Photo Credit: Dre Lamar
He has an insatiable hunger to succeed and a message to share. Kent and I have been friends for years – making me a witness to his efforts to put Northern Colorado on the hip-hop map, his efforts to expose the community to the genre’s cultural perspectives, as well as his creating room at the table for lyrical voices. I recently got the opportunity to sit down with him and discuss his new EP, “Fear. Ends. All. Realities”, and time and time again he reminded me of the vitality of his artistic vision, confidence, and rebellion. This is a portion of our conversation.
MM: We’ve talked a lot about this before, but I feel like you have made major efforts to make your voice heard in Fort Collins as a way to add to the culture. Can you tell me about that?
KW: I feel like I practice the art of culture cultivation. A culture cultivator is someone extremely passionate about the arts, and for me that is hip-hop. Through not only my passion for the craft, and through my identity and identity politics, this is what I cultivate. From booking Jhené Aiko as the first woman headliner in CSU history, to taking a rap battle tournament and making it the biggest rap battle in the state and bringing in some of the best up-and-coming artist, to the parties, to the community service events I do, I think I needed to make my staple and my stamp here. It was very important to me to do that because I needed to be heard somehow.
MM: What is the relationship between culture cultivation and this new EP?
KW: I try my best to not be problematic, and not to waste my energy, and my time and my words. If I have the time to really make this shit great, let’s make it great. If I have a platform, there are people that are going to look up to me. In reality, in America, we look up to a Jay Z or a Beyoncé over any politician any day. That’s just facts. People hate that, but what hip-hop comes from is festive resistance, and that’s what I was born into. My mom was born in the Bronx; she was there when hip-hop started. That shit’s in my DNA. I don’t create for a selfish purpose. I create to express myself, but it’s also for people, for the community. It’s about building bridges.
Photo Credit: Dre Lamar
MM: What are some other major themes in F.E.A.R?
KW: F.E.A.R. is an acronym for “Fear. Ends. All. Realities.” So, fear is number one. I feel like a lot of artists deal with that on a daily basis. Sharing your art is probably one of the most vulnerable things you could do, and for you to share your music and your story to a large group of people who might shit on it stupid heavy – because social media is terrible – that’s a scary thing to do. I have to navigate through my life with fear. That’s a real emotion. It’s not a tangible thing, it’s just an emotion. However, I have to work with it, because it’s human. Vulnerability is also a huge theme.
MM: There’s definitely an element of risk.
KW: Also social justice. I am saying ‘Fuck Trump’ every two seconds, but that’s just how I feel. I understand he’s not the end-all-be-all, there are bigger forces at work, but it’s because he is a figure and representation of why I am saying ‘Fuck Trump.’ It’s just like ‘Fuck the Police,’ you know? It’s a bigger message than what is at the surface level. I’m definitely anti-establishment. I’m very true to my art, and artist integrity is huge. I think that’s why it’s so important for me to continue to cultivate independently and say my own truths without me having to censor myself. Those are probably the main themes of the project. Along with hunger, too, because I’m very hungry for this. It’s not even about fame, it’s more of wanting to have a presence in the industry and have a platform where I can affect a large group of people in a positive way. I see how Chance The Rapper, J Cole and Kendrick move, and they’re not in the news for bullshit. It’s about music with them. That’s the realm I want to place myself into.
Photo Credit: Dre Lamar
MM: Have you ever felt like you had to censor yourself in Fort Collins?
KW: Hell yeah. I always felt like there was something so wrong with that though, and I kind of just grew to not hold my tongue, which is a good and a bad thing. You can’t censor art. Art is not polite. Period. It’s fucking raw, that’s why we love N.W.A., that’s why we love Ice Cube. It’s just so hard because people want to censor shit that they don’t know or that they feel is socially unacceptable. But who creates that standard in society? That’s a whole other thing. I feel that I’m on this Earth for a reason. I’m on this Earth to share a message and voice. Historically my people were suppressed as a voice, and I feel like I have a responsibility, because there was a time that they didn’t have the liberty to do the shit that I do. Music is super deep when it comes to Black African American roots and traditions. That’s where I’m at with it.
MM: Your recent project out of DEATHLEAGUE seems very uncensored.
How did that group come to be?
KW: I’m really close with Joey Swahv and One Peace. I knew Joey for years. He has always been a cat who embraced thorough, authentic hip-hop to the core. When we talk about MF Doom, J Dilla, and Wu-Tang, those are the guys. White dudes, which is super cool, who thoroughly have some type of understanding of the culture, which I can definitely respect. I think it’s one thing when you thoroughly fuck with the culture and did your research, that’s one thing opposed to taking it because you think that shit is cool. Any time I’m in the studio with them, they push me to be as lyrical as possible. I think we were just in the studio, and we had knocked out three songs, and we were thought, “We should just make an album.” It was so natural. It organically created itself. One Peace came back home from prison, and he was locked in the studio. His focus has completely shifted to music, and it’s very honorable to see. Out of everyone I worked with, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone more dedicated in the studio, grinding, creating stupid music. I just knew it would be a nice project, and I’m a fan of when Madlib and Freddie Gibbs did their thing and their shit, and you know The Alchemist and Curren$Y and Gibbs just did a project. I feel like that’s what DEATHLEAGUE is to me: it’s that really dope, rare, authentic, backpack, adult-swim, hip-hop shit. It’s fucking weird as fuck.
MM: I feel like you don’t force anything, and you let collaborations and influence come very naturally.
KW: You can’t force music or it will sound terrible, and from an artist perspective, you’re not going to be proud of your work. When I listen to my EP I’m very proud, I can’t stop smiling, because it comes with a lot of shit. I really was going through shit. Even with the music that ya’ll will hear later, I express more of that shit, because I’m becoming more comfortable with myself. Now I’m like fuck it, I’m just going to release it out. Fuck it.
Photo Credit: Dre Lamar
MM: Is it okay if I ask what kind of things you were going through that have influenced your artistry?
KW: Dealing with depression, and anxiety and PTSD from losing a lot of people. Whether that’s from murder, whether that’s from suicide, whether that’s from accidents, I had probably in college lost over eleven or twelve people. It’s not to say that I have the hardest life, that’s not what I am saying, everyone just goes through shit. I think people want to feel validated in that, and people don’t want to feel alone when dealing with that shit. It’s tough, especially with mental health and trying to implement self-love and care for yourself. My little bro passing away was hard. I drove to Los Angeles to see a Childish Gambino show. As I sat down at the Bino show, after driving seventeen hours, I got the phone call that Cece passed away. That killed me. I was with a friend, and I didn’t even really feel comfortable with releasing, and I had to drive another seventeen hours, make it back home, and then cry in the car. Then I had to go to sleep because I had to wake up in 3 hours because I had school and work in the morning. I think I just never had the chance to cope with any of those deaths. Period. My passion for social justice and wanting to make an impact and change for the next generation also has an influence. Seeing so much fucked up shit in the news, it feels like there’s nothing good or positive, or seeing kids get murdered all the time. It’s at the point where I can feel my brain tightening up sometimes on social media if I see too many traumatic things. I’m just trying to implement that hope and that empathy, that reason, compassion, and passion all in one. I feel like my music kind of shows that.
MM: Thank you for sharing that with me. I can hear a lot of the same emotion in your new song Knock Knock, which has a unique sound compared to your other songs.
KW: I was definitely listening to J Cole up until creating that song. And when Cole sings we know he’s not a singing nigga, that’s not his style. At all. But, because it’s passionate and genuine, and it really comes from a real place, people can relate to that. A lot of us can’t fucking sing either, so I think people feel a lot more comfortable, like, “This nigga can’t sing, so I’m going to sing with him.” I think that’s really chill. So, that’s what inspired Knock Knock, and I feel like the emotion that I wanted to bring out I couldn’t have bought out if I just rapped the whole song. I think it will be nice for the crowd to sing it. I feel like a lot of people can relate to that song if you have lost someone.
Photo Credit: Paradox Visuals
MM: It seems like you’re going to evoke a lot of compassion. But just to end things in the same way your EP ended, I have to bring up your song outro White People, since it seems like it evokes all kinds of other things.
KW: I actually debuted that song a FOCOMX, and I performed at The Aggie with a whole crowd of white people. Amazing. I was so ready to perform that shit because I really don’t care. I really don’t have that fear on stage. If I’m performing, I’m fucking performing it. I’m sorry, I’m doing it.
MM: I’ve never sensed fear from you on stage, ever.
KW: No, never. And I’m not just going to censor myself for them, I gotta be myself. This is how I am. This is how I feel. So I did it, and the whole chorus is, “I’m that nigga, I’m that nigga, I’m that nigga.” No one wants to sing along! And I’m rapping in everyone’s face, on purpose. After I performed that, I let them know, “That was very uncomfortable, huh? It’s kind of like how I feel in Fort Collins every day. It’s interesting.” You know? There was this really cute girl, she was like maybe 9 years old, adorable as fuck, and she was my biggest fan. Her dad loved it too, but she was amazing. She was cheering me on, it was great. I didn’t even get a sense of animosity or anything after I performed it. If anything, I felt respect.
MM: They thought, “Oh yeah, you’re right.”
KW: Right. I’m not telling you what to do. I’m just saying maybe you shouldn’t sing this song, because everything isn’t for you. That’s kind of like a sense of dominance. Just because I say nigga doesn’t mean you have to say it. Period. Geez. Chill. The song came about from an experience I had at a Chance The Rapper Concert. There was a white male that said “nigga” next to us, and I overheard him, and I pressed him, and said, “What niggas you know?” And I said it so silently, instead of violently. I had a conversation with him. I told him, “Everything is not for you, bro. You know where that word comes from. You have no tie to that word, so what is your reason for saying it?” It’s a weird debate on the N-word, and I choose not to partake. I feel how I feel, and that’s just what it is. And I let him know not everyone is going to approach him how I did. I’m glad we had the conversation, and I hope that he thinks, thoroughly, beyond his own perspective. The next day, he found me on Facebook, and he apologized to me. Isn’t that crazy?
MM: That’s wild!
KW: I didn’t give him my shit. I don’t know him. I pressed him, though, like crazy. All my friends wanted to beat his ass. I wasn’t with it, though. And it obviously worked or made an effect on him to research, find out who I was, and say thank you for talking to me. I was like, “Woah,” and I feel like that was a sign from God and a sign from the universe. That’s how I knew my words meant something. That they held weight.
Photo Credit: Paradox Visuals
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