Kurtiouss Interview with Niko One Drop
Niko Tripoli | One Drop Sessions | Team Upsetta | Upsetta International
26 February 2020
Niko One Drop (N): Welcome to One Drop Sessions and Upsetta.com, this is Niko One Drop sitting alongside Kurtiouss. Welcome, Kurtiouss!
Kurtiouss (K): Fully Aktive. Blessings yuh know
N: Thanks for making the time.
K: Yeah man definitely
LCG & Khago
N: So you just dropped a brand new album called calling from LCG Productions. Can you talk a little bit about the album?
K: Yeah that album, I recorded it for LCG, LCG’s a label, a productions team from outta Florida, Francine, Big up to Francine, Khago is CEO of LCG so me an Khago mek a link an, im a hear mi tune an im a say, “ya bad ya know artist, here what mi a go do. Mi a go send you some riddim, you have one week fi record 10 songs.”
I send it back an mi a say ‘One week? Alright, send out the riddim dem,’ and him send out the riddim dem, an every day when mi come in mi write two songs and record at least one a dem, cause mi can’t find the time to record two a dem at the same time because mi work outside a dat, ya know? So mi record the ten song and get it back to him in a one week. And that was it.
N: Woah, so in one week you did the whole thing? You wrote and recorded every song …
K: Yeah, in one week.
N: That big work right, huh!
K: Right here in this studio.
Roots of Music
N: Yeah man, right here. So how did you get into music originally?
K: Music, I got into music a long time ago, ya know. Actually from when I was a kid. The first studio I went to was Sugar Minott’s, that in, ah, when you go inna Crossroads in Jamaica. A lot a people know it.
Sugar Minott
Sugar Minott’s studio was the first studio I went to, my mom brought me there, an mi remember mi go in a the studio, the first time mi go in a the studio, I go in this recording room with all the controls and the keys and everything. And I say ‘Whoa!” It was like a little kid in a candy store and mi a say ‘mi love dis.’
So dem say ‘go record a song.’ So mi go inna di booth and mi record a song an dem say, ‘You can do better than that ya know.’ So mi didn’t really make the cut the first day mi go deh. So mi say, ‘alright, love on mi fine feet an mi a go home an write up a like song and mi go back a the studio the next day, the evening when mi leave school, I’m in my school clothes and my bag and mi a say ‘mi have a song now.’ An dem a say ‘come here mek wi hear it.’ And mi go inna di studio an mi sing the song, and everybody starts ‘yo, yo, yo’ ‘bam bam bam’, a whole heap of excitement, yah know.
That was when I fell in love with music, right there an then. And I was like ‘alright, this is what I have to do. This is my gift.’
N: Yeah man that’s big. If I may ask, what was your Mom’s intention in bringing you to Sugar Minott’s studio that day?
K: I guess she saw it in me, ya know. I guess she saw it me cause the ting is when I was a younger kid I would always knock on pans around the house, I’d get sticks and make noise, anything I find I’d hit to make some noise. And she would always say, ‘why don’t you stop the noise’, but mi nah stop. And she see the music ting an she say alright then. She say, ‘Mi have a friend who has a studio, you can go up pon di studio. And that was that again.
N: Yeah man, it’s something beautiful about our parents or parents in general who can see the gift that we have and foster those gifts, at least we are lucky when that happens, so big up your moms for sure.
K: Definitely.
Things Have Changed
N: Let talk about the album specifically, we asked you about a favorite song of yours from the record and you mentioned the tune “Things Have Changed.” Why does this tune stand out to you amongst all ten tunes on the album?
K: Well, the song “Things Have Changed” was inspired by things that I’ve seen in the past and things I see a lot of people go through daily, so I decided that I wanted to write something different so people can see that you don’t have to take a certain road in this life, yah know what I mean, ya can choose ya path and go down a specific path and that’s how that song really came about.
That day when I left work and came home me say “alright mi reach this riddim now mi a go write a song pon dis riddim mi say ‘wha mi gon sing bout’ and it just came to me, it just came to me right there and I felt something when I was writing this song, I can’t really explain what it is, but I felt something when I was writing this song.
That’s why that song is so important to me. It’s teaching the youths, like, you don’t haffi do bad things to achieve good things in life. You can just be a good person, preach love, be positive, put out positive energy you can still achieve good things. You don’t half tek it the bad way, you don’t haffi grab a gun and say mi a go rob a man down the street, ya know what I mean? So that song means a lot when di people dem hear it, just listen to the lyrics and dem a go really see, it’s a deep song.
Positive Vibes Is a Calling
N: Yeah, we’re gonna get to the song in a minute, but I wanted to mention that this is the theme in your works, this positive vibe, this upliftment for you’re average person, can you a little bit about that?
K: Yeah definitely because things have changed, things bare not as they used to be. One time growing up as a kid we used to play certain kinds of games and everybody used to have fun. If ya hurt one by accident ya say, ‘Hey man, I’m sorry.’ But nowadays it’s different. Ya look at someone too hard and they ready to come at you like, ‘hey, what you lookin at?’ In dem kinda way, ya know. And we don’t need those types of things in the world anymore. And we have so many artists out there promoting negative things and we see that they getting a big spotlight.
N: Right.
K: They getting a big number of followers and all these things so people are drawn to negativity. Ya know what I mean, so that’s why I put my foot down and just try fi do positive music, and let out positive energy in the world because at the end of the day, we have kids and mi no want mi kids dem a grow up and see certain things….
N: Yeah man.
K: … and end up in a certain life, ya understand what im sayin? So that’s why I decided to keep positive and do positive music, and just put out positive energy in the world.
N: Yeah man, well its gonna come back to you and its a good thing for all of us, we need more people, more artist like you in the world. Tell us how we can link with the album, how we can link with you…..
Kurtiouss Support and Links
K: The album is out right now, you can find it on any major music platform; Amazon, iTunes, Spotify, you name it. It’s right there, just go on and type Kurtiouss, the name of the album is Calling. Just click order and its right there, Boom!
N: There you go. And if they want to link you?
K: You can find me on my Instagram, @kurtioussfullyaktive and on Facebook, Kurtiouss, straight up. And twitter same way, @kurtiouss21.
N: Thanks so much for your time
K: Yeah man N: Respect
