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Kool Keith Sounds Off

Kool Keith set an alternative course for rap before the term "alternative rap" even existed. With the Ultramagnetic MCs – especially on the classic Critical Beatdown – Keith's distinctively nasal, staccato delivery, free verse rhyme schemes, and absurdist metaphors greatly influenced the evolution of hip hop.

Keith later adopted new identities, such as Dr.Octagon, the far-out character credited with the sci-fi masterpiece Dr. Octagonecology and the ultra-lewd Sex Style. There's also Dr.Dooom, and the amazing character on the cover of Black Elvis/Lost In Space. He's also joined forces with Ice T in The Analog Brothers, and released Masters of Illusion with Motion Man and Kut Masta Kurt. And oh, yeah, he's also known as Kool Keith, responsible for such albums as last year's Matthew.

Here's what he told Andrew Hultkrans...

On mental health: "I'm still crazy. I will still stick a screwdriver in your back if I have to. I was in the mental hospital because I'm a quick-tempered guy. It's like with Dr. Dooom, if I didn't write that stuff, I probably would be a mad psycho, someone who spends the rest of his life in jail. I think rap saved me, allowing me to get out a lot of my pressures on paper. At the hospital, I was getting therapy about knowing my own strength, because at the time I felt like I could just go up and punch a gorilla in the face. I actually felt like going into the Bronx Zoo at times, climbing over the cages and punching the gorilla up in the face."

On record covers: "I just need my friend to take a simple picture of me – with a wig on – and then put the shit on a graphics computer. Those kind of covers blow out major record company covers. Major companies take two hundred years to work on album cover and it looks like a piece of shit. With the computer, you got these guys just punching a few keys, adding a few colors, sticking a few gorillas here and there, and the shit looks bomb."

On studio equipment: "I travel to Europe and Hong Kong to buy my shit, while everyone's going to Sam Ash to get the Trinity keyboard. I order a lot of vintage shit from way over in Africa. When motherfuckers go into the studio with me they don't see a silver keyboard, they see fucking red keyboards, purple keyboards, shit that got different stuff on it. They don't know what the fuck it is."

On his tastes: "I don't buy what everybody's following. I buy them odd independent CDs with the graphics and all that."

 

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