Music

416 rapper Ian Kamau doesn’t mince words

by Darcy MacDonald

Toronto wordsmith, soul singer and rapper Ian Kamau says he’s still hoping for that day when he drops a record and we all run out to the store that day to get it. Though that wasn’t exactly the case with his 2011 record One Day Soon, he’s humble enough to play down his apperances on at least two records that received that kind of fanfare already — notably K-os’s Exit and Shad’s TSOL.

Ian Kamau. Photo by John Hargraft

Toronto wordsmith, soul singer and rapper Ian Kamau says he’s still hoping for that day when he drops a record and we all run out to the store that day to get it. Though that wasn’t exactly the case with his 2011 record One Day Soon,  he’s humble enough to play down his apperances on at least two records that received that kind of fanfare already — notably K-os’s Exit and Shad’s TSOL.

Talking to Kamau earlier this week, the first thing I learned is that Kamau knows Montreal hip hop history so well that within three minutes, we’re discussing OGs Butta Babies and Nomadic Massive

“Butta Babies!” Kamau enthuses. “That’s foundational, man! Remember O’Shea did a video with Motion? If you look real close, I am in that video.”

Darcy MacDonald: So, you got a mayor, we got a mayor — which one did you think was gonna end up in jail first?

Ian Kamau: For all this talk about Rob Ford, even when he was a councillor and whatnot, he’s always been generally just not a cool person, throwing temper tantrums and stuff in city hall. So I was surprised, like I’m always surprised, like when Stephen Harper got it, like when George W. Bush got in for a second term. I’m always surprised that people are like, “Yeah, let’s vote this guy back in!”

I figured they would have kicked (Ford) out a long time ago. And apparently he’s involved in something that’s keeping him in, even though it’s totally ridiculous, as far as I’m concerned. Now I only found out this morning about the (arrest) situation with the Montreal mayor.

DM: That just happened this morning!

IK: Oh, I thought I was just not up! I didn’t realize that.

DM: Well, the good news is you’re coming through in a most definitely interesting week for Montreal. Do you consider yourself a political artist, or is that just one aspect of your art?

IK: I look at it like a part of life, you know? Politics is a part of life, just like love is a part of life, or like buses are a part of life (laughs). Politics is one of those things that is part of how we live and part of the society we are in, and it affects us.

I don’t consider myself a political artist. I hate the term “conscious” artist — I think it totally pigeonholes you, and I definitely think I’ve been pigeonholed by it. I’m a person, and I pay attention to what is going on around me. One of those things is, you know, you live in a society, you deal with social issues; you live in a democracy, or that’s what they call it, and you deal with political issues. It affects your life, and I speak about those things as a part of life in the same way that I speak about love, or heartbreak, or education, or music, or people in general.

DM: You blend speaking, singing and rapping very well, but do you distinguish between those three forms of expression when you create?

IK: Definitely. Sometimes I feel like, say a song like “Black Bodies,” which is on the record, I don’t like to do that song live with music, because there are just so many words that people miss what I’m saying because there’s so much going on. It’s one thing to have something on a record because you can back over it and over it, but it’s another thing when I feel, as with that particular song, that I want people to feel what I’m saying, and it’s so fast and so intense that when I do it live, I actually try not to do it with the music. Maybe the first verse or something, then when it gets more intense in terms of the storyline, I’ll cut the music out. I find it changes the mood.

I feel you can emote way more, or at least in a more dynamic way, when you’re singing. There are significantly less words than when you’re rapping, and sometimes it is just a more pure emotion. There are a lot of songs from, like, Broken Bells or Radiohead where I don’t even know what they’re saying. Sometimes I don’t know what Thom Yorke is even saying — often I don’t — but it’s just like, that the pure emotion of his voice, and the music, put into the same thing. So it depends on the mood you wanna set, or how you wanna change the mood. ■
Ian Kamau performs as part of the Suoni per il Popolo festival and Howl!, with Emrical and Dark Matter at la Sala Rossa (4848 St-Laurent) tonight, Friday, June 21, 9 p.m., $12

Posted in Music

by Darcy MacDonald

Contributor
Darcy MacDonald has been with Cult MTL since day one, a decade ago. Which means today, he’s a middle-aged white guy (albeit one more interested in other people’s ideas than in his own). He was previously a columnist and reporter for Montreal Mirror, and has also created content (FKA “written”) for RBMA, Noisey, Montreal Gazette, The National Post and probably some other great places he’s forgotten about. Music, culture, community and miscellaneous questions in search of answers all come across his desk, sooner or later.

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