This interview was conducted and written by Souleo for Sixshot.com

Going astray from the music industry status quo often has one of two effects.  One: you are immediately cast out of the mainstream, marginalized, and left to vibe and groove in perpetual obscurity.  You might as well sign-up for open-mic nights at your local café.  Two: if you have enough talent, and a team with the right marketing and business strategy you can stand alone in the spotlight as the originator of your own successful musical identity.  Say hello to fame, fortune, and longevity!

For the Trinidad-born, Toronto-raised hip-hopper K-os (whose name stands for “Knowledge of Self”), it seems that he’s been on the borderline of either outcome ever since his 2002 debut album, Exit.  While he is virtually one of every major music critic’s favorite artists he has yet to make the global impact that would match his wonderfully complex and conscious rhymes and musical dexterity.

Now with his third critically-acclaimed album, Atlantis-Hymns for Disco, K-OS continues to expand the heights of hip-hop and demonstrate that he’s not afraid to go astray—wherever it may lead him.

The fearless and talented hip-hopper talked to Sixshot about his “drinking problem,” having a thing for Lindsay Lohan, the competitive nature of Canadian hip-hop, insecurities, his biggest mistake, not feeling “black” enough, and more.

In the title of the album is Hymns for Disco.  What do you mean by that?

I guess that came from partying a lot.  I would come home and feel pretty empty after partying.  I don’t do any dugs or anything but I drink a lot as Canadians do.  I would go out to clubs and come home at like two or four in the morning and would want to listen to something.  But I couldn’t listen to anything because it was so depressing or it was the type of songs I just danced to.  So these songs actually came from that Sunday Morning.  I wrote that song and I cried after I wrote it because it was so true about how I was feeling.  I was so happy to party but felt so guilty and had such an empty feeling.  I wondered how many people feel like this?  I would show up the next day in sunglasses pretending like everything was okay but I didn’t feel like that.  I felt wrong.  So I think the music was like righteous songs—something to rub you down. 

So just to clarify you don’t have a drinking problem, right?

[Laughs]  I’m a Canadian!  I was born with a drinking problem!  If I have to be really truly honest I’ve gotten fed up with myself before and stopped drinking for weeks and it’s nothing for me.  One of my friends said it was because I was so bored.  At some point I was reading so many books a week and going to the library.  I was kind of a nerd but I got tired of taking in so much information.  It was like five years of my life just taking in information.  I stopped going out.  All I did was read or Google things because my brain was thirsty.  I’m seeing this as the releasing of that. 

So we won’t be hearing of any Lindsay Lohan or Britney Spears type stories about you in rehab?

No.  I might end up dating her at some point. 

Which one?

Lindsay Lohan.  [Laughs] No I’m playing.  I like Lindsay Lohan. I have a thing for Lindsay Lohan as most do.

Unlike many American hip-hop albums your albums rarely feature vocal collaborators.  Is that intentional?

The people I wanna do songs with are very hard like Andre 3000.  I talked to him a couple of times.  The guys or girls I wanna do songs with are next level like Norah Jones or something.  They’re not people you can roll up on and say “Let’s do a collabo,” they’re people who I would have to know.  And because I’m not in America it’s difficult.  In Canada there are a lot of people I can collaborate with but everyone is trying to get their own identity.  It’s very difficult to figure out who you can collaborate with and how do you make that happen?

So is there no unity in Canadian hip-hop?

America is an older brother in hip-hop and Canada is a younger brother.  We want to show the family and the older brother that we’re just as good.  So [Canadian rappers] just want to do things on their own.  I don’t think the personalities have been defined that much for people to feel that they’ve exploited themselves in a good way—like wrote enough music and did enough things in their career.  Everyone just wants to prove themselves.  They also know this is the renaissance period where they’re the leaders.  So they want to set up their legacy as much as possible.  It’s very competitive. 

You once stated that there’s a lot of ignorance concerning the hip-hop scene in Canada.  Why do you think there is ignorance to hip-hop culture in Canada?

Because we’re a new country and our ethnic culture has not had a lot of time for different experiences.  America had 455 years of slavery and now they’re moving on from that, but they have that group experience to draw from.  They’ve got history and culture.  We have that too but most of us have our culture from our parents.  Whether you’re from India, Japan, Trinidad, or Jamaica, most of us are aided in our reality by looking at ourselves through the eyes of whatever country we come from and our parents come from.  Then sometimes not even that because some of us have never been back [home].  So it’s a weird situation because a Canadian is truly somebody existing in a country with a new start and a blank canvas.

One of the themes I noticed on this album which I’ve noticed on your past albums and interviews that you always seem to be on a continuous journey of self-discovery.  So where are you now during that journey of self-discovery?

Where I am right now is knowing that I’m super excited about making new music, hearing new sounds, and updating where I am right now musically.  I pretty much feel like I can go anyway now.  I think everyone has a view of my records as being hip-hop or not hip-hop, or rock or not rock, or derivative or anything like that and that’s been a debate as I’ve seen critics write about my records.  It’s very touchy for me because I do consider myself a hip-hopper and someone who grew up informed by hip-hop music and a fan of hip-hop.  But that’s changed over the years.  So I’m not afraid to go in any direction now despite what people say.

So do you want to be identified as a rapper, hip-hopper, or none of the above?

Well I think that hip-hop is not just necessarily about the music you make.  Hip-hop is the way you live your life.  People are quicker in the press to call me a rapper than they are hip-hopper.  I don’t hear anyone really called a hip-hopper.  It’s always like rapper Kanye West or MC person.  I think people are scared to mention that word because I don’t know if people really know what that means.  People say, “He’s a punk rocker.”  They get that, they get the lifestyle behind punk rock, but they don’t get the lifestyle behind hip-hop.  So the label is musician, soul artist, poet, and all those things out of mind.  But I do consider myself someone who learned about music through sampling, hip-hop, and through the four elements.  All those things were the atmosphere through which my music was coming about. 

You mentioned that a lot of people may not understand the lifestyle behind hip-hop.  So what’s your definition of being a hip-hopper?

It’s very much like punk rock.  It’s anti-establishment, doing things for yourself, originality, friendship, camaraderie, battling, style, longevity, and youth.  Those are the things that come to my head when I hear hip-hop. 

In a previous interview you once mentioned making mistakes.  What’s one of your pivotal mistakes in life?

Investing too much time and thought into what other people think about me and my music.  One of the most enlightening things I read about artistry is, “Artists should never question what they did in the moment.”  That doesn’t mean if it’s right or wrong because we can all look back and say, “Sorry I made a mistake,” but when it comes to artistic influence, a chord you played, or something you were sure about in the moment you still needed to do that to know you needed to do it better. 

When I start to mediate on those words I start to see how much personal time I had invested in loving music, nodding my head in the studio, laughing, and crying to the music I made.  Then when it was done I started getting jitters because now it’s like everyone’s gonna hear it.  So I think that’s evaporating for me slowly.

I also read that you were very insecure during your high school years.  So personally where are you in terms of your self-identification?

Where am I?  Insecure?  I think that’s something that will never really leave me.  I consider it in my heart a form of humility.  I tired the ego game.  I tried those shoes on and it didn’t fit me.  It was a very tight fit.  It worked for a while but then you start feeling uncomfortable. 

And that’s reflected in the song, "Man I Used to Be", from your last album Joyful Rebellion.

Yeah, for sure.  I think I tried a lot of things but on that song I’m revolving slowly back to my 11-15 years of age when I started to pick up instruments, play them, write poems, and I had this magical vibe.  As soon as I hit 16 and 17 and started being influenced by my surroundings in high school I started to question myself.  I was such a strange kid.  Being a black man that wore a yellow polo shirt with a purple tie or something—people didn’t know what was going on with me.  I watched that movie I, Robot, the other day and the robot asked, “What am I?” of its maker.  I think I asked myself that all through high school.  I was so conflicted from my dad’s minister roots to my mom’s hard core ghetto reality.  Those things collided in me and I felt like I had to choose sometimes.

You once mentioned that one of the reasons for you not having as much mainstream success in America is because America has pretty much defined the world’s view of what black people are, and that you don’t necessarily fit into that stereotype.  Do you still feel that same way now? 

Sometimes when I show up at a place I feel like a certain type of consciousness is showing up with me that is anti-African-American.  It’s not because I don’t respect those people—my heroes have been Julius Irving, Martin Luther King, Jr. Malcolm X, Michael Jackson—all these people are people I have looked up to.  But people have to be okay with allowing other people in the world to be black and they have to accept it.  My back is up against the wall and I got a little bit of edge on me because I don’t have to talk like you, have your accent, dress like you, or wear my clothes baggy like you for you to respect me.  You should be able to look at me and go, “You know what you’re me because we’re the same creed and culture and that’s it.”  So it’s kind of strange.  I’m just a Canadian! [Laughs]  At the end of the day I’ve been allowed to grow the way that I want to grow. 

What else can we look forward to from you?

I’m gonna start a new record really soon.  Hopefully by September I’ll have a new record.  We’ll see.  I got a lot of ideas.  I don’t want to give it away but I kind of know the theme that I’m going with this time.  I’m super excited about it!

For more information on K-OS please visit:
www.k-osmusic.com