Late interview (10/27/08)
By Rick Thorne
Continued from Murder Dog vol 16 #1
There’s different styles of rap in the U.K. – would you ever get into
the Grime style?
A few people have said our music is like Grime because we don’t use any
samples. But I’m not really into the double-tempo flow sort of thing.
When I do a song I like to be able to record it on
one go. I don’t like
the punch-ins – the two bars, then two bars, then two bars, and I can’t
really perform it live. I’d rather be comfortable with myself and just
flow so I can perform a song how it sounds on the record. One take –
brrrap!! I’m not a man that wants to try and ram loads of words in there
‘cos they rhyme – I want to try and say something. You might as well
say something that’s worth hearing instead of a load of stuff that just
rhymes.
Is it tougher to make a name doing hip-hop in the UK than the U.S.?
It’s part and parcel of a way of life out there. Over here in UK you
gotta constantly sort of explain yourself. But over in the States you
haven’t. I didn’t have to explain myself that I was a rapper that did
DJing, I do mix-tapes and I’m from the U.K. and I’m into the Southern
music and I promote that out here. They just got it straight away.
What was it about those Southern artists from way back that interested
you?
Just real life experiences, what they rap about. And I’m not a great
vocal man, I haven’t got a degree, I haven’t got qualifications; everything
I do is self-taught. And that’s the way I rap, I rap about real life
‘cos that sorta thing inspires me. I’m not a man that can put loads of
metaphors together. I write about real life experiences and that’s the
sort of artists I listen to. To actually meet them artists and see where
they was coming from was unbelievable.
Just explain a little bit about your relationship with K-Rino. I heard
you and Tricksta (Wolftown Recordings) formed SPC U.K.?
The way the whole thing came about was I seen his advert for his album
No Mercy in Murder Dog Magazine and there was a fax number at the bottom.
Sent him a fax – this was old-school – told him about our magazine Rago
and what we done; sent him a copy of my album, interviewed him. Then
I was working on a track on my International Spittin’ EP, sent him the
beat and he laced it, and ever since then we’ve been doing collaborations
with each other. I’ve featured on some of his, he’s featured on some
of ours. I’ve always had a love for SPC music anyway, so I’ve done my
utmost to promote it over here. When we went out there it was like ‘ya
SPC U.K. man, you’re part of SPC.’ To have a man like that, whose been
in the game for all them years – I mean he’s featured on my stuff but
for him to actually ask me to feature on his album – that’s love and
an honor, d’ya know what I mean? K-Rino – every single verse he does
is just sick. He never does anything half-baked. Tricksta’s got quite
a few beats on SPC stuff at the moment too. So we all good, man.
There’s a track with Willie D on the album. How did that come about?
I was with Matt Sonzala in Houston. He took us to Willie D’s studio and
introduced us. I had some CDs with me, gave him a copy of my underground
stuff. Told him keep in touch. When I got back I grinded a bit, got my
paper ready, got Tricksta to phone him. Sent him the beat, he liked the
beat – done the track. That was just phenomenal, to work with someone
I’ve been into for all these years, d’ya know what I mean? It was a real
honor.
You’ve also got JT The Bigga Figga on there. How did you connect with
him?
Through the MySpace. I hit him up, he said send me the beat and he laced
it, but the track (“Tryin’ To Make It”) was only two verses. I was saying
to Tricksta – this is the time I was listening to a lot of Thizz World
stuff – I said you’ve gotta check this guy out, his name’s Geezy – he’s
sick! Tricksta somehow tracked Geezy down and got Geezy and the Fendi
Boyz on there and JT The Bigga Figga. New-school Bay Area and old-school
Bay Area. I’ve got nearly all JT’s albums – that’s like an achievement
to have worked with someone like that. Real recognizes real.
What were you aiming to achieve with this album?
I done a lot of undergrounds that was pure spits, but on this one I tried
to come with more concepts. Knowledge, not just spitting darkness for
no apparent reason. If you’re gonna spit something, spit something that’s
real. I’ve got European distribution sorted, the next step is to get
American distribution. So I’ve tried to step above being considered ‘regional’.
I’m not just U.K. rap – I live here, I represent the U.K. and I rap about
the U.K. – but I’m trying to touch on issues that you can relate to wherever
you are in the world. If you grew up in a working class background sort
of thing, you can probably relate to most of the stuff that’s on the
album.
I think your track “Reality Rap” is the first U.K. Rap record to mention
Mass 187!
Since I’ve done that track and put it on MySpace, I’ve had so many people
from all over – from Germany, Italy – saying ‘I can’t believe you know
about this stuff’. There’s a community of people out there that if they’re
into the one sort of song, they’re into everything.
How was Houston different to Wolverhampton?
You got a healthy scene out there so you can get involved. We’re still
at the start of like an era over here where everyone wants to be a rapper
and everyone wants to be a DJ. They still want hood fame. I think when
we can get past that – to when people think ‘well, I’m gonna start my
own video production company, I’m gonna start a graphics company, I’m
gonna start a shop selling custom T-shirts’ – I think when we get to
that stage, the scene will be healthy. It’s been 15 years now and we
still haven’t moved on from where everyone just wants to be a rapper.
Out here we haven’t got the club scene rockin’ as much. All the clubs
in Wolves at the moment are just closed down. Like locked off from hip-hop.
If it’s dance music it can run, if it’s urban music it can’t run ‘cos
it goes off, d’ya know what I mean?
Is street level crime really goin’ off like that in the U.K.?
It’s definitely goin’ off, in the cities anyway. I mean London’s the
biggest, densest city in the U.K. and it’s goin’ off there. The smaller
cities it’s not as dense areas so it’s not as bad as London. But I think
all major cities at the moment have got problems. I think the youth out
there are lookin’ for something to do and the crime element is an option
– ‘cos there’s not much options out there for them.
Why do you think this is happening and what could be done about it?
One of the positive things that could be done about it is more things
for people to do. When I was growin’ up there was a lot of youth centres,
where you could do music or just played pool, or places where you could
go on trips and things like that. I think a lot of the councils have
cut back on these sorts of things which leaves the kids roaming the streets.
You’re always gonna have bad kids, people that are gonna do bad things.
But it’s the ones in between – they’re the ones that get caught up and
they’re the ones that need help. They haven’t got an opportunity to go
to a youth club or anything like that and they’re the ones that end up
into crime. That’s just my opinion.
You’ve been in the game a lot of years. How have you seen it change and
how have you adapted to ensure you’re still around?
Well, we’re riding with the changes ‘cos all the people that don’t evolve
with it will just fall off. I can’t do anything else to be honest. There’s
people that’ve grew up the last few years, like if you’re 18, 19, you’ve
probably never bought a CD. I speak to 18-year-olds, 19-year-olds and
say ‘what was the last CD you bought’ and they say ‘I’ve never bought
one.’ So we’ve tried to combat that by being inspired by the South, the
way they market their product. I try to get my products out to where
you’ve gotta buy it d’ya know what I mean? You can’t rock with just a
burn, you need the whole package. A lot of people just make music and
they don’t care about the artwork, they think the music should sell itself.
So I’ve tried to come with the heavy artwork, the nice little booklet,
full credits – so people carry on being into it. They’ll pick up the
CD and they’ll see it’s featuring my man and they’ll track him down –
you can’t do that if it’s an MP3. You can’t get into a producer if you
don’t know who produced the beat. So we try to get people hooked and
then they can buy into the next product. Plus our distributor is getting
us on iTunes and Juno, all them sort of ones. Dom Rampello, our distributor,
with Hip-Hop Village, he has upped the ante. He’s given people an avenue.
Dom is quite open-minded and he’s moving it forward and he’s getting
it over to Europe. Europe’s still into CDs. Our artwork guy Skrilla is
smashin’ the covers man. He’s done that new Heltah Sketah album.
What’s coming up next for Late and Wolftown?
The next big release from Wolftown is gonna be the Late and K-Rino album.
That’s called “Street Messengers”. We’re recording tracks for that right
now. Pure just Late and K-Rino. We put out the K-Rino “Lyrical Legend”
mix-tape to kick off the promotion of K-Rino over here. We just took
a lot of the tracks that we thought people would be into over here. We’re
also gonna be puttin’ out a sort of ‘Best of K-Rino’ album, off of the
three CDs he’s just done, but there’s gonna be four new tracks on there.
We’ve just released a KB Da Kidnappa underground with a DVD all filmed
in Houston around Trinity Gardens. There’s one track on there, he freestyles
non-stop for five-and-a-half minutes – without one fuck-up! Just sick.
And I’m recording my new album as well – the follow-up to Below Street
Level which is called Street Science. I’m getting all the solo joints
done, then I’m gonna work on the collaborations. I’m tryna step it up
even more.
For more information and contact: www.myspace.com/latewolftown
