Kool Keith Interview - February 3, 2003
By Adam Makeyenko

Kool Keith: Hey

Darrick: Keith, Adam.

Adam: What's up?

C'mon, Adam lets do this.

What do you think about groups nowadays signing so quickly?

I think they are just anxious and they are moving fast. I think a lot of people are rushing to be a star. They don't even know about being a star. A lot of people want to be a star so fast that it hurts their career in the long run. With the anxiousness, they go sign these deals and later on they realize they signed a bad contract. A lot of kids are doing that right now. They don't really know the business. That's a crucial point they take in their career and it hurts them.

What do you think of new singers compared to the singers of yesterday?

I think the new singers are under effects in the studio. They make new gadgets to enhance their voices. Back in the day, singers like Patti Labelle, Tina Marie, Layla Hathaway, Nat King Cole's Daughter, even Cherrelle, those singers didn't need studio effects and stuff like that. Everybody else uses studio effects. They would never be on that level, ever. Those people were just classic, timeless. A lot of these groups now just can't sing that good, they are just under a lot of studio equipment.

Do you think rappers are more developed now than ever?

No. I don't think rappers are more developed now than ever. A lot of rappers now are just coming out too fast. A lot of groups are not developing. It's like basketball. They try to bring these guys right out of high school to the pros. It's no story. When you like at time, like EPMD had five or six albums and they brought out Redman. They gradually broke him in. A lot of groups don't take time to develop their acts. They just bring ‘em out and people know who they are right away without question. Like, when you bring a kid out of high school to the NBA. It's not the guy's fault that he flops or his album didn't do well, he didn't push the units. It's just the gradual break into the music industry. Some people think, because they are hot, if I sign my brother he is gonna go platinum tomorrow. It doesn't work that way. You know, people don't care about that. People want to get a gradual pace of who this guy is. The industry got caught on to the hype of, if this guy is hot, he can spin off this guy. It's been proven and you seen it. Their have been enormous flops around the industry.

Do you hear more diverse records from other regions while in New York ?

No. I think NY is just stuck right now. A lot of the head officials and some of the DJs are not open and more flexible to play E-40, Too short, or Yukmouth. You never hear Brother Lynch Hung. You won't hear Lil' Flip playing everyday in NY. NY just plays people when they are hot only. Like, when Outkast started, they never played their records until they were hot. Like, super hot. They jump on it too late. I was playing bounce music, personally, at home before. They just started getting on bounce music, the down south stuff. They get on stuff late. I remember when NY used to be more aggressive. They stuck in time sometimes, too. You go to a club and they still play Frankie Beverly “Before I let go.” They can't let a record go. It's a proven fact that they just been stuck in time. They have a lot of regional artists that people just don't know anywhere else. If you look at a lot of the artists back in the time, they would always have artist that were just east coast only artists. Based around the city. They don't think about the world. Just the artist that's hot in the city. Which, they do sign a lot of artist that are hot in New York City . Just around the tri-state area. It could be a singer or a rapper, just somebody hot around the Manhattan . That's how broad their thinking is. It's just somebody who's hot around the midtown area.

So, it's not diverse at all.

It's not diverse. You don't get a chance to hear what's coming out of Sacramento, what's coming out of Detroit, what's coming out of Chicago, what's coming out of Memphis, what's coming out of Florida. I think it would be interesting to have a more diverse station. That's why radio is boring. It would be more interesting if you could hear Florida 's stuff playing on the radio and different things from different places. More than just the common stuff that's hot only in the city. When there is hot stuff all over the place, these people just get suck on what's hot in the inner city. If you are a star, you are a star internationally. You're not just a star in New York City by yourself. It's been a know fact for years. New York has took a toll and stuck to that same style, that inner city hot person. Like, when we was coming out with Ego Tripping, I used to travel outside of New York . A lot of groups weren't that popular outside of New York City .

Who is Marc Davis?

Marc Davis is an A&R in Chicago that supposed to be putting together some Ultra project. I was working with Ultra. I'm trying to get those guys to get into a futuristic mode. The transition for them to adjust is so hard. It's like a handicapped process. They need to go out and get some new gear, boards and walk around Sam Ash for a minute and do some reevaluation. You know, take time and see what's new and really observe time. Those guys are still concentrating on Critical Beatdown. They gotta evolve from that time zone and step through some type of time machine and get themselves in tact with current events. That's been the problem, right there. It's like, a guy walking around with a box, with an afro, and he's playing a record from the eighties during 2005.

So, how's that going with the Ultramagenetic?

This thing is more of a pause thing in myself. We put that on hold for a minute. That stuff has to be observed well. I'm still doing my own thing. I'm getting ready to start a new album. Two new albums of my own. My own solo album and the Diesel Truckers album. When you collaborate with people, its real hard. If they don't adjust real fast, its like working with elderly people. You gotta help them walk to the bathroom and stuff like that. We are dealing with the, uh, senior citizen type of entity.

Do you find working in groups more interesting than working solo?

I don't mind working with groups. I think groups are interesting. I've worked with some different projects in my life. I just, I think that I am limited when I work with people, because I don't think they have the expand mind frame that I have. It puts me back a minute. I think, when I am with groups, I have more responsibility. Even when I am doing tracks with people in the studio, with people who wanted me to collaborate, they pay me money do a verse or something. They get me in the studio to do the 16, but I find myself doing all the hooks for them, the chorus, the adlibs and little vocal trick here and there. It's like, damn, you should have paid me to do the whole record.

What do you like better for production, old jazz samples or new equipment?

I prefer new equipment, basically. I never grew up on jazz. It's cool. Dizzy Gillespie. I never really walked around in shops and collected jazz records. I was just never into jazz. I never got into something I never grew up to. I was always a funk guy. I look at myself, I'm like, why should I start now. Jazz didn't do anything for me. Jazz reminds me of old man music. I don't smoke cigars and sit in a chair and tap my feet like some old man. It's just so old to me. I never really got into jazz.

Do you think funk still exists?

Yeah, futuristic funk. You got futuristic funk stuff. People shy away from funk stuff. I think the new generation is scared of funk stuff. What really shocked me one night, I went to a club. I went to a black club with real gangsta people and everybody with furs and chinchilla and diamonds and jewelry on. They were dancing to that pop record. What is that pop record? Hey ohh yeah (singing).

I don't know.

They were doing the swim to that record that the guy made. The 3000 guy. They were doing the swim. When I saw that, I knew it was over. It's gone into another world now. Its funny, if I would have done that, years ago, people would have looked at me like I was crazy. Like, wow. It's like people passed the funk stages of their life. They will never know what Brass Construction was, they'll never who was Captain Sky, they would never know Cameo, they would never know what was funky. Like, Ohio Players. They would never know they had soul. To them, Britney Spears is very funky, to the world. You know, Pink is so funky. Hillary Duff is really funky. To them that's funky. Destiny's child is funky.

Do you think black people love pop music now more than ever?

Uh, yeah. They're quick to say somebody sells out, but I think they are the first ones to dance to it. Cause, white people been doing the swim for years, like, with the surf boards. I have never seen so many black people doing the swim in my life. You would think, blacks would have a restriction at a certain point. They had restricted me when I was doing all the different thing in my life. It's like somebody has forced a lot of stuff down their throats and they digested it and they're like, yo we like to. Wow. They digested it a lot. It's like the Uncle Tom, step and fetchin' syndrome has broke into effect. It's like when Spike Lee wrote Bamboozled he was really right about it. Now it's coming into par. Now it's dominated with a lot of pop stuff now. Pop that doesn't even have soul to it, no rhythm. It's just pop, like, bubble gum pop. It looses the whole composure. The songs now don't even make you look good. Back in the day, you could go to a club and listen to a record that made you feel good. Like if you danced to Jungle Boogie. You felt good. You had you nice silk shirt on and you felt kind of masculine. Now, you go to a club and dance to a Caribbean song. It's over pop. So pop that it makes you feel uncomfortable. It's not very masculine. The songs now are very girly. You on the dance floor and you feel like you're from San Francisco or something. You might as well wear a pink shirt. It's like a weird feeling.

Do you think record companies are loosing money?

Of course they are. Look how many companies went out of business. Look how many companies fell from under their independent umbrella and hopped to other people and other distribution companies because they took a loss. They invested so much money in some of these groups that nobody knows. They spend so much money to break them. You look at things right now. You got a lot of artists now that are very big, but big in a sense of just publicity and the money they spent on them for marketing. Some of these groups have sold just one million records or two million records, but they spent more than that quota to sell those million records. They are more popular on paper than in selling units. They look megalarge like they are selling ten million. You don't see Norah Jones that much, but she sold eight million albums. You'll see someone that maybe sold one or two million record more, and people like damn, like they sold ten million records. You'll see Metalica on the charts and they might have sold six or seven million units, but you'll see someone else that sold one million, more than Metalica. Everywhere, on the cover of this, on the cover of that, on the cover of this, on the cover of that, but they might have only sold two million records. And the money they spent was well over two million, it might have been two or three billion. Look at DreamWorks, they signed a lot of wack people. Its like, they were doing good in their pop department, when they had Powerman 500 and different acts. They were doing steadily good. Then when they went into the urban department, they signed a lot of producers, a lot of outside production. They did one thing good, they signed Ronald Isley, but they went into a different mode of signing just anybody in their team. It was like, wow. It was a quick turnaround. They took a loss with urban direction. They put so much money out to different people and they spent massive massive budget on urban stuff. Corny urban stuff, at that. They took a loss. They took a budget loss. Spent money blowing up stuff that it didn't turn over. They didn't get nothing back. They didn't even break even. Some companies just got maybe one individual that sells records, the rest of the acts don't sell at all. you got a company where maybe just one or two people sell and you got 70 acts that flop all the time.

I think the odds are 7/10 do fail.

So if you have a label and just two people go platinum and everybody else barely push ten units, then what do you have. That's basically poor A&R. What the industry basically did, was put a lot of people in chairs that didn't belong their. How you gonna put a guy that cuts grass in a certain department. How you gonna put a fireman to do A&R. They messed by not hiring people that were in the industry. That's why the NBA stays tighter. They'll put Byron Scott as a coach. They'll put Charles Barkley on TNT.

That's how football and hockey are too.

Yeah. They'll put Terry Bradshaw at the after show conference. They'll keep people around. What the music industry does, is hire a person that used to work at Conway, a guy that used to work at A and P, a guy that was a window cleaner, a plumber. When you put these elements together, you getting ready to get a fucked up company going, because they don't know shit about the music at all. They could have had people within the music industry doing stuff in the industry. You know, go hire Aretha Franklin as a vocal observant of some of the young teenage groups coming out. You know, go hire James Brown in a choreographer department.

What do you think about the current image of rap music?

Its just at the same level.

What do you mean by that?

The current image of rap to me. It's a stagnant moment.

What do you think of El-P and Definitive Jux, or rappers trying to make a different sound?

Oh, those type of guys. That's a difference too. It's a certain type of soul. Its like an accepted soul. Some guys are different. It's a certain type of sound that some people can accept and some people can't accept it. We have to evolve someway. A lot of that stuff sounds the same. Like when you play a lot of the underground stuff, 99% of it is like, Premier wannabe stuff. I give him credit because he is the originator of what he does himself. When it goes back to the underground world, all that stuff is the same across the board. Its people trying to be Pete Rock or Premier. That's their lane. I don't take that lane. My lane is futuristic different things. I respect them for what they do because they originated that stuff. My stuff is the future stuff. Before anybody was making those timeless beats. Mine is more the different brand new stuff. That's my lane. I am the leader of that lane.

What is rap music fashion to you?

I think rap is a little bit of everything. We been going through different phases. Its funny how the Kangol evolved all of a sudden now. The baseball caps. Now, rap fashion is supposed to be going into the GQ stage. I guess. Rap is more diverse too. You don't have to go and look like a hippy downtown with jeans. I never seen rap with flight jackets on looking like they just got off a B52 bomber. I think people are trying to go a lot of different ways. They made the industry a little different from what it originally was. Run DMC came out with the feathers in their hat. That was fly with rap. The snorkels and the big godfathers with the feathers. I think rap has gone everywhere, you can probably wear anything. No particular look. I think a lot of guys got stuck, like you gotta have a LeBron James jersey on to be a rapper. Which, is not the case. You can rap with shoes on now. It's so unlimited, I guess. It took people away into a different dimension. Some of it is out of hand. You don't have to go put on a three piece suit to rap and a vest with a matching tie and all that. That gets above. You gotta claim what is it meaning. Like the executive of rap, or you know. Or the guys who wear the old shirts like they are going camping. You gotta say, is that rap really. Not to be offendant of pop people. I think people try to make rap less intimidating. Even in the world, society thinks, when you got a skully on you're bad or mean. You walk into a department store and they go on their radio. They want to make rap less intimidating. They pull the baggie pants and some of the things off the shelves. You don't have to look like Prince to be a rapper. They want you to look like Prince. I've been doing my research. All the stores are starting to get these fluff shirts, like Ben Sherman and all that. To me all that stuff looks very, like they want to bring a village feel to rap. You don't have to look like that. A lot of people feel insecurities, like they are not a rapper because they don't look like a rapper. Some people feel like they try to be different, but they try to be too different. I did it all. I wore different things in my career. I always wore innovative things. I did it all. I wore suits. I bought some plaid shirts here and there. I was the first guy in a jersey. When I walked around the city, I had all the jerseys. I was wearing Memphis Grizzlies. No, Vancouver Grizzlies, and Sonics, and all these teams from out of NY. People only had Mets and Yankee apparel only. I was walking around in NY with Denver Nuggets in like 1989, and San Antonio Spurs, Boston Celtics. I was the first guy doing that. I walked up 125 th street one day with a Vancouver Grizzlies jersey, black and aqua green. After that, I went back to Los Angeles and the whole NY started wearing different jerseys. I remember that day well. When I came back, I seen Phoenix Suns and the Houston Rockets. People used to look at me weird when I was getting on the D train with a Vancouver Grizzlies' jersey. Now, everybody and their mother is rockin' Sixers and Mavericks, Portland Trailblazers. I did all that shit. Its funny when people look at you like, you don't have one. It kinda make you laugh. I had them fucking throwbacks way before. I was going out of state, traveling. I remember I had a hockey jersey with a big bear on the front. You remember that jersey?

Bruins.

They were looking at me like, what is that shit. Now all these motherfuckers start popping up in magazines with jerseys. I was actually laughing my ass off. The same motherfuckers that was looking at you, giving you smirks, got your jerseys on. I was rolling around with all that shit for a long time. Then I advanced to Gators and other shit. Then all of a sudden, people talking about Gators and shit. I was wearing Toni Lama when niggas was still rocking sneakers. When only white people walked up 5 th avenue . It's like the stuff they mention and the stuff they rap about is funny. When you hear a lot of these people rap about a lot of these clothes. When I used to go by Birdoff-Goodman, I used to see people down there that been wearing that shit. 5 th avenue people been had that shit. You didn't see no hip hop people down there, it was all executive people wearing furs. Furs just went urban, like yesterday.

What do you think about women in NY compared to LA?

I think La is more sporty. It's laid back, but it has a spontaneity about it too. Girls in LA are more spontaneous. They are more into their sensuousness. They are very comfortable with themselves. They got flat stomachs, they have a beautiful body, and they don't feel unconfident. They feel very secure. They can take bathing suit pictures. They are very free, ya know. And they are very sporadic with ideas. They are very youthful. They are not as conformed and trendy as NY. NY girls are going out for an interview or something. They are looking for a husband. They are going through going through bad relations with their man and domestic violence. Then their minds start thinking bad. Like, every man is going to hurt them. They become like an old lady with a London Fog coat. They go to the movies on Friday and eat at Applebees, then go home like and old lady. They are very old. The funniest thing is, the guys that do the videos and stuff. If you watch BET and MTV, you be looking at the girls like wow New York 's got the girls with the lollipops and the Kangols tilted to the side, with the dope shorts on. That's not the case. Those guys rent those girls from Toronto . New York is girls that are very old ladyish and old fashion. You can take a simple girl out to a restaurant and your whole evening is talking about your relationship and do you want to get married and how long was your last relationship. Its like a damn interview, just to have a simple evening of Buffalo Wings. It takes the sportyness out of the relationship. New York is like British and LA is more west and sporty. Like, Miami is tropical.

Believe it or not, New York was founded by the Dutch.

Yeah. So, that's why New York has that British pace, like London . The girls like to go to dinner. They want to go out for a cup of tea. It's more like an old woman pace. It could be like dating Princess Diana. You have to do something very slow and corny. There is nothing freaky about it. They like to have sex in the dark. They don't want to show their stretch marks. They got a different pattern of life. Some of them feel overweight and the obesity is high. They listen to a lot of records that are slow and make them feel bad. He hurt me, my heart is broken (singing). So they are crying all the time. The weather is always dark and it makes them feel dark with like a tense feeling. The records bring on bad past of their old man that beat them up, hit ‘em. LA has a little more style probably. If you're fly, they like you. They like fly stuff. New York is more insecure. I've been downtown in front of places, like you could be stand in front of Red Lobster, and you see a nice looking lady. I wonder, who's gonna pick this girl up. She's their waiting for a long time, and the guy show up. The guy looks like some homeless guy, like a guy that just walked out of the port authority bus terminal from sleeping for two weeks. And they actually walk off with the guy. I think they have more of a feeling like they are insecure of a person that dresses well and nice. They are insecure because they don't want a person that's fly. They don't want a businessman on Wall Street, with a nice tie on and cologne. That's another thing too; New York girls don't like cologne. Maybe she likes guys that smell like shit. It gives them more of a reason to feel like they don't have to be clean anymore, because I have a guy that's dirty like me and he like me, he loves me and he wants to be my husband.

That's crazy.

No its not. It's real.

What do you think about J-Lo and Affleck? You heard the news?

I think Affleck is a corny guy. He's probably very corny. You know what's funny? A lot of these big stars, they date a lot of guy, but the guys are corny. They go bowling, they go see the Yankee ballgame, and they go watch Tiger Woods hit the ball way down the field. They got a lot of boring patterns and that was probably one side of it. And, to me, I've seen better Puerto Rican girls walking around Fordham Road at all time. I think she's just a regular Spanish girl from New York that looks good and can dance a little bit and made a record and that's it. I don't see anything more hyper than what it really is. You have beautiful women in Brazil and Cuba . People grasped on this one person. You can blow up ten other girls just like that. I think, she don't take no time between relationships. I think she's just a happy woman. I think Jennifer Lopez should just do a porno movie or something. I think she's probably restless. Do something different. Go date Lexington Steele or something. It's getting boring. All these publications with the same thing, like FHM and Maxim. All them with the same bathing suits. We've already seen titties and assholes. They should start transferring over to Black Tail or Hustler. Because the pages when you turn are getting boring. They all look the same. Go pick up a Cosmopolitan or FHM, they all look the same. The teasing has gotten so repetitious. Like, what are you hiding? Unless you are a transsexual hiding a dick, after a while it just gets repetitive. Motherfuckers are tired of imaging what's under their. Unless you just have a cock. That's a big thing too. I'm gonna tell you the truth too. As I've been traveling around the world, I really realized. I've been in clubs. There's been a lot of dating operations. You think Michael Jackson got his surgery? You got guys that are getting surgery, like you are actually looking at a woman in the clubs. Have you ever been to a night club, where you like damn that looks like a dude, but it's not a dude, but that guy look just like fucking Salma Hayek. You standing in the corner with a drink and you looking really hard. Now, the women. These women in music, they getting a lot of operations on their nose and stuff and the guys are getting it done too. That look is starting to fly together a lot. That transsexual and that woman look, like that perfect model. It's starting to confuse a guy now. I am totally sitting back with my drink for like a good 50 minutes. You can't rush up to nothing no more. You don't know what's a man and what's a woman now. They can blend in together now. It fucks with me.

Did you see MTV's half time show?

Janet Jackson's titty.

Yeah. You know what's funny? Britney Spears shows her butt crack and they don't even say nothing about all that shit. What is a titty leaking out on television? C'mon. Christina Aguilera and all them have their ass out on damn near everything. Its like, they just get one person. C'mon. Leave that alone, leave that alone.

They are putting fines out for like $257 thousand for each CBS affiliate.

Fines for what?

FCC is fining CBS for airing it, and each one of the affiliates that aired it. I think 90 million people viewed it, so it's the biggest fine ever. They are trying to levy against them.

It could have been an accident

They are saying it was MTV's fault.


MTV is owned by Viacom, which is also CBS.

But in a performance, nobody knows what's gonna happen. Its like, you rehearse the show, but nobody knows that I'm gonna spin around and then I am just gonna show my ass. Ha Ha Ha………

The producers knew that was going to happen though.


Even so. Their wasn't anything wrong with it. Their wasn't anything more indecent than the girls dancing with Nelly.

How many times have you seen … I've see butt crack showing and everything. These people are just hypocritical. I think it's a branch off of Michael Jackson. They are trying to stain the Jackson name. Sex has been so big, but people want to cover it still. Every magazine got damn near everybody doing the same shit. One titty pops out and everybody goes crazy. The world is getting boring…..OK, put it all up there.

Alright.


Good interview.

Yeah.