It’s irrefutable that North America has Hip Hop monopolized. Nevertheless, for those looking to broaden their musical horizons, the art form adopted by our friends from across the pond is well worth a listen. The U.K.’s take on Hip Hop—which is commonly known as Grime—is something that has, thus far, failed to wholeheartedly captivate the minds of Americans. Perhaps it’s the accent or the colloquial language that is apparent over the fairly unappealing, brash beats. The answer is somewhat unclear, however the U.K.’s pool of Hip Hop talent is something to certainly take note of.
When Americans talk of the British Rap scene, it’s likely two names pack the dialogue: Dizzee Rascal and Skepta. However, a certain South London duo by the name of Krept & Konan are looking to add their name to that conversation. The pair have been making noise in the streets of London for over five years now, and during that time they’ve compiled an impressive discography that’s put them, and their city on the global Hip Hop map. Not only have they captivated the attention of their own, but Krept & Konan appear to be making waves in the U.S., too. With co-signs and collaborations from the likes of Rick Ross, Wiz Khalifa and French Montana, as well as recently penning a deal with Def Jam, it appears the pair are on track to make a breakthrough in North America.
Amid a busy rehearsal session, Krept & Konan took some time out to hop on the phone with HipHopDX to chop it up about their debut studio album, the stark differences between U.S. and U.K. Hip Hop, and why they believe they’re destined to become the first British Rap act to successfully translate and gain longevity from the ever-critical North American audience.
Get ready, the Brits are on their way.
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Krept & Konan Chronicle Their Journey To Stardom
HipHopDX: I guess the obvious starting point would be the “Otis” freestyle that you guys did in 2011. That was the first track that got your names out there. Give us a bit of insight into that and about how that came about.
Konan: Basically one of our friends was like, “Yeah, man, there’s a Kanye and Jay Z song called ‘Otis’ and everybody has done a cover of it. I feel like because you two are a duo you should go and do a cover of it.” Me and Krept was like, “Yeah, man.” Because we do a lot of punchlines and metaphors, we just thought we’re gonna get the props so people can kind of understand what we’re saying and make it more light-hearted and comical. Because Jay Z and Kanye’s video was so light-hearted, we wanted to kind of emulate that but in our way. So we did a light-hearted video with props and stuff.
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Krept: We put it out and I realized that it was getting an abnormal amount of feedback. I was getting tweets from Germany and other countries. We didn’t even understand what they were saying but I know they were praising us for “Otis.” What we did is we then got all of our fans to go on Jay Z and Kanye’s original video and post, “Watch Krept & Konan’s version.” [There were like] 20 pages [of comments] on Jay Z and Kanye’s which were just, “Watch Krept & Konan.” And then all [of] the traffic—we just diverted all of the traffic from their video on to our video. And then we started having a war on our page like English vs. American just arguing in the comments and then that just helped the video go viral. We literally woke up the next day and it was on like a million views. By the end of it, it [had] got to like five million views in a couple of days. Then, we got a copyright infringement. Then the video got taken down from YouTube but obviously it was too late because it had done the damage, everyone was talking about it, everyone had seen it. And that was kinda our introduction into the music world.
DX: There were some rumblings online that the word to take the video down came from Jay Z himself. Was there any truth to that?
Krept: Nah, nah, that’s not true at all. Someone started a rumor that Jay Z paid something to take down our video or something like that but that wasn’t true, that wasn’t the case. Literally what happened was because the video was getting so many views, a random YouTube partnership hit us up like, “Yo, you guys can be getting paid for views because you’re getting a lot of views.” They said give us access to your YouTube and we’ll sort it out. They basically claimed on the video saying that we owned the rights and then on the day that all the money was meant to come in, the video got taken down. And then somebody started a rumor that Jay Z got it taken down. But it was literally a simple mistake [of us] trusting some third-party, and then they got the video flagged basically and it got taken down for that purpose. But yeah, it wasn’t nothing to do with Jay Z himself.
DX: Lets fast-forward a little bit. The first time that you got your names out there in the States was when French Montana and Coke Boyz remixed “Don’t Waste My Time.” How did the remix to that record come about?
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Konan: Basically we was planning on doing a remix and then we were just thinking about who we can get on the remix. And then J. Cole and French Montana were in town. I was like [to a friend] tell J. Cole, “Yo, ‘Don’t Waste My Time’ remix.” He was like, “I just left him.” He was like, “Chip’s with French.” So I text Chip, “Yo, tell French ‘Don’t Waste My Time’ remix.” And then, about a couple of hours later, I got a phone call from Chip and he was like, “Yo, French wants to talk to you.” So I was talking to French and he was like, “Yo, man, the song’s dope, I mess with it.” I’m like, “Alright cool.” I’m saying, “What, a remix?” And he’s like, “What, official?” He like’s “Yeah, I’m on it. Send over the beat. I’ll send you my email and forward it over to me. We’ll get it done my bro.” That’s how it kinda happened. We exchanged numbers and stuff and he messaged me like, “Yeah, I’m gonna put it on Coke Boys 4 if that’s cool” and I was like, “Yeah cool, no doubt. I wanna get a video though.” He said, “Yeah, no doubt.” We flew over there last-minute and shot the video on P. Diddy’s roof. We met the REVOLT team and they gave us a location because we didn’t have no where to shoot it. They were like, “You can use the roof.”
DX: Chinx was on that remix as well, right?
Konan: Yeah, R.I.P. to Chinx.
DX: Extremely sad news about his passing. Do you guys have any special memories you want to share about him?
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Konan: He showed us love, man. When we come over to New York and we was shooting the video, man, they showed us love. They were cool, man. They told us to come to the strip club where we were gonna shoot the rest of the video. I remember when we were leaving I was like, “Yo, Chinx, we’re out,” and he was like, “Yo, my brother, holla at me, man. You lot [have a] safe flight.” And that’s what I remember, the last thing he kind of said to me.
Krept: The last thing I remember was when he was looking at our trainers, because we all had sick trainers. Chinx was like, “Yo, you gotta get the trainers in.” And then the cameraman is like filming everyone’s trainers. In the video you see a shot of everyone and their trainers and that was Chinx. Rest in peace.
Krept & Konan Discuss Differences Between U.S. & U.K. Hip Hop
DX: I feel like we’re at a real interesting time in terms of U.K. artists crossing over and becoming successful in the United States. We saw it a little bit with Dizzee Rascal when he came with Boy in da Corner in 2003. Then it kind of died down a little and then came back again when Skepta was on the Grime remix for P. Diddy’s “Hello Good Morning.” Now I feel like you guys are spearheading that surge back to the U.S. Was that the plan all along, to become a little bit universal?
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Konan: The plan was to just be worldwide, man. I feel like when you’re in England you don’t really get passed being in England. You might get a little bit of shine and then it dies down and you just stay in England. I feel like from the States, they get to the world, man. They’re thinking about more worldwide. And I just feel like we’re trying to make that [and] you can get to the worldwide from being from England. I feel like the States is a thing you have to conquer. I feel like they’ve got to accept it because rap kind of started there. I feel if they accept it, the world will accept it. Conquering the U.S. is really a part of the plan of the first steps of conquering the world, I feel like.
DX: Lets talk about Kanye West’s performance at 2015 Brit Awards. You guys where onstage with pretty much the rest of the U.K. grime scene that night. Explain how that came about and, perhaps more importantly, what do you think that look meant for the U.K. scene?
Krept: I feel like the mainstream over here in the U.K. kind of neglect our scene. I think they neglect the urban scene over here so you won’t see an urban artist at the Brits. So the fact that the first time you’ve seen urban artists at the Brits was because of Kanye West is a big statement to our own country. Over here, when Kanye comes, the whole of England is like, “Kanye West! Kanye West! Kanye West!” And then when Kanye comes here, he’s like, “Yeah, I’m messing with these guys. These are the guys that I’m bringing on the stage with me.” It was a statement to the mainstream like, “Look, our scene is powerful. Our scene has influence and people from the other side of the water are saluting our scene so, why don’t you as well?” The first time any of us have been to the Brits was because of Kanye West. I feel like that shouldn’t be the case but it was. I feel like it was a big statement and I praise Kanye for that.”
DX: Did that whole thing come about through Kanye reaching out to Skepta?
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Krept: Yeah, yeah. Kanye reached out to Skepta and said like, “Can you bring everyone?” And Skepta reached out to everyone and brought us. It was really last-minute. He hit us up and said, “Have you got black tracksuits?” We were like, “Yeah, cool.”
DX: It looked hot as hell on that stage with those fire guns.
Krept: [Laughs] it was baking hot! Them fire blazers, oh my God. It was no rehearsal. So that was the first time we went onstage and did our thing. There was no time for rehearsals.
DX: The song that Kanye performed, “All Day,” was, I feel, somewhat of a shock to the U.K. audience that were watching.
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Krept: Yeah. The Brit audience is really mainstream. So when Kanye’s on there and everyone are in black—there were comments of people saying, “It’s a mob. It’s a riot.” They were just overthinking it, you know what I mean? Obviously, that’s our culture. Kanye kind of took the bullet for everyone else.
DX: For the American audience, in both of your opinions, name one song that you feel epitomizes U.K. grime. Perhaps better worded, if they were to start listening to grime, what is the one song you’d recommend for them to go and check out first.
Konan: I think check out Lethal Bizzle “Pow! (Forward).” That’s like the grime anthem. That song is so powerful in the U.K. that it was banned from being played at parties because everyone used to just do mosh pits. With that, when Jay Z came here he jumped on that as well, at his concert he rapped over the beat. I feel like “Pow,” if you wanna know grime, that’s like the first song where it had all the stars on there. It still lives to this day.
Krept & Konan Talk Their Debut Album “The Long Way Home”
DX: Lets talk about your studio album that is right around the corner now. There’s some big features on there from some people from the U.K. and there’s a lot of people from the U.S. on there as well. Give us an introduction to the album, what it’s about and what direction you’ve taken with it.
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Konan: Basically we’re just trying to make an album that everyone can understand on both sides of the [pond] and everywhere around the world, man. I think over here in England, a lot of people don’t understand the lingos and the culture of what we’re doing over here so we kind of tried to make it more simpler for everyone to understand. We tried to make more universal sounding music. And we make rap so I feel like we focus on making rap instead of grime. A lot of people think grime is from the U.K. and that’s what we’re doing but I feel like it’s separate. It’s all the same thing, don’t get me wrong, but it’s separate at the same time.
DX: “Freak Of The Week” is shaping up to be the song of the summer on both sides of the Atlantic. How did that come about?
Krept: Jeremih had a hit called “Don’t Tell ‘Em” and he was in the U.K. and he said he wanted to do a U.K. remix of it. Then someone recommended us. So we hooked up with Jeremih and done a U.K. remix. Then he got booked to perform at the MOBOs where we were performing as well. He said, “I’m ending the MOBOs and I want you lot to do the remix with me at the MOBOs, lets premiere it there.” So yeah, we came out and ended the show with [the remix of] “Don’t Tell ‘Em.” But while we were at the studio making it, Jeremih played us the DJ Mustard beat of “Freak Of The Week.” He was like, “I’ve got this beat, it’s dope.” I was saying to him that that Reggae sample, the “Playground Riddim” sample, that will work here because it’s really popular out here. He was like, “Yeah, we should make it happen. Lets just finish it up.” He started singing the melody and he was like, “Yeah, I’m gonna finish it when I get back to the States.” It was mad because DJ Mustard sent us a bunch of beats but we didn’t want to steer too much to an American producer because our whole album is just U.K. producers and then when Jeremih played that song we were like, “Nah, this one’s undeniable, man.” We finished the album in December and Jeremih sent us the song in January. So we were about to send our album to pre-order and stuff and then when we got the song everyone was like, “Yo, you need to wait. You need to push the album back. You need to add this to the album.” We finished up the song and hit up Jeremih like, “We wanna shoot a video and make this the single.” He was like, “Yeah, I’m on it, man. You came out for me at the MOBOs so it’s only right we make this happen.” Then he came over to the U.K. and we shot the video and we never looked back, man. It’s done extremely well.
DX: I feel like it’s transcending over to the U.S. quite well, too.
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Krept: Yeah. People keep saying, “Yo, they’re playing it in the U.S.” Charlie Sloth said he was out there for Summer Jam and he was like, “I’m out here and I’ve just casually heard ‘Freak Of The Week’ playing on the radio.” I’m like, “This is sick.”
DX: I was reading online that Jhené Aiko inspired the album’s title. Is that right?
Konan: Yeah. Basically, I was driving from a studio session and I was listening to her [Souled Out] album. You know how her music is so zoney you just start thinking? I was just thinking about album names and what I’d called my album if this was my album. I was thinking [that] I wanna make music that you can listen to on a long journey. I was thinking of names like, “Highway Music,” “Motorway Music” and then as I was listening to her album I got to the last song and I wanted to hear the whole song so I took the long way to my house. And then I came up with the name, The Long Way Home.
DX: Does she have any idea that she helped influence the title?
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Konan: I think she does. My videographer spoke to her at Wireless [Festival 2015] a few days ago to try and get a drop for the album and she was like, “I saw their interview, I want to meet them.” Yeah, she’s seen it. So yeah, man, that might turn into a song, you never know.
DX: Was there anyone that you wanted to get on the album that you couldn’t?
Krept: Jhené [Aiko], actually. There was a song on there—we was in America and our engineer sent a song and said, “Yo, someone made this for your album.” And I was listening to it and I was like, “Who is this? Jhené?” And he was like, “Nah, she’s from the U.K.” And I was like, “What?” And we was like, “Imagine if Jhené sang this, it would be sick.” And then we wanted to get her on there but we just couldn’t make it happen but that would have been sick. That was the only collab that we actually wanted to try and make happen. The other [collaborations] were not planned. None of the collabs were really planned, they all just happened. So yeah, that was it I think, Jhené was the only one that we wanted to get on there that we couldn’t get.
DX: You’ve got Konan’s Mum featured on there, right?
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Krept: Yeah, Konan’s Mum features on there.
DX: What was that like?
Konan: It was sick, man. No one can say that they’ve got their Mum on their album. I don’t think no one’s done that yet. I feel like that’s something that’ll live on forever. I’m glad I could make my Mum a part of this as well, so it’s sick.
DX: Just before we wrap it up, is there anything else that you guys want to let the American audience know about the album?
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Krept: I feel like this album will probably be the first album that they can appreciate and understand coming from the U.K. If you wanna get a feel of how the U.K. is, the U.K. lifestyle, get it at the same time and appreciate good lyricism, I feel like this is definitely the album for you. I feel like this could be the first album that the American audience can take seriously.
DX: In my opinion, when listening to English grime or English rap, I feel like the beats are really quick, the language is very colloquial and it’s not necessarily for a global audience. It’s just for the people in England. From the releases off your album so far, it sounds like this project is more universal.
Krept: Yeah, that’s exactly what we’re trying to do with this album. We tried to make it more universal, man, and try and put [the] U.K. on the map. And make them understand that there is rappers over here that can rap as good as Americans.
HipHopDX: What’s next for you guys?
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Konan: We got a tour at the end of 2015, The Long Way Home Tour [in] November.
HipHopDX: Is that just the U.K.?
Konan: Yeah, that’s the U.K. That’s our first ever tour, by ourselves. We’re just warming up, man, and then hopefully next year we can expand it to Europe and expand it to the U.S.
