Krucial Keys - Take the Hood Back
Interview by: Melanie J Cornish
Having been a fundamental factor in the emergence of a young singer song-writer at the turn of the century, Kerry ??€?Krucial??€� Keys is stepping off the Soul Train and jumping right back on the Hip-Hop Express. The reason for this is he has things to say and those things require a thumping bass line, a well crafted beat and a couple of MC??€�s.
Presenting to the world his soon to be released EP
??€?Take the Hood Back,??€� Krucial is once again playing a vital role in developing another young artist by the name of Illy Franchize. Krucial having been a lover of Hip-Hop since he was only a child himself takes the role of mentor as serious as he takes his music. But this project has been built from a frustration of how the way Hip-Hop is being robbed from the streets and leaving everyone a lil dazed and confused as to where it may be going.
Here he talks to Nobodysmiling.com about when he really saw and respected that his role in music was as a producer, he talks of how tracks have lost their personal touch, talks candidly about just how hard it is to keep an eye on our kids and explains just how to take back the hood.
Nobodysmiling.com : You grew up out in Queens right?
Krucial : I was born in Brooklyn, Bed Stuy, Brownsville and moved out to Queens and I have been back and forth to Harlem, but when asked where I am from I always say Far Rockaway Queens. That??€�s where the most memories are from when I was a kid.
Nobodysmiling.com : So you have been around from the Golden era, how did you become involved in music?
Krucial : Basically Hip-hop was what got me started period. I grew up in a house that always played music, old soul music that my parents played, from your Aretha Franklins to your Marvin Gaye??€�s, James Brown. I grew up hearing all that and I enjoyed it and then the hip-hop was coming from outside and Hip-hop was really the first music that I felt like this was my music and I wanted to do something and I actually got into production basically trying to make stuff for me to rap on, not realizing that I was doing production. You know I was doing it by getting a little turntable and getting a little four track and taking the mixes that had the eight second samples where you had to cut it off at the start. You know I just started with little pieces of stuff just to put my voice on and I started getting more and more advance at it. But I never actually looked at myself as a producer.
Nobodysmiling.com : So when did the point come that you looked at yourself as an actual producer?
Krucial : Well I guess after you do your thing and other people are doing music and people wanted to hear tracks and beats and then people started to take notice to what I was doing. But I think what really made me realize by meeting other people that do music and by meeting Alicia, you know she was in various groups when I was doing my rap circuit, you know and we would be at the cipher at West 4th and then bring people back to the crib and have ciphers in the house and just bug out and make tapes, not trying to make records but just vibing out and as time went by and she asked me to do her album that made me look at myself and think ??€?Can I really do this???€�
Nobodysmiling.com : This was Songs in A Minor?
Krucial : Yeah that was the start and from that album on I guess people took me seriously as a producer and I guess I took myself serious as a producer.
Nobodysmiling.com : So you are going full circle now though as you started out as a rapper, then you went to the production and now you are working on rap again with your upcoming EP. Being an emcee as well as a producer how do you feel about us being in what is considered a beat based society?
Krucial : I think it is a beat based society now because of hip-hop being around for the last thirty five years, especially a person who like me who produces or a person like Kanye, there are so many rappers who produce but people don??€�t take them seriously and now everyone cares about the beat first because that you can??€�t deny as it became a beat based society. I look at this as this is the days modern day singer/song writer. You know back in the days it might have been a singer and his guitar or a singer and his piano and they right songs, but nowadays it is an emcee and an mp3 or a singer and their protools and that is why it is becoming more beat based because of technology I believe.
Nobodysmiling.com : Does that bother you in anyway?
Krucial : It doesn??€�t really bother me at all as I just think of what is really going on now as there is so much creativity in music out there but we tend to lean more to what the beat is. You know you can make some of the best beats in the world but if the song is trash it is still trash regardless of if you bop your head to it or not. What bothers me is when you get something where it is really not a quality song but people like it because it is a good beat and its getting all the air time when someone who has a great song who needs to get heard they are not getting a chance, so it could be a problem. To me the problem right now is there isn??€�t a balance right now, we are thinking that that is all there is out there.
Nobodysmiling.com : Do you think hip-hop is in uncharted territory right now as no-one seems to know where it is going?
[ Krucial : Yeah to a certain extent. I look at it in a different perspective as we are in a time with technology when corporations are merging with record labels and there really is only three labels and you can break them down into subsidiaries and even with radio stations one company can own thousands of stations and it is becoming really more controlled to me, the new stuff always comes from the youth, but the biggest difference between today and yesterday is you used to have to stay up late to watch the shows, you know the videos they didn??€�t show all day. There are probably two generations now that since 1996 have been force-fed hip-hop on the radio and it has never been known and it took off so well that these guys at say Clear Channel said we have to get out hip-hop station. I think the people on the underground know where it is going, you know they are documenting hip-hop and bringing artifacts to the Smithsonian right now and there is a big movement to preserve the true essence of Hip-hop so I think people know the direction Hip-hop is going in and just want to keep it from self destructing and being watered down. I feel like we are at the border line of being like jazz and I say that as jazz is always around, you know if you listen to radio stations that claim to play jazz, this is not the same jazz as before. The only real people that are buying this music are the real jazz lovers, so it is always going to be around but it is never going to have that power that it used to have. Hip-hop is a music that came from the streets and the clubs.
Nobodysmiling.com : With jazz you would see some of the most outstanding artists working together, The Dukes and the Coltrane??€�s and the Fitzgerald??€�s and we don??€�t see that in Hip-hop as much anymore.
Krucial : You don??€�t see that in any music anymore as it has become such a beat based. You know you get all these producers who have all these tracks and they submit it to A&R and then they get the CDs of all these tracks and give them to their artists, throw them on the protools and the artists do whatever, whatever and then you get the song and the song is put out and the producer doesn??€�t get to build with the artist. It is really a beat maker base as real production is where the producer works with and brings the best out of the artist. I mean this is what I am saying that combined with being bombarded and programmed by songs you don??€�t really like and just the way the songs are made, there was a real human touch and you lose something you really do, you know certain formulas are going to be catchy and certain formulas are going to be catchy and you like it but you going to be missing something, you know the real human involvement and the spirit behind it. It is really really missing.
Nobodysmiling.com : Is this something that you do specifically, sit in the studio with an artist?
Krucial : Yes, I mean I try my best. A&Rs nowadays ask if you can send the song first, because like I said, these corporations are about their money and they don??€�t want to put out this, they been getting away with murder and now don??€�t want to spend the money having artists and producers fly around, they want to get the song first.
Nobodysmiling.com : Is that because they don??€�t want to put the man hours in to working on a project?
Krucial : Exactly, it is a big reason as why the industry is suffering, so I do say I want to spend time with the artist and they usually ask for the song first so they can hear it or the artist can learn it as all they are thinking is about the money and a lot of these companies, as like I said there are only three labels and these labels are all under a mother company and all of them have to get their budget form that company and that is why all these labels fight with each other to get the attention and the only thing that gets attention is who is getting the spins and who is getting this and who is getting that. You live in a day and an age where people care about how many records somebody sold in a week, its crazy, more than they care about how the product sounds.
Nobodysmiling.com : Well there are albums that are considered classic that don??€�t even get a gold plaque.
Krucial : Right and we are an instant gratification society and people think they have to sell ??€?this much in a week or a month??€� or it??€�s not going to be nothing, but what about those albums that sold ten million over five years?
Nobodysmiling.com : Well like you said people want to see results straight away, there is no patience really now.
Krucial : But now you are not a success if you don??€�t go gold or platinum.
Nobodysmiling.com : Ok so you are the oldest of five kids, do you consider yourself a role model?
Krucial : Yes definitely, I mean I have two sons and I know they watch me and listen to what I am saying and I take time to sit and explain to them why I say things and where I was at the time when I wrote this as I am not a Disney speaking kind of person.
Nobodysmiling.com : So you back up everything you say in your rhymes then to your kids?
Krucial : I take full responsibility for what I say. You know I just don??€�t say ??€?That??€�s just the way it is??€� or ??€?parents should be parents.??€� You know we all need to stop bullshitting as we know kids are influenced by this stuff, PERIOD. I really feel that a lot of things that kids are exposed to nowadays they shouldn??€�t really have, you know all day on the television.
Nobodysmiling.com : Maybe electronic products have stepped in to replace good parenting?
Krucial : I mean I kid with my parents all the time, you know about how they had it easy as before they had to just keep us home but we have to be extra careful as even if you keep your kids home nowadays you still got to worry about the internet and the cable and cell phones. Your kid isn??€�t even safe at home.
Nobodysmiling.com : You are working on a project now called Take the Hood Back, what is the premise behind this?
Krucial : Well it is an EP we have coming out which is eight songs and it is myself and my young artist by the name of Illy Franchize and I have been working with him for a good four or five years now and he is 19 now and it is finally a time to bring up some original material from Krucial Keys, as we have been putting out mixtapes but now its time to put out some original stuff to let everyone know what we are doing in Hip-hop. Its 8 songs giving a little taste of what is to come. You know the full album should be coming in June or depending on how it goes my artist??€�s album might be ready to go by the Fall.
Nobodysmiling.com : There has to be a story behind that title ??€?Take the Hood Back???€�
Krucial : Basically my whole philosophy behind the title of that song is that Take the Hood back is that the Hood represents the culture, your freedom of speech, your mind, what is going on. It??€�s like you said about Hip-hop being beat orientated, it is really time to take it back. The hood used to be a place where somebody??€�s mother would be everyone mother.
Nobodysmiling.com : Are you hoping to take things back to the pre-crack days as I know that was something that disgruntled you?
Krucial : Yeah, if we could take it back to the pre-crack era, I mean you should look forward but the main thing that inspired me is I listen to all types of music and try to understand the artist when I am listening to them and I will be listening to the radio and there are so many references to my hood this and my hood that and it is just like there are so many of us talking about how the hood is so messed up lets stand up for the hood and don??€�t let this happen to your hood. You know we are out here killing each other. Why not stand up and protect our hoods like the Black Panthers did before they demonized their name and made them into a radical hate group. You know their basic philosophy was lets stand up and stop the police brutalities and stop the gentrification and stop the drugs and guns coming in so easy, basically that was the philosophy that sparked it and I looked at it and I just took it past that. Even the culture, you got people all day on TV wanting to tell you what Hip-hop is and what it aint. If they take it from us and sold it back to us we are all confused, you know it was taken from us and we don??€�t know what it is now. You know I was in a place where an Elder told me, one way they would catch Africans to bring them over here was they would trick them by using the drums because when they heard certain drums they would think it was a celebration, so they would come to the shores to see what was going on and they captured and ambushed a lot of people and I think that is what is going on with Hip-hop, they are using that beat to get you and we are being ambushed. It is being taken away from us and that is what the whole philosophy of taking the hood back is.
Nobodysmiling.com : You just opened for Rakim I believe was that in promotion for the EP?
Krucial : Yeah that was the Lyricists Lounge and it went great, we had a full house and it was a great response that was at BB Kings here in NYC.
Nobodysmiling.com : Are you doing more touring for the EP?
Krucial : Yeah we are just getting things together.
Nobodysmiling.com : So you are still doing your thing with the R&B?
Krucial : Yeah its just like I am taking this time to go back to my roots and complete the full circle because instead of sitting around and complaining I am trying to get out there and make a difference by putting out my EP and bringing out my artist, who through my tutoring knows the history and knows the real sense of what hip-hop is, but has that youthful spirit that will spark the generation and that??€�s what it is. You have your teenyboppers out there because it is easier to cater to the youth as you can fool them and that??€�s what it is. If you want to keep something alive you have to feed them and like I said now they are being force fed garbage and I think I am making a difference by bringing in kids from that group that really feel Hip-hop that have their older brothers and Uncles let them know what it is and they want to make a difference but all that peer pressure makes them say ??€?no this is hot.??€� We need more voices like Alicia, you know she is out there representing the females but she is not out there in her bra and panties singing, you need that other image and you need that balance and that is what I have a problem with nowadays, you need that balance.
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