 86 Witness must have been a long time in the making?

The album wasn’t really that long in the making…most of it was done in 2015 before P passed away, and a few features and bells and whistles were added after his passing up through the end of 2016. It’s just been a very long time coming.

How was it put together? Did you get to work with P in the studio before he passed, or have you had to work through vocals and construct it piece by piece? 

The album was constructed mainly through the internet – sending verses and beats back and forth to P’s engineer. I’d send beats, he’d send back a rough demo, and I’d do additional changes once I got his vocals…that’s how the whole album was created.

There must be a certain amount of pressure that comes with producing an artist posthumously and making sure you do justice to their legacy?

I definitely felt a little pressure but this was a bit different than your usual posthumous release because I knew P thought what we had done so far was quality, so I felt like if it was good enough for him, I’d be ok with however it was received upon its release.

The album has 1986 as a running theme. How did that concept come about?

The 1986 theme was accidental at first… Matt Diamond (Coalmine Records, 86 Witness Executive Producer) and I started noticing the year popping up via references in P’s rhymes, and so we started to add our own 1986 ideas into the mix, including the title.

Sean’s widow Bernadette has been very hands-on in making sure her husband’s music is respected. Did 86 Witness get her blessing?

86 Witness was released as a partnership between Coalmine Records and Duck Down Music – the latter of which Bernadette has worked closely with since P’s passing, so her blessing was received.

Lastly, what are some of your favorite personal memories of working with P?

My favorite memories of working with P were our few phone calls, where we pretty much just talked about rap and our kids. Our relationship was mainly a musical one, so the most thrilling thing was getting new P verses in my email that only two other people in the world had heard to date. He also almost snapped at me once because I switched his verses around without his permission, but he liked the end result so much it didn’t matter [laughs].

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86 Witness is out now. Purchase here. Follow Small Pro on Twitter. Interview by Grown Up Rap Editor Ben Pedroche.

Interview: Slug (Atmosphere)

As Atmosphere prepare to hit Europe for the latest leg of their never-ending tour, we speak to Slug about everything from Mi Vida Local to Dynospectrum and movies to Brexit. Words by Gingerslim.

Thanks for speaking with me, man. How’s everything with you?

I’m good, man, I’m good. I get up early to take the kid to school and sometimes I go back to sleep, sometimes I don’t. Today I didn’t and I’m feeling it right now. We were up late last night working on some music and I forgot that I had press today, so I was thinking I could grab some more sleep after I took the kid to school but then when I was driving back this morning I checked my calendar and I was like “Oh fuck!”. So here I am, all coffee’d up.

You released your latest album in October, Mi Vida Local. For those who may not have heard it yet, can you give us a bit of a breakdown? Has there been much progression from Fishing Blues?

You know, I don’t know if I’m in a position to answer that. There’s that bumper sticker that says all art is subjective and I think that the last opinion we should ever listen to about a piece of art, is the person who made it. I can tell you what certain songs are about – if I know – or I can tell you what I was thinking at the time, or what I was doing, but I don’t know if this record is any good, or if it’s any different. In my world it’s different, due to the fact it represents where I am right now.

Fishing Blues, or Southsiders, or Family Sign, they’re all kinda like snapshots of where I’m at in that moment. Where as if you were to try to hold my life up next to the person who made Family Sign, or Lemons right now, well my life has altered, it’s changed, it’s evolved since then; I dunno, however you want to word it, but it’s changed. Every two or three years we adapt to what’s been thrown at us. This record is made by the same guy who made You Can’t Imagine How Much Fun We’re Having, but that guy is living in different circumstances, there’s a different climate going on, you know what I mean? So these things all kinda shape whatever the fuck it is that I’m juggling, or that I’m dealing with, or struggling with in that moment and this record is a snapshot of that. So in my head, if I was my own therapist, I think this record represents a certain kind of frustration or confusion, but different to the one I was feeling 10 years ago, it’s coming from a different perspective. Now I have more children so I have more worry about things that maybe aren’t quite so insular, like the world is steadily flying towards its destruction you know?

These types of things inform the writing on this album, where as lets say 10 years ago, the things that informed the writing and the music then, might have come from the place of a person who was far more concerned about himself, or about the moments. Now I’m looking at my surroundings and I’m giving less of a fuck about the things inside my immediate area, with more concern about things that are out of my control. And that’s a weird place to be cos you’re not supposed to give a shit about things that are out of your control, but yet here I go.

It must come with the territory, as you said you became a father so that will increase your worries.

Sure, but even if you take fatherhood out of the equation, I find myself thinking about things like those reports you read that say things like “we have this much time to change our ways before we cross the tipping point and face mass extinction” and you’re like well what do I envision as a perfect resolutions to that? Because I don’t necessarily believe we’re going to change, I want to but I honestly don’t think humanity has the fucking strength to make the changes that are needed. So with that said, how do I want to see shit end? What I envision is that when people realise there is going to be extinction, they’re going to lose their shit and start doing a lot of bad stuff. But I don’t want to see that happen, so how about we blow this fucking place up? Let’s all die at once, let’s have a mass suicide and blow it up. Actually no, suicide is the wrong word because none of us want to be the one to end it, but to achieve suicide you kinda have to do it yourself so let’s just set a time-bomb. I don’t have to worry about my kids starving, or burning to death, they don’t have to be sad about me dying first; I don’t have to worry about you, or my friends, we can all just fucking go and then it’s done. But what kind of fucking depression is that?! Where am I? What the fuck is going on when that’s my fantasy? It’s like wow, I’ve come a long way in 10 years! [laughs]

And do you think you’ll find a way to come to terms with that?

I mean here’s the best part, I have come to terms with it cos at the end of the day I know that that fantasy is so far-fetched; it’s not a rational reality, it’s more like a movie that I haven’t seen yet, but it’s in my head. In real terms I just want to try to make life as fun as possible for the people that I care about – my family, my friends – I just want everybody to have a good time. That other shit is just something I would talk to my therapist about. The real world and how I really see things, is that I’m trying to learn to be less susceptible to other people’s problems and frustrations, and more available as a conduit to spread hope to people who are feeling pain or frustration, as opposed to being affected by their pain and frustration. I want to try to be an energy that can add a bit of good feeling to the people that I can reach.

Luckily I have a good job for that, I’m a musician, and in a weird way I’m thankful that I never became super famous in the sense of having to figure out how to communicate to millions of people because that’s insane. Instead I get to be in my lane and communicate with the people who have figured out how to interpret me, so that I don’t have to be careful of how I communicate. I can do it how I feel, I can keep it as raw as I want without having to worry about ‘hurting people’, or backlash, or being problematic. I can be problematic if I fucking want. Now what does that mean? I’m not a very problematic person, but I get to be who I am and who I want, and people allow that, they make room for me to be that, so I’m kind of in the perfect situation. Cos my bills are paid, my family’s got food, so that’s where I think well what I can do to focus on people who maybe don’t have that; I mean obviously I can’t pay everybody’s rent for them, but maybe I can just give them a little something to listen to while they’re self-medicating and trying to escape the day-to-day problems that they have.

I mean that’s kinda what got me into your music, back in the Lucy Ford days because it just felt accessible and relatable.

I guess maybe now I’m finally embracing that, because when you got into that I didn’t want to be accessible, I didn’t want to be the guy that people went to to escape – I just wanted to be a fucking dope MC, you know what I mean? No one ever gave me the ribbon that I wanted, that first place ribbon, they gave me this different type of ribbon and I was very reluctant for a long time. I think by the time I first met you (2008), I was finally embracing it and realizing that I had just been blind, that that’s what I had been doing this whole time. But I think that’s the big joke. You receive a place to stand and it’s always the right spot, the place that’s been held for us for each individual to stand, it’s exactly right. We all walk around and try not to stand there because we’re humans, we don’t like authority or being told what to do; so even when fate is the authority, or the world’s energy is the authority, we still try to push back on it because we know that authority also means dependency, you know.

Now talking about the album, there are a few guest spots on there that piqued my interest, in particular Dynospectrum. What prompted you to reunite for the Randy Mosh track?

Well people were in communication already cos the label were reissuing the Dynospectrum album. Kevin Beacham, who I guess you could say was one of the main facilitators at the label, was reaching out to all of us trying to get photos, lyrics and things like that that he could use for the campaign. So in the process of that we were all talking anyway and I’d flown out to Arizona not long before that where I got to hang out with Gene Pool (Swift), me and Musab talk on a regular basis, me and Chaka (I Self Devine) we get together sometimes and look through records. It was like an organic moment where all four of us were talking and it’s not like we ever stopped talking intentionally, but we all got older, had kids and different lives etc.

So in the midst of all this I’d been looking at some of the beats Ant gave me and there were a couple that reminded me of Dynospectrum beats, so I reached out to everyone to see if they’d like to make a song and they all agreed. I was going to send them a couple of beats but I sent them one first and everyone wrote to it immediately. Like I sent it to them and later that same night Gene Pool sent me back two different verses! So I was like oh fuck, well here we go then and once it started it was real easy, but then the question was – shall we make more? And the answer was, well yeah we probably should but we also know how hard to it get just me and Murs together to make a whole album, so to get the four of us together would be hard work, we’ve got to keep it organic. So if it happens, it happens but I don’t want to push it, or pressure it, because what are we really making then?

The thing that was special about the Dynospectrum album for me was how effortlessly it came together, it basically wrote itself. I’d be at the studio making Atmosphere stuff, then I’d hang out with Musab while he was making his stuff and then Chaka would show up, so somebody suggested we get together and write a song. That’s how the first album was built. I don’t want to use the mail order system to make a whole new album. If all four of us are in the same city, or on the same stage, then that’s how I would like to see the second one get made.

Now with artists like deM atlaS and The Lioness, did you have a plan to work with them on the album before you started making it, or did the idea only emerge as certain tracks were made that you thought they would sound good on?

I knew that I wanted to work with both of them and I knew that I wanted to take both of them on tour. In fact they both did a short tour with us last year through the mountains and when that happened I knew I wanted to make a song with these guys, I respond so well to both their energies. People tend to have different opinions of me, some people think I’m a sweetheart, other people think I’m an asshole and the truth is I’m both. I’m an empath, so I feel what people are feeling and I reflect that. In that sense, the energies that deM atlaS and Lioness both give, bring out the best version of me; I like who I am when I’m around them. I love the person that they pull out of me, it’s someone I don’t get to see that often. It’s almost as if they remind me of what it’s like to know what’s behind the curtain, you know? I become curious when I’m around them, I become excited about shit again. Like “Oh fuck look at that squirrel!”, but I don’t normally notice a squirrel.

So yeah I wanted to do another tour with them and then I thought I should do a song with them, so we have something to perform. And I wasn’t necessarily interested in making a song to put on the album at the time, I just wanted to make a song so that we can all get on stage together at the same time. But then we made the song and it came out so good that we decided we wanted to put it on the album. There’s also another gentleman on there called Cashanova. He was the last one to come on board cos I needed a chorus for the song and I tapped him for the same reasons, because he’s another one whose energy is so beautiful that when I’m around him I feel beautiful, so I wanted him on the song as well.

Now by my count this is your seventh or eighth Atmosphere album. Do you guys ever find it harder to get things moving nowadays when it comes to starting a new project?

The hardest part is finding the time. We tour a lot still, plus me and Anthony both have families, children and so the hardest part is pulling ourselves away from other aspects of life, to make sure we’re still focused on creating projects. Making songs is easy, I make songs all the time, but when I have to focus my efforts and the material into some sort of galvanised movement like making an album, that’s the part that can be difficult.

I don’t like to make songs that sound all over the place; I made an album once where the songs were all over the place and to this day it is my least favorite album, I don’t ever want to make an album like that again. So I’m very intentional about the albums, I want them to have an overall meaning or an overall theme, something that I’m trying to communicate and that’s the part that can be difficult. Because it’s more than just sitting down and writing to a beat, it actually requires me to feel a certain way, to take a sort of temperature of where I’m at in my life right now. So in that way it’s not just a fucking mismatched plaid jacket, I don’t want to give people a plaid jacket, I want the jacket to look good [laughs].

Now I think it’s Rhymesayers Entertainment’s 23rd year as a label…

Holy shit!

I know right? Did you ever envision it getting to be this strong, in terms of its roster and its influence, when you started it was back when?

Absolutely not. You know when we started it, it was out of necessity. No other labels cared about rappers from Minneapolis, so we started our own label and when we did, I don’t think we even considered that the music would get past the borders of our state, much less worldwide. So no I didn’t envision it, but I don’t know if everyone working on it at the time would agree. Maybe Siddiq did have this grand goal of being able to do these things. And that’s not because I didn’t want things to get this big, I just never could have envisioned it. In fact if I ever did envision it, I probably did so as more of a naive or ignorant person – like “Oh this is going to be like Wu Tang, or this is going to be like Aftermath”; there’s no way I could’ve ever imagined it being what it really is, which is a very simple and humble situation that received the resources it needed to extend its wings.

And do you remember a point along the way where you realized that it actually was going to turn into something special?

I don’t think there was ever a single point, more like a series of little things here and there. Like when I finally met Open Mike Eagle, who I’d been a fan of and I realized he was aware of us, or when I finally met Aceyalone and realized he knew who Atmosphere was. It was one of those things where I’d come across people who I’m a fan of and realized that they’d been listening to my music for 15 years. Or someone would tell us they’d been really influenced by the things we’d been doing, those are the kind of things that blow me away the most. From my perspective I’m still sort of the guy from Minneapolis who’s trying to find my way through it and make it look easy, so I don’t always see the reverberations that it creates.

Now you mentioned earlier about how much touring you guys do and have done since the beginning. Do you think success would have been harder to come by if you didn’t get yourselves out there that much?

I do, yeah. I think touring was a huge part of the equation of how this became what it is, because we didn’t necessarily have the resources or the connections. The thing is as far as the music industry goes, I don’t have those connections, I don’t know any A&R people at labels. I made such an identity of saying fuck record labels, that record labels basically said well fuck you too, you know what I mean? So I never made friends with any of those kind of people – I don’t know the people who run the radio industry, I don’t know the people who run the video industry. So what I did instead was I got to know other bands and I got to know some booking agents, so I just stayed on the road and I connected with people one at a time. You know I think that if you were to poll our fan base and ask them how they first heard about Atmosphere, the majority would say word of mouth. That word of mouth came from people sharing our music, or going to our shows and telling people about them afterwards.

So a lot of our connections were personal, it wasn’t like they heard us on the radio and then went to look us up cos they liked our music. And so yeah, I do think touring played a huge part in spreading the word about who we are, as well as making us accessible cos we weren’t accessible like some of our peers were. We weren’t on MTV a lot, I mean towards the end we were featured here and there, but we never figured out how to break into MTV and give them the videos that they wanted to show – our videos were too lo-fi, with too much art from my own head.

Now sticking with touring, I know you guys are coming to Europe again in April, including London. Is it a very different experience when you’re touring over here, compared to back home?

There’s a huge difference in as much as in the UK territory, the European territory, we have even less connections there so it’s a smaller market for us. So you know, I get less PR over there, less press, so it’s a harder marketplace. I can’t just hop in a car and drive to Bristol, but I can hop in a car and drive to Tucson if I want to, or I can hop on a plane and be in New York in two hours. So it was easier for me to grown an audience here because of their easier accessibility to me. It’s been a lot more harder with Europe because it’s a lot more expensive to get there and then when I get there, there aren’t as many resources that I can accumulate. Our shows over there – well you’ve seen them – they’re not as big as they are over here. So we get there whenever we can and try to stay there as long we can, but I know that when I leave I’m not going to be back for a year to a year and a half, maybe two years, and so the momentum starts to slow down.

What I really appreciate about that though is that we’re not trendy over there. You know we’ve gone through phases here where it’s been cool to like Atmosphere, or it’s been cool to not like Atmosphere, then it was cool to like us again and so on and so forth. But in Europe, if you like us, it’s because there is a real solid connection between you and our music. So that means our shows are full of people that fucking sing along to every song, not just the five big ones. You know over here there are people at the shows who know the words to like Sunshine and Yesterday, but over in Europe you’ve got people asking for us to play songs like Bleed Slow and shit; it’s like fuck I don’t even know the words to that song.

I know you’re in the midst of your American tour at the moment and then obviously you’ve got Europe after, but what’s next after all that’s died down?

That’s a good question. We’re making more music currently, just because why wouldn’t we? I’ve been working on a few other things too… in fact yeah here’s something that I’ve not mentioned to anybody yet, but me and Anthony went out to Colorado to make a cameo appearance in a movie which looks like it could be quite exciting. It’s basically another Hunter S Thompson film that’s coming out, like a prequel to Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas. Just like the other Hunter S Thompson films that came out, they had cameos from loads of people and so one of the producers basically reached out to me and asked if we wanted a short scene in the film, and I was like “Fuck yeah!” [laughs].

So we flew out to Colorado and we played a couple of hippies in this scene, which is super cool and I’m really hoping they don’t cut it, so I probably shouldn’t talk about it too much cos I don’t want to jinx it! It only took like an hour to shoot our bit, so we were there hanging around for a couple of days and I saw other scenes that they were shooting and it looks like fucking fire, dude. I’m excited for these guys and I think it’s super dope that they asked us to be involved.

Yeah that’s really good, man. And I can totally picture you guys in that role.

[laughs]

And is film something you’ve ever thought about trying to get into before this?

I always wanted to, but I was too scared to. When I was in high school I took the typical public school style acting classes, so it didn’t get too deep or too heavy. But we wrote our own plays, then acted them and produced them, and it was always a lot of fun but I just never thought I’m that good at it. Like even watching our own music videos, I always feel like I look uncomfortable cos I’m not very good in front of the camera. So I just don’t feel like I have a lot of optimism about being able to do this shit. But if you ask me to come and do it, then I’ll fucking come and give it a try!

That’s a good outlook, man. Well that’s it from me, but thank you for taking the time to speak with me and I’ll see you at your UK show.

Well make sure you hit me up first and I’ll get you credentials, then you won’t have to pay. Cos shit’s expensive over there!

Yeah trust me, man. And it’s only getting worse. I don’t want to mention the B word, but yeah Brexit is going to fuck us up.

It’s crazy to me, I couldn’t believe that shit happened. I mean obviously I don’t live there so I don’t pretend to understand everything that matters, but I was still very… surprised [laughs].

I think a lot of us were too and now it’s just a big mess. But anyway it was great talking to you, man. Take care and we’ll speak again soon.

You too, man. Have a great evening. Peace.

 

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Mi Vida Local is out now on Rhymesayers Entertainment – get it here. Atmosphere hit Europe this April on these dates. Follow Slug on Twitter.

Gingerslim has been a hip-hop fan since 1994 and has written for various blogs and websites since around 2006. During that time he has contributed to style43, Think Zebra, Headsknow and Front Magazine. His main interests in rap are UK hip-hop and the underground movement in America, with a focus on Rhymesayers Entertainment and the once mighty Def Jux label. He lives in Bristol and has a beard. All other details are sketchy at best. Follow him here. 

Exclusive First Listen: The Legion – ‘Three The Bronx Way’ + Interview

Bronx’s The Legion are back with a new album – their first full-length project since the classic Theme + Echo = Krill almost 25 years ago. The anticipated Three The Bronx Way drops everywhere tomorrow but we’re bringing you an exclusive first listen today. Stream it below, then keep scrolling to read our interview with all three crew members; Molecules, Diceman and Chucky Smash.

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We’ve been excited about Three The Bronx Way since the audio for “1980 Something” surfaced early last year. Now it’s finally here, tell us about what we can expect?

Diceman: Well for starters we definitely didn’t stray from our sound—not one bit. Classic hard drums, dope samples, and a rap style that’s our own and not dated. Most importantly, from here on out we will remain consistent with our output of music.

There’s a bit of a Blaxploitation movie theme with the artwork and to a certain extent the sound. Is that the kind of atmosphere you are trying to capture with Three The Bronx Way?

Diceman: Definitely, as with our first album title, Theme +Echo=Krill. Theme music is our thing. We feel like every track should have some sort of theme to create the mood/vibe of the song or songs. It just gives it feeling. It makes your song sound like it belongs to a score for a movie, and gives a different affect to the lyrics…more artful.

You guys have been putting out records since 1993, which is impressive to say the least. Even more impressive is that you are still together as a unit. What’s the secret to maintaining a creative relationship for so long?

Chucky Smash: There’s no secret to us maintaining our relationship. Fortunately for us we were a crew before the industry. We grew up together in the Bronx. Of course we are brothers so we bicker and argue like any other family, but thank goodness we never had a falling out. The creative formula has been primarily Molecules on production and Dice and myself coming up with concepts. That’s usually the way we create songs.

Molecules: We’re friends, but we’re more like family. I’ve know Smash since like the 6th grade and Dice since like high school. Their kids are my God kids. We watched our kids grow up together. It’s more than a working relationship. We have a bond. With that it makes it easy for us to work together. We get in the lab, I lay down a beat, Dice starts spitting and Smash starts writing a hook. The process is effortless.

That said, there are sometimes long periods of time between projects. Other than your individual solo stuff (Molecules’ A Bronx Tale EP with Showbiz, and Diceman’s recent The Power of Now project, for instance), what else do you guys do between the music?

Chucky Smash: Molecules was involved with production for artists like Pink and also Mos Def. Dice is always prospecting other artists for us to work with. I had a nice run at radio with DJ Bill Skillz WVKR. The three of us are also proud fathers and family men.

When we spoke to Molecules last year he talked about how impactful Dres has been to The Legion. You have him on Three The Bronx Way (“Make It Hot”). It must be good to know you can call on an icon of the game like that to support you anytime you make music?

Chucky Smash: Yes, being down with Dres has definitely been a blessing. He’s had a huge impact on our career, and getting us our start with “Jingle Jangle.”

You also have Sadat X on the track “Word.” Tell us about your relationship with him?

Chucky Smash: Sadat X has been a friend of ours for years. We’ve done multiple shows with him and Brand Nubian. It’s just easy to link and vibe with him. He has that distinct dope voice.

Molecules: Sadat X is like family. He’s a real good dude. Like Smash said we’ve been running with him for years, doing shows, etc. Our relationship with him is bigger than music. I’ve still got unreleased music with some of my close friends on it, including Sadat. Anytime I hit him he comes through no problem. Genuine love for him.

Anything else you want people to know about, Three The Bronx Way?

Diceman: Besides to go out and support Three The Bronx Way, we want you to know ya’ll won’t be let down. We’re a piece to the puzzle of Hip Hop—what we call the forgotten formula: hardcore music in song form.

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Three The Bronx Way is out tomorrow, and you can get it from here. Follow The Legion on Instagram, and Molecules, Diceman and Chucky Smash on Twitter. Interview by Grown Up Rap Editor Ben Pedroche.

Key Kool & Rhettmatic’s ‘Kozmonautz’: An Oral History

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.