View Media

Interview with Soul Khan and Koncept!

Vist IP1zine's Profile

Interview with Soul Khan and Koncept!

Soul Khan and Koncept, New York based rappers and members of the Brown Bag All-stars, made their UK debut at The Swan on Wednesday courtesy of Rapsploitation Sessions, gaining a legion of new fans in the process. IP1’s Patrick Scott caught the pair beforehand…


So, is this your first tour in England?
K- This is my first time in Europe, Soul Khan has been here once before.
S- I battled here in November 2010, but this is our first UK tour. It’s good to be here because we know people have demanded it from us for a few years now.

Can you tell me a bit about your latest projects?
S- My EP Wellstone is an effort to reconcile my values with my music. I think it’s a strong piece of work. It’s not modest, because the things I’m articulating on it should be voiced very strongly, and I think they’re values that are still confrontational in this day and age.
K- My debut album Awaken is my first commercial project. It’s very honest music, and just the start of what I have to show everybody. I won’t describe it too much as you have to go listen!

Musically, who are your main influences?
K- People like De La Soul, Black Thought, Nas, Whiskey, Tequila…
S- Big Daddy Kane, Wu tang of course. And various breeds of rare dogs.

Good all round then. Who in the UK music scene are you interested in?
S- I’m a big fan of Jefferson Price and Truth, they’re dope, and I’ve been a big fan of Soweto Kinch for a number of years.
K- It’s funny, a lot of the UK hip hop doesn’t really get over to the States.
S- Which is a disservice to the States, because there’s a wealth of talent here.

Soul Khan, you made your name with battle rapping. Is there much difference between the techniques used for battling and writing music?
S- It’s different, because battle rapping is a much more crude craft, and more limited to be self aggrandizing.
K- You were also a song maker years before you were a battle rapper.
S- Yeh, years before, but I still had to train myself to be a battler, so it’s not really like ‘how does it feel going from a battle rapper to a musician’, more the other way round. I commend the UK battle rap world for having people who actually do have music careers, because I think battle rap has a limit as to where it can go.

How did the Brown Bag All-Stars form?
K- We all worked at Fat Beats Records in NYC . From there it just kind of came naturally- we’d all been in groups previously that didn’t work out, but we started working together after becoming friends, so we went in the studio one day and the chemistry was there.

Are your focuses more on solo projects, or Brown Bag All-Stars?
S- Every solo project is essentially a Brown Bag project, and everyone who’s in Brown Bag is involved in some degree or another.
K- Like with Awaken, J57 and Audible Doctor produced all of it, and Soul Khan’s on it twice, so even though it’s a Koncept album, it’s a Brown Bag record.

Both of you have released material for free before charging for later releases. How important do you think this is in building a fanbase?
K- It’s very important in today’s market, because people are reluctant to pay. It’s really corny, but it’s a scheme to make people aware and make them listen, so they realise how much effort has gone into making the music. If people want to continue to hear music that they enjoy, they have to support it.
S- I think the stat in America is that 93% of people discover music from the radio, so nothing has really changed. Certain sources of influence are drawn from the internet and internet phenomenon, which is bad because then you have artists who are terrible getting $1 million contracts on internet buzz alone. I say that as someone who’s largely internet fuelled; we have to rely on the internet but at the same time it’s an inorganic and cheap thing. Using social media to reach fans is great, but to use it in lieu of meaningful relationships that listeners form with your music isn’t an adequate proxy.

What future projects should we be expecting?
S- I’m working on the fourth EP in my Love Supreme collection, and my first commercially available full album, produced by J57, plus something else that you will be surprised by.
K- I’ve got an EP with Deejay Element that’ll be out pretty soon. We have two Brown Bag EPs dropping, one in the next month, and the debut album dropping soon.

Soul Khan’s EP Wellstone can be downloaded for free at Djbooth.
Koncept’s LP Awaken is available on ITunes or at FatBeats.
Brown Bag All-Stars’ latest EP can be downloaded for free at 2dopeboyz.

Comments:

There are no comments for this entry yet.

Leave a Comment:

You must be a member to leave a comment. Login or Sign Up

  • Sign Up
  • Log In

ShowOff Navigation