KOOL KEITH
\nTODAY’S HIP HOP RENEGADE
\nBY REGGIE LEWIS<\/p>\n
I know I was before my time.
\nI was the future
\nwhen I first came out.
\nI was the year 2000 in \u201884.<\/p>\n
Sankofa. It\u2019s an African word that means \u201cTo know where you\u2019re going, you must go back and fetch the past.\u201d When I read a recent interview with Kool Keith, former member of the cutting-edge hit group Ultramagnetic MCs, he mentioned that some of today\u2019s rappers don\u2019t respect the old heads, that\u2019s the first thing I thought about. I was amped about interviewing Kool Keith, who as a solo artist got a chance to do a record with the sexy Heather Hunter. I admire artists that possess a creative element\u2014either playing an instrument or writing music\u2014not just someone who reads lyrics penned by a ghost writer.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, it\u2019s good that you know that,\u201d replied Kool Keith once questioned about his ability to play instruments. \u201cYou must have checked the credits and seen Keith doing bassline and keyboards.<\/p>\n
\u201c. . . Critical Beatdown (one of Ultramagnetic\u2019s earlier albums) was an 808 album (using the 808 drum machine) and when we got into Funk Your Head Up, that\u2019s when I started getting into my basslines. Around \u201888, you noticed that groups started using basslines like Naughty by Nature, EPMD. . . the keyboard basslines. A lot of us were using samples but we had basslines lines reinforcing the samples.\u201d Ultramagnetic created a retro-funk sound that was the opposite of most mainstream at the time, which was acid jazz. Artists like Tribe Called Quest and Gang Starr ruled the acid jazz genre, but Ultramagnetic hit heads from the funk-jazz aspect.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve got about five or six keyboards and three bass guitars. We learned from our publishing that we had to start playing some of the stuff over. Instead of paying $10,000 for a sample like Rick James\u2019 \u201cAll Night Long\u201d (Keith plays the sample on his air guitar), we could go buy a $500 keyboard and play it ourselves. I was always into keyboards because I grew up on the Gap Band, Average White Band, The Bar-Kays, Cameo. We were an updated funk group with our own sound \u2014 retro funk.\u201d<\/p>\n
Unlike most of today\u2019s artists, Kool Keith is a hip hop revolutionary in the true sense. With every project, he tries to expand his creative senses, like when he did the freaky joint with former porn star Heather Hunter. But he was being a visionary. \u201cI think, as matter of fact, I know I was before my time. I was the future when I first came out. I was the year 2000 in \u201884. Now you have all the artists catching up to what I was doing. On every label, there is at least one artist who is doing what I have already done, I can guarantee it.\u201d<\/p>\n
So what does Keith think is at the root of the problem with hip hop today? \u201cA lotta bad A&R. I mean, one day, they\u2019re a veterinarian working at a zoo and the next, they\u2019re at A&R telling you what to do. They just got into rap. A lot of people working at record companies are just too old. Today, program directors are fifty-years-old and they\u2019re not trying to find something new and creative. They don\u2019t know what\u2019s new.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAlso, rap is so trendy, with artists trying to collaborate with whoever\u2019s hot. . . like me trying to work with Nas now. So, people are gonna say that I\u2019m hot because I\u2019m with Nas. It\u2019s bad that people do that. Nobody has their own sound anymore because everyone wants to make a \u201cmeatloaf\u201d album with collaborations (pounding his hands as if he were making hamburger patties). That\u2019s just like grinding meat.\u201d<\/p>\n