WingsOfAnAngel
Banned
ill o.g.
Battle Points: 3
Keak da Sneak might turn out be the savior of hyphy, the Bay Area's convulsive, rapturous answer to crunk. A dope boy-turned-family man, he abandoned the churning free-for-all of city life for the consolations and certainties of an old-fashioned, rustic, essentially Southern existence-- without leaving the West Coast. But self-exile hasn't kept him out of the area vanguard. After cutting his teeth in the hard-boiled Dual Committee and 3X Krazy, Keak took off on his own in 2004, cocooning in the studio and at the ranch, where he parlayed his sweat into a uniquely effective-- and affective-- bounty.
Liberating whatever's bottled up inside is hyphy's ordering premise and Keak's goal. He achieves this through songs that are curiously guileless, noteworthy for steering clear of the rote peacocking and posturing that can drag rap into self-parody. Yet his naïveté is also tinged with a desolation foreign to the post-Native Tongues backpacker variety of "consciousness." These are songs of experience first, innocence second. What you hear in Keak's strained growls is a blend of escapism and catharsis.
The first time I called him, he was in the barbershop for a trim. When I caught him later that afternoon, he was back unwinding on his family farm in north Sacramento where, amid the sound of cattle and goats and adolescent clatter, he claimed that he "is energy."
Pitchfork: You started rapping early. Who were you listening to?
Keak: Too $hort and E-40, Mac Dre, NWA, the X-Clan, Big Daddy Kane, Biz Markie.
Pitchfork: A lot of West Coast artists.
Keak: It's different here. There are more MCs in New York. We're about dope beats and a bassline. It's all about self-expression on the West Coast, not dope MCs or winning freestyle battles.
Pitchfork: What about now? Still sticking with the West Coast?
Keak: I fuck with Geto Boys and Scarface. I fuck with Kool G Rap. I fuck with Nas and Jay-Z. Common. Everyone. And trap music-- the game needed that. Trap is like NWA. It's gutter. But it's its own thing, too. Like, Jeezy's clever, but he's got his own style. I like all of them. Together we ball, divided we fall.
Pitchfork: Have these other rappers influenced your style from Dual Committee to 3X Krazy to now? The way you rap now is a little different from the way you used to rap back in those days.
Keak: I've reinvented myself every year since 1998, and my style's still changing. It's grittier now. I always gotta try something new. And back with 3X Krazy, I was 16, 17-- I'm 27 now. I've grown up. Then I was rapping; now I do music, I write albums. But my distinctive voice and style, people still can't catch it. They're still asking me, "What were you saying on that song?"
Pitchfork: What do you say to them, what your songs are about?
Keak: I'm just talking about what's going on, what's exactly happening right now. If I was upset about something, I wrote a song. There's nothing I can't speak on. And everything I learned is from real-life experience, all first-hand: contracts, record companies, representation, everything. It's not from books: It's coming from the the heart. You can feel my pain, you can hear me turning my pain into a party. I'm not gonna let no one take the fun out of it.
Pitchfork: When you rap, it's a transformation, or a release?
Rapping's a release of the good and the bad-- that's the definition of hyphy. You can't be like that, you can't get hyphy in, like, a business environment. I can be me. I'm energy. Hyphy is energy.
Pitchfork: A lot of people still don't know what makes music hyphy: How it's different from Mobb music, whether it's just uptempo crunk, another flash in the pan, what's new or unique about the style.
Keak: Mobb sounds good on the radio, but it ain't for the club. Hyphy can be played in a club. It's more than that, though: hyphy is a lifestyle. Just like crunk is to them in Atlanta, hyphy's a ritual to us, a religion. It's special. Like, you still can't get crunk off a hyphy beat, but you can get hyphy off a crunk beat. And it's gonna be around-- hyphy's not just gonna last a year.
Pitchfork: Hyphy's just filling the vacuum, after Mobb music lost steam?
Keak: Mobb music never lost steam! Mobb music's for the dope boys, the d-boys. But all the d-boys-- like, Serious Mitchell-- are locked up now; big-time dudes are in jail or dead. New Jack City was based on Serious Mitchell! Gangstas don't live that long. Hyphy learned that lesson and grew. By 1997, 98, 99, hyphy had grown huge, even without radio play.
Hyphy is all in one, Mobb music, party music. Mobb is scraping, ghost-riding the whip, mustang, falcon, chevelle. So hyphy's still Mobb-- we just added life to it. It's an extension of Mobb, a rebirth. I still love it. But hyphy is the next generation. Now, you don't need to be hella cool: you can be you.
Pitchfork: With "Cool" in 1998 you had the first hyphy record.
Keak: I won't take credit. I'm from Oakland. At the same time, I'm doing it for us. That's where we are. We're all in this.
Pitchfork: You came up with the word, right?
Keak: It evolved. In 1992, I called it being "on the hype tip," then it was "highly reactional," then "highly reactionary." And then I called it "hyphy." But now it's more than that, to me: it's super hyphy now.
Pitchfork: And now "Super Hyphie" is on MTV.
Keak: Yeah, MTV just added it. My kids and my nephew are in the video and it's not an act, they're just being themselves. This song means a lot to me, because it was from a stage when I was reinventing myself. People thought "T-shirt, Blue Jeans, and Nikes" would take me to the top. When it didn't, people thought I couldn't do any better-- and Rick Rock produced it! Then Trax [Traxxamillion] did this, a fresh producer, just in his room with his keyboard. I had to prove myself again. But it still takes two. It's collaboration. Teamwork makes dreamwork.
Pitchfork: How did hyphy grow? Support from local radio, the stores, mixtapes?
Keak: I felt like I was a little more than a local artist. I broke that barrier and I never let 'em see me sweat-- I turned that energy into something good. I can show you better than I can tell you! The streets love me, so I got support from the bootlegs. And there are people who've been following me since 3X Crazy. Everyone in it had their own fans-- me, Agerman. I'm not better than them, I appreciate them and let them know you can be me. I'm not like those other rappers: I'm out signing autographs, I talk with my fans, I let them touch me. I'm focused on my fans, not checks. I'm not rich. I fell in love with making the music.
And about two years ago, KMEL started playing our music-- Bay Area music-- again. They gave us hope because, before that, they were ignoring the local artists. Then college kids helped take it outta town. With "Super Hyphie", they took it everywhere, from the Bay back to whatever school they went to. So it started in the streets. I mean, that song didn't even come out on vinyl! The mixtape industry over here's getting bigger every day. But it's nothing like the East Coast yet.
Pitchfork: After all this support, there have been rumors that you've signed to a new label, or that you're about to.
Keak: I haven't signed anything yet. My next move's gotta be my best move.
Pitchfork: So you've stayed independent?
Keak: I'm a free agent. I want the major-label budget for my next album, but I'm too big for the label to pay me. I don't want to be controlled, to be watered-down. Labels were always asking me to do this or do that, saying that I was lacking something. And every time, I did it the next year. Singles? Radio spins? I showed 'em.
Pitchfork: I read that you make the beats, the lyrics, everything.
Keak: I do three songs a day. I'm always ready. I wrote that verse in "Tell Me When to Go" in five minutes. I just came up with it and told 'em to record the track. I'm always ready.
Pitchfork: And after recording it, you give it the "hyphy test"?
Keak: I'm my biggest critic. I want there to be no flaws when you hear it. When I think that maybe it's ready, I just hop in my car-- it's gotta have some bump-- and go to corner stores, youngsters on the block, play it for anyone. If they get into it, I get a reaction, the song passes the hyphy test. If it's just cool, we throw it away; it's not going on the record. But if it makes you wanna move-- seriously-- if it makes you react the same way I felt, then it passes.
Pitchfork: Do you always want to rap or do you have more in mind for the future?
Keak: R&b, poetry, I'd like to do everything. But I'm an entertainer and entertaining is not just music. I can do comedy; I'm one of those guys, I can stand up there with a mic. I'm not gonna freeze. And I got a few groups, the All N Da Doe family, the Farm Boys.
I don't wanna be that guy who's gotta do another album, because he's in the hole, in the red to the labels. I just want to let the Bay Area be seen.
Liberating whatever's bottled up inside is hyphy's ordering premise and Keak's goal. He achieves this through songs that are curiously guileless, noteworthy for steering clear of the rote peacocking and posturing that can drag rap into self-parody. Yet his naïveté is also tinged with a desolation foreign to the post-Native Tongues backpacker variety of "consciousness." These are songs of experience first, innocence second. What you hear in Keak's strained growls is a blend of escapism and catharsis.
The first time I called him, he was in the barbershop for a trim. When I caught him later that afternoon, he was back unwinding on his family farm in north Sacramento where, amid the sound of cattle and goats and adolescent clatter, he claimed that he "is energy."
Pitchfork: You started rapping early. Who were you listening to?
Keak: Too $hort and E-40, Mac Dre, NWA, the X-Clan, Big Daddy Kane, Biz Markie.
Pitchfork: A lot of West Coast artists.
Keak: It's different here. There are more MCs in New York. We're about dope beats and a bassline. It's all about self-expression on the West Coast, not dope MCs or winning freestyle battles.
Pitchfork: What about now? Still sticking with the West Coast?
Keak: I fuck with Geto Boys and Scarface. I fuck with Kool G Rap. I fuck with Nas and Jay-Z. Common. Everyone. And trap music-- the game needed that. Trap is like NWA. It's gutter. But it's its own thing, too. Like, Jeezy's clever, but he's got his own style. I like all of them. Together we ball, divided we fall.
Pitchfork: Have these other rappers influenced your style from Dual Committee to 3X Krazy to now? The way you rap now is a little different from the way you used to rap back in those days.
Keak: I've reinvented myself every year since 1998, and my style's still changing. It's grittier now. I always gotta try something new. And back with 3X Krazy, I was 16, 17-- I'm 27 now. I've grown up. Then I was rapping; now I do music, I write albums. But my distinctive voice and style, people still can't catch it. They're still asking me, "What were you saying on that song?"
Pitchfork: What do you say to them, what your songs are about?
Keak: I'm just talking about what's going on, what's exactly happening right now. If I was upset about something, I wrote a song. There's nothing I can't speak on. And everything I learned is from real-life experience, all first-hand: contracts, record companies, representation, everything. It's not from books: It's coming from the the heart. You can feel my pain, you can hear me turning my pain into a party. I'm not gonna let no one take the fun out of it.
Pitchfork: When you rap, it's a transformation, or a release?
Rapping's a release of the good and the bad-- that's the definition of hyphy. You can't be like that, you can't get hyphy in, like, a business environment. I can be me. I'm energy. Hyphy is energy.
Pitchfork: A lot of people still don't know what makes music hyphy: How it's different from Mobb music, whether it's just uptempo crunk, another flash in the pan, what's new or unique about the style.
Keak: Mobb sounds good on the radio, but it ain't for the club. Hyphy can be played in a club. It's more than that, though: hyphy is a lifestyle. Just like crunk is to them in Atlanta, hyphy's a ritual to us, a religion. It's special. Like, you still can't get crunk off a hyphy beat, but you can get hyphy off a crunk beat. And it's gonna be around-- hyphy's not just gonna last a year.
Pitchfork: Hyphy's just filling the vacuum, after Mobb music lost steam?
Keak: Mobb music never lost steam! Mobb music's for the dope boys, the d-boys. But all the d-boys-- like, Serious Mitchell-- are locked up now; big-time dudes are in jail or dead. New Jack City was based on Serious Mitchell! Gangstas don't live that long. Hyphy learned that lesson and grew. By 1997, 98, 99, hyphy had grown huge, even without radio play.
Hyphy is all in one, Mobb music, party music. Mobb is scraping, ghost-riding the whip, mustang, falcon, chevelle. So hyphy's still Mobb-- we just added life to it. It's an extension of Mobb, a rebirth. I still love it. But hyphy is the next generation. Now, you don't need to be hella cool: you can be you.
Pitchfork: With "Cool" in 1998 you had the first hyphy record.
Keak: I won't take credit. I'm from Oakland. At the same time, I'm doing it for us. That's where we are. We're all in this.
Pitchfork: You came up with the word, right?
Keak: It evolved. In 1992, I called it being "on the hype tip," then it was "highly reactional," then "highly reactionary." And then I called it "hyphy." But now it's more than that, to me: it's super hyphy now.
Pitchfork: And now "Super Hyphie" is on MTV.
Keak: Yeah, MTV just added it. My kids and my nephew are in the video and it's not an act, they're just being themselves. This song means a lot to me, because it was from a stage when I was reinventing myself. People thought "T-shirt, Blue Jeans, and Nikes" would take me to the top. When it didn't, people thought I couldn't do any better-- and Rick Rock produced it! Then Trax [Traxxamillion] did this, a fresh producer, just in his room with his keyboard. I had to prove myself again. But it still takes two. It's collaboration. Teamwork makes dreamwork.
Pitchfork: How did hyphy grow? Support from local radio, the stores, mixtapes?
Keak: I felt like I was a little more than a local artist. I broke that barrier and I never let 'em see me sweat-- I turned that energy into something good. I can show you better than I can tell you! The streets love me, so I got support from the bootlegs. And there are people who've been following me since 3X Crazy. Everyone in it had their own fans-- me, Agerman. I'm not better than them, I appreciate them and let them know you can be me. I'm not like those other rappers: I'm out signing autographs, I talk with my fans, I let them touch me. I'm focused on my fans, not checks. I'm not rich. I fell in love with making the music.
And about two years ago, KMEL started playing our music-- Bay Area music-- again. They gave us hope because, before that, they were ignoring the local artists. Then college kids helped take it outta town. With "Super Hyphie", they took it everywhere, from the Bay back to whatever school they went to. So it started in the streets. I mean, that song didn't even come out on vinyl! The mixtape industry over here's getting bigger every day. But it's nothing like the East Coast yet.
Pitchfork: After all this support, there have been rumors that you've signed to a new label, or that you're about to.
Keak: I haven't signed anything yet. My next move's gotta be my best move.
Pitchfork: So you've stayed independent?
Keak: I'm a free agent. I want the major-label budget for my next album, but I'm too big for the label to pay me. I don't want to be controlled, to be watered-down. Labels were always asking me to do this or do that, saying that I was lacking something. And every time, I did it the next year. Singles? Radio spins? I showed 'em.
Pitchfork: I read that you make the beats, the lyrics, everything.
Keak: I do three songs a day. I'm always ready. I wrote that verse in "Tell Me When to Go" in five minutes. I just came up with it and told 'em to record the track. I'm always ready.
Pitchfork: And after recording it, you give it the "hyphy test"?
Keak: I'm my biggest critic. I want there to be no flaws when you hear it. When I think that maybe it's ready, I just hop in my car-- it's gotta have some bump-- and go to corner stores, youngsters on the block, play it for anyone. If they get into it, I get a reaction, the song passes the hyphy test. If it's just cool, we throw it away; it's not going on the record. But if it makes you wanna move-- seriously-- if it makes you react the same way I felt, then it passes.
Pitchfork: Do you always want to rap or do you have more in mind for the future?
Keak: R&b, poetry, I'd like to do everything. But I'm an entertainer and entertaining is not just music. I can do comedy; I'm one of those guys, I can stand up there with a mic. I'm not gonna freeze. And I got a few groups, the All N Da Doe family, the Farm Boys.
I don't wanna be that guy who's gotta do another album, because he's in the hole, in the red to the labels. I just want to let the Bay Area be seen.
