Reggae Interview Introduction
Welcome to Team Upsetta and Upsetta.com’s latest feature – Exclusive interviews with some of your favorite artists … and ours!
We are honored and blessed to have International Reggae Star, Kabaka Pyramid kick off the feature! The interview was conducted by Niko One Drop of Team Upsetta & One Drop Sessions, this past week in Spain. We’d like to thank Kabaka Pyramid for taking the time for this interview and hope you enjoy it as much as we do!
Kabaka Pyramid Interview with Niko One Drop
Niko- We have with us a very special guest, the Lyrical Deity, Kabaka Pyramid. Give thanks for being here
KP- Yeah man, give thanks
Niko- You’ve been on road here in Europe a little while, how the road been so far?
KP- It’s been great. Shows have been good, yah know, good energy. It’s been a likkle cold, but we were prepared. We had a cold winter US tour, so we get the preparation. It’s been good though, we love the support we get, especially for the new album, new songs, and tings.
Niko- We definitely want to talk about the new album in a bit, but first I was hoping we could at the beginning, talk about the first moment you can remember that music really grabbed you.
KP- Yeah, I definitely remember driving to the country with my father and usually play these Bob Marley CDs in the car and Dennis Brown CDs and dam ting deh and me remember, I used to go over to his apartment and he had Buju Banton Til Shiloh album and Shaggy Boombastic. Any time I used to over my fathers house me used to dem two cd, so different vibes, dem ting deh, really help, I guess, to shape me, yah know, cause Boombastic had a hip hop vibe within and Til Shiloh, ya know, is a classic.
Niko- Another thing I wanted to mention, a lot of people may not know that your beginnings came in hip hop, so what was it about hip hop that attracted you?
KP- Well, I wanna tell you, in ’96 when we got cable TV in Jamaica, I started watching BET and MTV, me used to love hip hop, me just a gravitate to it, I don’t know why but the lyricism really captured my interest and I gravitated quickly toward the real lyricists like Cannabis, Big Pun, Eminem. The I kinda went into Wu-tang Clan, like deep, yah know, like Inspectah Deck and GZA and it was like my rocker dem. And from dem time me just love hip hop. Yah know I used to want to sing a song like Sizzla but I never really had the voice control to sing, so when I used to recite raps and ting it was kinda easy, cause, even though I didn’t live in the states, I used to travel there on holidays as a kid but even though I never lived in the states, I picked up the accent and the delivery and the whole hip hop style easily, so when I started rapping and ting it sounded more, yah know, ready. I used to put out mixtapes with I was still working on my reggae stuff but not really releasing anything.
Niko- So, when you came back to reggae, how do you think hip hop has influenced your music?
KP- I mean, my music for sure is that “boom bap” sound, its right there throughout the reggae, you know that heavy drums, emphasis on heavy drums, lyricism, yah know, the way I write my rhymes is kinda hip hop.. yah know, when me talk about ‘spitting the spectacular lyrical bring back original’, just talking about lyricism. You used to have dancehall artists that used to do it back in the day, have songs just talking about the fact that they’re lyrical, like Supercat used to do it but you kinda lost that within dancehall music and we kinda bring it back now to the point where you have artists like Coffee bring back that same, talking about lyricism, Yah know, and just being lyrical and loving to write lyrics and tings like that, so..
Niko- Let’s talk about your album. The first thing I want to talk about is this your first or second album? I’ve seen some call it your debut album and others call it your sophomore album…
KP- laughing
Niko- So can you clear things up for us?
KP- Officially, it’s the first album. We’ve put out projects before, Rebel Music, we called it an EP even though it was 10 tracks. But we gave it away for free, it was a free download. Then I had Lead The Way, which was a compilation. We called it an EP as well, it had 10 tracks, plus three more. But we didn’t record any tracks for that project, we licensed songs that other producers released and just put it out under our label. I wouldn’t call that an album, although some people put out albums like that, that’s not how I wanted my first album to be. So then Kontraband, yah know we did the mixtape as well with Walshy Fire.
Niko- Which showcases that hip hop style.
KP- Exactly
Niko- Kontraband came out a year ago in 2018, produced by Damien Marley. How did you two come to work together?
KP- Well, ‘Well Done’ was the start of that. He wanted to do juggling project on that riddim, the ridden was originally on Wayne Marshal’s album, a Ghetto Youths ting, he reached out to me, I wrote the song, he loved the song when I recorded it. Then I went up to Miami and we worked on it with his engineer mixing it down and stuff. The chemistry in the studio, we just kinda built upon a vibes. And he had the interest of doing an album for me, we agreed and it’s just been great energy from there. Making music, producing songs from scratch. Taking songs I had already done without a producer and fine-tuning them, mixing them, over dubbing them and stuff like that. He executive produced the album, but he only did 5 songs himself, in terms of songs that he produced.
Niko- Oh ok. It does seem like a pretty good pairing, your style and his… I don’t want to say you have a similar style…
KP- We have similar influences, similar vibes.
Niko-Ok, maybe that’s a better way of saying it. But it is that reggae/dancehall with that hip hop touch…
KP-Exactly
Niko- I think it really comes out well. Let’s get a little bit deeper into the album and talk about the tune “Boarders” ft Stonebwoy. It’s one of many social conscious tunes on the record but for me, it stands out, for a bunch of reasons. It’s topical and it’s an important song. I was hoping you could talk about what your inspiration for that specific tune was.
KP- I wanna tell yuh so, when we first started to tour in Europe in 2012, that was my first experience of seeing refugee camps and it really moved me to see what was happening, the reality of… it’s different than seeing it on the news. It kinda really hit you, that this thing is real, yah know, and something needs to be done. I mean we have pretty poor conditions in the ghettos in Jamaica, so we know about poverty, but when you see the tent and the camps and how people have to be living, it really broke my heart and I say ‘I haffi do something about it, we haffi sing about it, we haffi raise the awareness, so at least people in the west can know what’s happening, nah mean and we linked up with Stonebwoy, he’s actually an ambassador for refugees in Ghana with the UN. Definitely thought it was a good pairing to work with him on that song, he’s huge over in Ghana, so that was obviously good for me to link up with an African artist.
Niko- Yeah, right.
KP- It was the second single from the album, definitely a fan favorite. Especially on the tour.
Niko- I’m sure.
KP- People are really moved by what’s being said and people see the reality of it. Its just one of those songs that really just hit home.
Niko- And it’s one of the reasons that people love these genres when it speaks the truth…
KP- I say it every night…
Niko- Alright, the tour, after tonight you’ve got a few days off…
KP- Well we’ve got one more show tomorrow…
Niko- That’s right…Then you finish the tour of in the east, in Germany and Switzerland, where could people buy tickets?
KP- kabakap.com/tour
Niko- And while we’re talking about it, social media?
KP- Of course Kabaka Pyramid I’m on IG, Twitter, Facebook, all a dat. The music is on all streaming outlets, iTunes, Amazon, Soundcloud, Youtube …
Niko- What’s next? Can your fan expect another tour this summer? Or will you be working on some music?
KP- We’re doing a full US tour, May to June, the latter part of May to the latter part of June, and then we’ll be doing a bunch of festivals between US and Europe in the summer. Yeah so, definitely look out for that. I’m going Japan in September as well and trying to touch Africa at some point this year but nothing confirmed yet, but we looking possibly at Gambia in December, so we’ll see.
Niko- And any new music coming?
KP- Yeah, I did a feature on UB40s album that just released the other day, I did a feature with Rudamental on their album in the UK. I have one with Chase and Status that’s coming out, that’s also UK. A bunch of collabs, and we’ll be looking to do a few more videos from the album.
Niko- Nice! The Reggae Music video is mad.
KP- Yeah it a gwaan good
Niko- Ok last question. Since we’re here in Spain and I know that you’re a big Barca fan… I had to ask you, how do you like them in the Champions league?
KP- Yeah man, I think the chance is good this year. I’m feeling a good energy about this year. I think Messi is in fine form, he’s head and shoulders above everybody else. In terms of goals..goal production obviously Ronaldo and Juventus is a big challenge but we have Man United coming up so we haffi be sharp because they’re on the come up now, on the resurgence. But I definitely feel like it’s our year still, Man City is also strong. They’re going for four trophies. I plan to watch a Barca game in Villarreal.
Niko- Oh, in these days off?
KP- Yeah
Niko- Nice man. Well, thank you Kabaka, it’s been a pleasure.
KP- Yeah man, give thanks.
