MAC Media
Kidz in the Hall are back with their third album The Land of Make Believe. The Land of Make Believe eschews traditional Hip-Hop formulas as Double-O's production is sample free, upbeat, and happy. Naledge even tries his hand at singing al la Andre 3000.
The Land of Make Believe is different, which is good.
I had a spirited conversation with Naledge and Double-O about their new album, The Land of Make Believe.
SS: Why did you name the album The Land of Make Believe?
Double-O: We had a bunch of different titles. Naledge is the designated title-guy for most albums. He did every single album title. I always pressure him into finding the album title. This time he did it unbeknownst to him. There's a song called Flickin' on the album and literally the first line of the song says, "Live life like make believe." We were 6 or 7 songs in and it was one of those songs that painted a perfect picture of what the feeling of the album was. It's a personal fight between what is real and what is imaginary in the industry and in your head. Songs like Traffic and Flickin' are ideas that are not necessarily delusions of grandeur but illusions of grandeur. Like, "Yeah man I'm at the club, I'm doing this, I'm doing that, I'm feeling good," but that's really only surface things to what's really going on. The industry that we're in is very artificial but there are real lives attached to it--so sometimes imaginary things affect your real life. On the other side the dreams that you have before success is attained are very imaginary. You feel like man I'm going to be number one at whatever! But until that happens people think that you're delusional, but you have to live in that dream in order to achieve it. If not, then you're not really focused on making those dreams a reality.
SS: In your career have you had a lot of people tell you that you'll never make it or you're just dreaming?
Double-O: Luckily there hasn't been a crazy amount of those. The thing to me that is more bothersome in my career that I've we've tried to rectify with this new album is indifference. Indifference to me is a worse reaction than a no. Because no's mean you care enough about that person or that product that you don't like it or don't think it will happen but you take the time to listen. Yes's are you took the time to listen or you love it. On those two extremes there is some type of involvement or caring behind what goes into your statement. Indifference is, I don't care enough to go either way. To me that's a worse thing. For us some of it happens because people threw us in this hipster group and people think we're all interchangeable. They think we're different colors of the same outfit. Sometimes they may want to wear the blue one on Monday and the red one on Wednesday, but with this album we want to make it where you wear the blue one every day. You love it that much, that you want to wear it. We had to make it more personal for us to hopefully create that connection.
SS: I read somewhere that the album contains no samples. Was there a conscious effort to not use samples on the album?
Double-O: Yeah, for me being the producer it was one of those things where I like to consistently challenge myself. I see a huge issue with technology making it so anybody could make a beat--especially sample based. So it was one of those things where I wanted to push myself further as a producer and in doing that make our product more individual. You can't replicate what's coming out of my head. Doing it this way made it a little more personal.
SS: What equipment did you use to make the beats on the album?
Double-O: For the last three albums I've used Reason. When I use live instruments I have musician friends. The homie Andy is Just Blaze's assistant over at Bassline [studios] and he played the live guitars on the album. A lot of the keys that I didn't play are done by my homeboy Rob. The trumpet parts are played by Rob as well. 90% of the record I played out myself in Reason and even the songs that I co-produced with Just were done in Reason.
SS: Talk about the single Jukebox.
Double-O: It's the single, it's out, it feels good, and it makes your girl wanna dance! That was like the last record we did during the summer. Because a lot of the album is so very personal, once we purged that we were like, OK let's have a little bit of fun. Jukebox and this other song L_O_V_E were the only two records that Naledge and I did together in New York. It was just about being a bit more upbeat after we dealt with heavier topics.
SS: The video was dope man. Who came up with the concept of the video with all the girls and [stuff]?
Double-O: BB Gun. BB Gun is very dope and thinks very outside the box. The song itself is a conversation between Naledge and a girl. Rather than it be about being at a club kicking it and hollering at this one girl, let's make it a little more Avant-garde with the camera tricks. The idea to do it that way versus a single shot came from them. I love working with people that you can creatively vibe with.
SS: Who is this dude talking at the beginning of the song Traffic? He sounds like my drunk brother-in-law.
Double-O: That's Coldhard.
SS: From Crucial Conflict? That's funny.
Double-O: One day I'm going to release the entire thing. We were in Chicago working on a few records in the summer and he was there. He's one of those dudes that will just come into your section while you're kickin' it and he'll have a crazy story about when Crucial Conflict was at top of the game back in the day. He'll be like, "Aw man I remember when I freaked on Queen Latifah at the Grammy party," Traffic is another one of those beat my chest records like, don't be like Mike, be like me. It felt like some pimp-talk stuff anyway so we had him come in and represent that. He came in and listened to the record a few times and did his thing. Coldhard is one of those dudes that's always inspirational.
SS: The song Out To Lunch is hard man. That's my favorite song on the album, how did that one come together?
Double-O: It's a funny thing. Naladge called me and said, "Man I just want you to make me one of them beats that I could just rap on." He just wanted one of them joints that he could just open up on. Basically that was me rather than making a fake A Milli like everyone else was doing with 808's, claps, and snares and having people rap on it, I was like man I want to do this my way. It has 808's on it but the 808's make up the melody for the beat. They're distorted, and I played notes. That and the drum break became the foundation for it. I took that over to Naledge and he murdered it. I guess it served its purpose. Both of his verses are not standard 16 bar verses.
SS: Naledge what's your take on Out To Lunch?
Naledge: It's very simple, I just felt like we didn't have a record where I just got to rap. It's a straight forward Hip-Hop record with a good throwback feel to it. It allowed me to open up lyrically. I just wanted to do something to a beat that people could cypher over. Everything was free styled, the verses and the hooks. I listened back to it and added ad-libs. Everything was free styled that's why the verses don't have any real formatting to them.
SS: How has the group grown since The In Crowd?
Naledge: We've grown in the sense that we're more individual and more unique. That's the evolution of the sound. I think it's purposeful, we've found our purpose. There's a point where you're crawling to walk, there's a point where you're walking to run, and there's a point where you're running to try to win gold medals and [stuff]. At this point we're beyond learning how to crawl, walk, or run. We already know how to operate and make good songs now we're trying to leave a mark--something that could be historic and leave a legacy. That's where we are as people and we're finding a way to convey that on every record. Once that happens its effortless because it's art imitating life. It's seamless being able to take things that you observe and immediately put them into songs and tap into that energy around you. That just comes from being more emotionally free, mentally free, spiritually free, sexually free, going to the club and getting drinks for free, watches for free, clothes for free...
Double-O: We swag surfin', swag surfin'!
SS: What made you want to sing on the song Simple Life?
Naledge: That's what I felt like doing. That's what I wanted to do. My homie Picnic from Dallas made a song called Save It For Another Day and I told him, man I wish I could sing and make a song like that. He said you can sing and make a song like that, no one is stopping you, just put some Melodyne or Autotune on your [stuff]. I told him to send me something that sounds similar to that and I'll write a song to it. I asked him to do background vocals on it because I was real ashamed of my voice and he was like nah its cool just put the effects on it and send it to Double-O. I sent it to Double-O and my manager Dan and they liked the song, it just needed to be tweaked. Amanda Diva got on the record and made it sound a lot fuller and bigger. The whole point of the song was to sing. I wanted to sing about the simple life and the things that I enjoy. I didn't want to rap and bog people down. I wanted to say that I like to sit on the curb and drink Hennessey. I like to go out at night and sip champagne. I wanted to say simple things. I didn't want to rhyme and have to give you similes. I just wanted to come up with a cool melody and say what I liked to do. The melody and the words are supposed to catch you. It's really about song writing. I'm more than just a rapper, I'm a song writer.
SS: I'm from Chicago, you're from Chicago, I have to ask you who is your all-time favorite MC from the crib?
Naledge: Me.
SS: Besides you.
Naledge: I like me better than any rapper on this planet, Jack. Put that in the article. How 'bout that? A'int no rapper better than me fam. How 'bout that? But if you wanna know who influenced me I could tell you that.
SS: OK.
Naledge: Common influenced me, Twista influenced me, Do or Die influenced me, but I feel like I'm better than all of them so it's cool.
SS: OK. What's the next single off the album?
Double-O: Possibly Take Over The World. That's what it's looking like right now. Everybody is really excited about that song. It kind of really marks the shifting for us musically and they really want to get it out so I think that's the next one.
SS: Are you guys going on tour?
Double-O: Yeah we're out for the next 5 weeks. We're out with 88-Keys, Donnis, and Izza Kizza.
For more info: http://www.kidzinthehall.com/
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