Kool Kieth interview..This is why dude is one of my favorites of all-time..

[LBFam]

Kool Keith: "I'm the top dancer, the top producer, and the top rapper."
By Adam Makeyenko
August 24, 2005.

Adam: Tell me about Lost Masters 2.

Kool Keith: I think Lost Masters 2 is a great distinctive record. I went into percussion. As one of the top producers, you have to change. So, what I did was put a lot of different percussion and drums and bongo sounds in their. A lot of congas and stuff. You really don't need a snare and a kick all the time necessarily to get a rhythm. It was all about the acoustics and finger snaps. Musically, things are open. You got tribal music, African music, and all types of different genres of music.

And I expanded rap music another ten years, because rap was just stuck with a lot of stagnated music. So, what I did was a lot of futuristic sounds around acoustics. Lyrically, it's my shock value. My emotions and what I go through. So, I write the truth of what I feel. You hear people like, in certain songs I can't just dazzle lyrics, rappin' 2000 miles an hour, flippin' the skill, flippin' the words. I'm not doing all that. I am just writing these percussions to get my point across.

I feel so good. ‘Matthew' was so wild with kicks and snares, but this is brand new acoustics and I am saying what I like to say on these records. It's good for me as the number one curser. It was a setup. When the ‘Personal Album' was out, I fooled everybody. Even in the industry, everybody thought I was in love and was all cuddly. What I did was sidetrack everybody. All the producers around the world and all the people listening, went for it.

They ate my poison like a rat. I like when they ate my poison. So, when they ate my poison, I came out bam with ‘Lost Masters 2'. Just cursing and beats with so much tension. It's a notch above what everybody else was doing. I loved it all. I broke laws. I didn't use a snare. I didn't use a kick. I just programmed bongos and turned into a mad African drummer on that album.

Adam: The list of producers inside the Lost Masters 2 cover. Are you serious about that?

Kool Keith: Yeah. I'm definitely serious about that. I'm an overlooked producer. Take Spankmaster. I've been a producer for years. I did stuff on ‘Dr. Dooom'. I did the original stuff on ‘Black Elvis'. You got people that think I can't produce. I was never into jazz or nothing like that. I never met Ron Carter. I am just that retarded funk maker. So, my whole thing about that is, that being a top producer is basically saying I am a notch above those guys. I respect those producers. Don't get me wrong. I'm not scared to try something different. Everybody else is still being safe and using a kick and a snare. I graduated to the congas of Africa . I went out to Africa to see that they are banging on the bongos. You get on the train in New York , you see bongos.

Everybody's banging bongos. We funky right now. I took the sound to another level. I was the first to do that. So, when anybody tries to claim that, they can't claim that. As far as hip hop producers, they are out of the loop. They still sampling jazz records. The producers that I picked were more futuristic producers. These are the top guys that I say can play their own music and be futuristic at the same time. Timberland can make his own music. Neptunes can make their own music from scratch.

There is not a record to sample. You're an artist when you start making your own music. That is the order I put the groups in because that's what I see. Lil' John makes his own music. Kool Keith makes his own music. I don't use the horns from someone else. They are my horns. So, the courts don't have to come to me for samples. They don't have to get in my face. That's mine. I own those horns. I own those hits. That's my stuff.

Adam: You have been talking a lot about production lately, but what about lyrically?

Kool Keith: Lyrically, I am always fantastic. I prove myself on all my records. You listen to ‘Diesel Truckers', I'm top notch. You listen to Spankmaster, Matthew, and Dr. Dooom. You know I change up. You listen to other people's records like High and Mighty or Menelik's stuff. I am always doing my job. Like Octagon. I play roles on different records. When I do my lost masters, it's like my real feelings. When I do other songs, it's like I gotta turn into a character. And I am not a character all the time. I'm walking around the city streets, going through the confrontations, the eye mugging, the gridlocked traffic, the hot weather, listening to the gunshots. People don't get a chance to hear these things. My life is real. So, when I in that dirty Chinese restaurant late at night, I gotta write those lyrics.

A guy in Kansas City might not relate to it, because he is sitting next to a pony on a farm. I'm only being myself. I'm not living no fantasy. I'm living reality. I like to write what people can't say. Everybody loves a Chrysler with a hemi, but they try to make it into a Rolls Royce. I am not going to bite my tongue. You notice a lot poor people like extravagant rap. A lot of low income people like to watch MTV Cribs, to fantasize about being rich. People want me to write the false truth. People want me to write that they don't go to sleep, but everybody goes to bed. It's a lie. It's like saying you don't ****, but everybody ****s. Then they like, Keith's bugging. He lyrically fell of because he says everybody ****s, but they do. Nobody wants me to write the truth. People avoid my reality.

They don't want to hear my truth. They'd rather hear somebody rap about they shot up 20 blocks and murdered eight dudes yesterday, they drive 17 cars, they got four dicks. I'm just saying that people want to believe more fantasy. I don't get out nine Suburbans just to go in the supermarket. I go buy my apples and pay for my milk and walk out the store and go where I am going.

Adam: Why in your songs do you always refer to the words anal and rectum? And why do you always use the words doo-doo and pee-pee?

Kool Keith: Well, that's my vocabulary. Everybody has a certain amount of words they use, all rappers. Some guys rap with stuff they don't have. “I'm crank up the 600SL, I'm rollin' in the 600SL, when I hit that corner in the 600SL, I'm gonna use that steel…” You take a lot of these rappers vocabulary, they use the same **** also. You can tell who that is by the rapping, that's the dude who always raps about cigars all the time, the dude who raps about blunts and swishers. When I come with my ****, everybody wants to get handicapped. My whole thing is, I am ****ting on you, you wack, your bull****, suck my cock, **** you and your bull****. It's like people want to say that all day. When you buy a CD in the store, you be like that ****in' CD was garbage, that **** sucked ****, **** that, I wanna wipe my ass with that CD.

When I say it, it's not good. People like to curse, but they like to say they shoot people or stab people. My whole thing is, I am going to chop you up. I'm like Preacher. Preacher was this guy, this terrorizing guy in Harlem . He didn't really talk all that gun talk ****. He just went and tied up mother****ers and poured gas all over *****s. You got people out there that always rapping about the same ****. You got your blunt mother****ers who just blunt themselves to death. You got your gun talking mother****ers who just gun talk themselves to death. Then you got me. I am the piss man. They get mad at the piss man cause the piss man wants to do all this pissy stuff. When you were a little kid, didn't you always see a little kid with pissy diapers? Nobody wants to rap about my little brother pissed in the bed. People want to camouflage a lot of stuff.

Even rock groups want to say that. It's like your ****ing a girl, but you never want to say her ***** stinks and you know in your mind that her ***** stinks. Not to disrespect the woman, but sometimes you get these you girls out here and their ***** just be ranking. Nobody wants to talk about that. Nobody wants to say girl your ***** stinks. You need to go get some douche and clean your **** right now. That's the type of rapper I am. People don't want my reality. That's the reality. I'm gonna rap about Hollywood is fake and phony. I'm gonna write that mother****ers go out their and get their nose done, titties cut, cut their chin, add on more ass. They don't want me to say nothing about that. They just want to be quiet and talk about blunts or I'm shooting somebody that I don't really be shooting. I am being myself. Like if a guy come to your house with **** on his feet, you're like wipe your ****ing feet on that floor mat. Nobody wants to put that in their rap, wipe your ****ing feet on that floor mat.

Even Kutmasta Kurt used to tell me “why you on that level?” I don't live in Santa Monica . So that lifestyle I can't digest. I have to make up a word. I can't ‘phontize' myself to be safe. If you don't talk about guns and blunts, its (singing) I need you, I want you, I care about you, I want to be there for you. Of course, we have all that in the world. Then we have real issues. Like a rapper in your face and his breath stinks. You like ***** stop rappin', your breath stinks. That's real. People don't want me to rap about you didn't chip in for the pizza *****, you get one slice. I can't ‘phonotize' myself.

[LBFam]

Adam: Can you tell me about Mr. Nogatco and Izreal?

Kool Keith: I went to Florida . You know Izreal is real. We worked on some songs and it was cool. Me and Izreal have always been friends. Izreal has his little type of imagination, which is kind of innovative. I like doing my own music, but then there is a time where I take a side step where I won't bore my own producing out. So, I let them do the tracks. Like when I worked with Ultramagnetic, I moved on to another project and I let them do all the songs. Then I go back to my songs, so people get a variety of stuff. So, nothing is the same. So, they can't go into a critical mode and say I did that too much. I do a great deal of shuffling my vocals on things so that my career doesn't get monotonous.

Plus I change myself musically anyways. I might rap on bird seed. Go into the studio and rap on bird seeds dropping. There are all types of things that you could do. I might rap on the snare from a mouse trap. Nobody knows what I can do. I might bring rocks in the studio and bang rocks together. There is no limit. Nobody is saying what you could do and can't do. People are scared to do different things. If you don't have guys like me, you won't have nothing different. Cause 99% of it is the same.

Adam: That was my next question. What do you think about the state of music? I think 90% of it is the same.

Kool Keith: I think 100% of it is the same. Mother****ers all got the same concept, same video concept, same direction, they all rhyme on the same type of beats. Then you got the hip hop world fighting the keyboard world. You got the keep it real guys that sample all the nostalgia records. Then you got the guys with the keyboards. Your bounce music type of guys. It's sad because rap lost a lot of respect.

And that goes into the promotion game as well. I remember we used to do shows. Me and Rakim would get a limo, cocaine from a drug dealer that we don't even sniff. This is how he'd book his shows. A limo, two grams of coke in the limo, Crystal bottles, first class flight, a dressing room with decorated orderves and fruit. Plus he takes you around and gets you a girl and he might even let you meet his cousin. I'm talking about the love. You'd want to do a show for that guy. And the guy gives you six or seven grand cash in your pocket, before you even get on stage. Then he wants to give you another three thousand just to go back on stage. Cause he's just saying, **** it, I love you *****s. Here is another three just to go back out there.

He don't even care. He likes showing people that he can bring Ultramagnetic and Eric B. and Rakim down here to do a show and the **** is large. Now promoters want to book Non Phixion, Tribe Called Quest, Freestyle Fellowship, Tha Alkaholiks, and Souls of Mischief. They want to get everybody for $1000 and have them come in a van and have them sleep in a bull**** hotel on the side of a highway. They don't want to pay these people and they want each act to perform for two hours a piece. A hustler will book Lil' John down south and send him a fly ass limo, fly him in, give him a six star hotel, and give him his money. But, these other guys want a lot for nothing. They are destroying rap. The promoter makes the people feel like, how come none of these acts never come to my city. It's your promoters trying to get 17 groups for a dollar. My message to that guy and those types of people is get the **** out the business. It's diluting the ****ing game. And then some groups, not the groups I named, but groups under those types of groups will go do these shows for damn near nothing. It makes it look bad because rap doesn't have a union. Then those guys are the first to say that Tribe Called Quest is not worth that much. Of course they are. They are legendary guys. They will pay Green Day and Mick Jager forever. If they could pay Elvis Presley out of his coffin and let him go on stage, they would.

People would pay just to see Elvis' coffin on stage. $200 for 30 minutes and say that was good show. Get the **** out the game. Treat Grandmaster Flash like Grandmaster Flash. They will pay a rock star that came out two years ago. He or she came out two months ago, but I am going to put them I the history books. **** like that doesn't make any sense. The industry wants to do it over a short period of time. It's the same for a lot of current rookie rappers coming up. A lot of them mother****ers need to learn respect. You mother****ers, lyrically gotta respect the pros. I listen to everybody's albums. They all talk the same ****. They all got the same concept. They are not innovative. They are not icons. They can rap, but they are not stars. They only person I see as a star right now is Snoop Dog. People's grandmothers know who Snoop Dog is.

Oh, want to get on about what I think about the mixtapes. To me Flash is a DJ, Theodore is a DJ, Jazzy Jay is a DJ, Red Alert is a DJ, Bambaataa is a DJ, and Kool Herc is a DJ. Now you got a billion mother****ers saying they are a DJ and they just put 15 songs on an album and they call themselves a DJ. That's a pause tape. Me and you could go to the store right now and buy 18 albums and start picking some songs, put a mic on and start going “new ****”, “up and coming”, “check this **** out” and scream on every track. And that's a DJ? Today that's a DJ? These mother****ers are getting recognition as a DJ? They should come with a new category for that. They should say top recorders.

Adam: Mixtape makers or mixtapers.

Kool Keith: Yeah, mixtapers. There is no DJing involved. I'll tell a mother****er to his face. Where do you DJ?

Adam: Where do they touch a record?

Kool Keith: Yeah. Where did you touch a record? Where did you blend two glr mixes together? Where do you cut and scratch? I respect the guys at the (New Music) Seminar.

Adam: Like Cash Money, T La Rock, Jazzy Jeff , Chad Jackson ?

Kool Keith: Yeah. Those guys DJ. How do you think a real DJ feels? A dude that bought Technics and has records that mix together. How do you think a DJ feels? That **** is diluting the game. There is nothing talented about recording. Everybody has CD recording and dubbing in their house. This mixtape **** has just ****ed up the game. I can't see it. I've seen people DJ.

Adam: You just mentioned the New Music Seminar. Weren't you in that around '86?

Kool Keith: Yeah, I was in it one time. I went in and I battled a few people, and I didn't even go back. I don't get into that competition. Cause I am already good at what I do. There are no levels of rap no more. I am like Scotty Pippen. I am just hanging around. I rap. I change rap. I produce. I am the top producer in the world. I rap. I am the top rapper in the world. I don't need mother****ers to lyrically make me sit down in the corner. I don't want to hear that ****. That **** don't intimidate me. If I hear a ***** write top ****, I'll go back and write some other top ****.

I don't get scared. A lot of these mother****ers back down from a lot of these rappers. Rap is supposed to be competitive. I hear a lot of mother****ers rap, but they get scared. They build reps of their rap style being tough and devastating and it's impossible to stop. That **** don't faze me. I'll get in a mother****ers ass. He'll wish he never wrote a rhyme. I'll talk about a mother****er for three or four verses and he won't even know I am all around his ass.

Adam: I read an article that says you were a break dancer named Activity in the early ‘80s.

Kool Keith: Yeah, I was with the New York City Breakers.

Adam: Can you say something about that?

Kool Keith: Well, I was a top dancer. I was the top pop breaker. I didn't get on my knees and do all that spinning on my head. I was a top poppin' *****. I had a crew called Shy Crew. We come in a club, *****s know we could dance. All these mother****ers dancing now, its cool, but it aint got nothing on us. Hammer was a ***** that could dance a little bit, but we was the real dancers out there. I'm the top dancer, the top producer, and the top rapper. That's all I gotta say. And I want those mother****ers to get Lost Masters 2 because it's different. It's distinctive. It's an archive. It's one of the greatest classics out. You can't **** with the lyric shock value of it. Parental advisory all day.

[LBFam]

Adam: Do you ever think about going back to your roots or older styles…

Kool Keith: (interrupting) I am getting ready to work on some other ****. I'm getting ready to write some old crazy dust type ****. **** about me having a shootout with a ***** in space. So, *****s can't **** with me still. They are not on my level

Adam: Do you always feel like you have to move forward?

Kool Keith: It's a funny thing. With my music, even if mother****ers hate, five or six years from now, they'll be like oh that **** is different. It's like we got a lot of retarded people. You know whats funny? Retarded people are more advanced than the normal people. You know what I am saying?

Adam: Not really.

Kool Keith: Haha. I'm just saying they can adjust. I'm just trying to say that you got a lot of people that are advanced. People that listen to my **** are ****ed up already in the head. They are ****ed up because it's so true. Normal people don't want to hear it. Like downtown 42 nd street , they want to cover porn. People **** everyday, but people want to act like sex doesn't exist. Girls want to walk around like they don't ****, but they got a baby nine months later. How did you get the baby? Did somebody open your ***** up and just shoot it in? People want to dodge reality. I'd rather be on a different level. I am on a **** rampage. A lot of people say this guys always **** this and that. I'm ****. I'll **** on you. Gasoline and **** and piss. I'm Pissy Pete.

Adam: Pissy Pete?

Kool Keith: My next is called Pissy Pete.

Adam: Are you serious?


Kool Keith: I'm gonna be on the album cover with pissy yellow underwear with no shirt on and call the album Pissy Pete. Pissy Pete the bed wetter. With little kids with diapers on the back cover. Then after that I am going to come out with Defecation Part 3, Return of the **** Man.

Adam: When you came out with the Personal Album, you said you were going to come out with the Secret Album and the Private Album. What's up with those?

Kool Keith: I'm working on the Secret Album right now. I am also working on a house music project with some people. I also got some rappers coming out on a compilation I am doing. We got a lot of things we are working on. My plan is to do one project where I produce all the songs and don't even rap on the songs. I am going to let people know that my music interest is so serious that I don't even have to rap on the songs. Rappers need to carry themselves. I am not going to guest start mother****ers out. A lot of these artists can't carry themselves on 18 tracks by themselves. I am going to start learning artists that I work with how to carry themselves. How to really be one man to go spit against 15 mother****ers by themselves. That makes you a powerful rapper.

I can carry 18 tracks. My voice switches up, my personality, my mind, my subjects. These cats are still rookies and need help. It's ok to do one of those sometimes. Like H-Bomb has a solo album. I still do my solo album. Then we have a collaboration freaked out project. We just do it to show people that we can do that ****, then we won't even do it no more. We're just gonna pop up with an album that you see every mother****er you name on it.

Adam: What about 7 th Veil?

Kool Keith: That's what that is. It's a collage of everybody. We gonna jerk off on it. Everybody that's on the album is gonna jerk off on it.

Adam: When is that coming out? H-Bomb told me about that, like a year ago.

Kool Keith: I don't know. He's taking his time. We're gonna do our thing with that. See, I rap on so many projects. I'm like a hustler. I rap on so many songs that people forget. People put their albums up and two weeks later, I've rapped on five or six other albums. It's like a car wash. Get in line with your album mother****er. Cause I am making another one. As Lost Masters rolls on, beware of Pissy Pete or the next guy coming. Then ****man follows that with Defecation Part 3. It never stops. What I always do is prove things. I don't need the vocabulary all the time that I use, but that's my vocabulary naturally. If you go buy Diesel Truckers, you don't hear none of my natural vocabulary. When I came to Kurt, he didn't want to hear me pissing and ****ting everywhere. When I do my own thing, its open season. I'm like Elmer Fudd. I'm looking for the ducks.

Adam: What about Octagon?

Kool Keith: We don't know yet. What happened was, their was this label called Vitamin Records. I gave them 15 of my songs and I never got my CD back. It was real other funk, regular Kool Keith, dope ****. Then they went out to Germany and took my vocals and just bounced them to other songs. I've never seen this kind of disrespect in my whole life. Its like they got a carrot on a string and they keep pulling it. I take two steps and they keep pulling it. They are trying to lead me around the corner with a carrot on a string to go do some crazy ****. One time they wanted me to go to Germany to do a video, but I heard they had some old crazy looking ass space suits made for me. They told me I could be myself, but one of my boys tipped me up. He said, don't come out here, they got some old space ****, hand made for me to wear. The mother****ers have fantasies. You got a lot of fantasy producers out there that want to give me a beat that sounds wild, like R2D2 could rap on that ****. The whole Star Wars team could rap on it. They are like, this is some old Darth Vadar ****. Keith is the right guy for this.

They can't go to 9 million other rappers in the world to rap on that ****. They feel like Keith is the man for the job. People think I'm Mikey. He's Mikey, He'll rap on anything. I got my own **** to rap on. It sounds different, but it fits me. A lot of people have **** for me to rap on, but no way in hell does it fit me. It's not me. Somebody loops H.R. Pufnstuf and they want me to rap on it, but they don't want to pay me. I'll rap on some of this cartoon ****, but pay me 70 to 90 grand and I'll rap on some of this Tom & Jerry ****.

Adam: You rapped on a song for Prodigy that never came out.

Kool Keith: I think they are going to use it soon. Prodigy is different though. People look at me and they see just me to Kurt to Automator, but my life expands. I get on the phone with big rock groups. I do stuff with acts that are 10 times into different levels of other stuff. My knowledge of music is so expanded. You might see me at a small show watching a few rappers that keep it real. Then I'll be on stage with Dave Matthews Band or something. And people don't understand that ****. All these other mother****ers have to buy their way to fame. For me it's just natural. Somebody might just make a call and say, hey we want Keith to perform at the Cardinals game. It's not like I am at a record company calling and asking them to take my artists. I don't have a bunch of people. It's just natural. Even with my television appearances. It's just my sporadic lifestyle. I'm not looking for them, but they are looking for me. I am not begging. I am not buck dancing. People just bug out on my naturalism. Like right now, I'm talking to you in front of a check cash place in a ****ed up neighborhood. I'm not in an office at Interscope or Columbia . I am across the street from a bull**** carwash.

Adam: OK. This is my last real question. There is an upcoming show at SOBs and it's billed as Kool Keith and Ultramagnetic MC's. Are all of you going to be there?

Kool Keith: Its gonna be a surprise. Cause Prince is going to be there. Prince don't even come out. This is crazy. I mean why would Prince come to see Ultra? What is the deal? Haha.

Adam: Alright, I know you wanted to say something about the Nancy Des Rose album.

Kool Keith: Oh, about those records. We rapped on those records just to bug out. I had everybody rap on bull**** or practice ****. I am starting up a camp called Lyrical Gym Workouts. Rappers can come and get exercise and get their lyrics together. Like lyrical exercise. I think Darrick might have taken the music out to Europe and sidetracked his ****. She said, she didn't have any intention of her **** being shrink wrapped and put into a package and all that ****. So, my whole thing about that is that I don't hear no type of explanation about that. I might just go investigate that type of ****. Cause I don't really take other peoples music and sell it. That's kind of ****ed up. I did some original tracks on there. Its like, you send people a CD and they document it and try to sell it in stores. My style is different. One day I might be an emotional person about **** like that. The only records to me that are out on the stands should be Lost Masters, Lost Masters 2, Spankmaster, Black Elvis, Dooom, and Sex Style. Anything after that is bull****. That's my library. Get all that other **** out the stores.

Adam: What about Matthew?

Kool Keith: Yeah Matthew is cool.

Adam: What about Undertakerz?

Kool Keith: I don't **** with that either.

Adam: Masters of Illusion?

Kool Keith: Oh, that's Kurt's library. All his **** is legit. Diesel Truckers is legit.

Adam: Big Time?

Kool Keith: That is getting ready to get pulled. I don't think that's really available. Critical Beatdown is on Road Runner. We got a new album by the Young Teenagers, the Next Generation, and Leaders of the Preschool. I want to surprise you with that.