K-OS - CAN'T FLY WITHOUT GRAVITY (09.04.2015) [OFFICIAL ALBUM THREAD]
SoundCloud Widget
“I was initially scared to release this song – it was supposed to be on my last record Black On Blonde, but I was too shook to release it,” K-OS told Okayplayer He went on to explain:
“It’s a vulnerable tune. Sometimes in rap you always wanna present the hardest most secure side of yourself. So when you create a track that embodies a child like essence it’s confusing simply because you’re not a child anymore. At the end of it all ‘Spaceship’ takes me back to the record JoyfuL RebelLion – before I was known and before I had an image to protect. It’s like a short biography of my rap life. And even though it’s not the hardest or darkest track in the world, fact is human beings aren’t always hard and dark. How would you know what was dark If you didn’t experience the light? A knife can’t cut itself.”
OKP Premiere: K-OS Shares The Postive Anthem “Spaceship” Ahead Of New LP
@jcraft
@bangbreh
@Batch_Monster
@ogc163
@JulesWinfield
@NormanConnors
@Car RamRod
@943oh5
@The 3rd Number
@Brady-Carter
@Northern Son
@AquaCityBoy
@Larry Legend
@frush11
@illadope
@julesocean
“I was initially scared to release this song – it was supposed to be on my last record Black On Blonde, but I was too shook to release it,” K-OS told Okayplayer He went on to explain:
“It’s a vulnerable tune. Sometimes in rap you always wanna present the hardest most secure side of yourself. So when you create a track that embodies a child like essence it’s confusing simply because you’re not a child anymore. At the end of it all ‘Spaceship’ takes me back to the record JoyfuL RebelLion – before I was known and before I had an image to protect. It’s like a short biography of my rap life. And even though it’s not the hardest or darkest track in the world, fact is human beings aren’t always hard and dark. How would you know what was dark If you didn’t experience the light? A knife can’t cut itself.”
OKP Premiere: K-OS Shares The Postive Anthem “Spaceship” Ahead Of New LP
@jcraft
@bangbreh
@Batch_Monster
@ogc163
@JulesWinfield
@NormanConnors
@Car RamRod
@943oh5
@The 3rd Number
@Brady-Carter
@Northern Son
@AquaCityBoy
@Larry Legend
@frush11
@illadope
@julesocean
K-os on beer crowds, Canadian artists and Pan Am’s closing ceremony
Kheaven Brereton (the alt-rapper better known as k-os) not only has a new album on the way (Can’t Fly Without Gravity, Aug. 28), he’s collaborated with Ontario’s Beau’s Brewery on Golden Vox, a rye pale lager with a kiss of whisky (in stores in October). We spoke with him about beer crowds and about Sunday’s Pan Am Games closing ceremony, starring Kanye West, a performer not to everyone’s taste.
You’ve partnered up with Beau’s Brewery on a new beer. What kind of beer do you normally go for?
When I was living in California, I was on a tour. One of the bands was called Rx Bandits, and their favourite beer was Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. I tried it, and I just lost it. I said this is my thing. It was my first find, and that’s when I started to own my own taste. I put Sierra Nevada on a pedestal, but I think my own beer is better.
This weekend in Bandshell Park they’re holding Toronto’s Festival of Beer, which you’ve previously played. What’s a beer crowd like?
A beer fest crowd is a little bit more rambunctious. It’s not drinking shots in a dark bar. People are outside, they’re tasting these different things. It feels like a harvest festival, where something is being celebrated. There’s a smorgasbord feel to it, and the whole tasting thing I think leaves them open to someone on stage that might be unconventional.
You played at Harbourfront, for the Panamania festival. What was that crowd like?
There would be no way to categorize the crowd. Canada touts the multicultural. What separates Canada from America is that we’re a real melting pot. So, to be honest, I didn’t really feel much of a difference between my Panamania show and a regular show, playing Toronto, Calgary or Vancouver. It’s a beautiful thing.
I understand your family was there.
My brother brought out my parents and didn’t tell me. My dad was just sitting there. It’s very hard to be a rock star with your dad staring at you from the fifth row.
What’s your take on Kanye West headlining the Pan Am Games closing ceremony this weekend, and the petition to have him removed from the bill?
Canada is going through something now. A lot of the biggest artists in the world are from Canada – Justin Bieber, Drake. So what it means to be Canadian now, in 2015, has changed, to the point where you’re going to get Kanye West to close the Pan Am Games and everyone is going to go “wait a second.” They don’t understand. They think it should a Canadian artist.
Do you agree?
Kanye West is Pan-American. So there is no real argument.
Don’t you think the protest has more to do with his personality than with his passport?
Kanye is a controversial, edgy person. I’ve met him a couple of times. He seems to be an interesting, artistic guy. Who knows how much of what he puts out there is for the sake of media.
Like Bob Dylan?
Right. There’s a long history of people not liking people for their politics. This happens every generation. We can’t get old and get mad because somebody is doing things differently than everybody else.
Do you think the petition smacks of provincialism?
I’m a fan of Zen Buddhism. To know what something is, you have to know what something else is. We can’t know what’s really Canadian, without going outside of Canada. Listen, there are artists in Canada, if you ask an American they wouldn’t even know they’re Canadian. They’re surprised to learn that Ryan Gosling is from Cornwall, Ont. So, the lines are more blurred more now. This is the world we live in.
Kheaven Brereton (the alt-rapper better known as k-os) not only has a new album on the way (Can’t Fly Without Gravity, Aug. 28), he’s collaborated with Ontario’s Beau’s Brewery on Golden Vox, a rye pale lager with a kiss of whisky (in stores in October). We spoke with him about beer crowds and about Sunday’s Pan Am Games closing ceremony, starring Kanye West, a performer not to everyone’s taste.
You’ve partnered up with Beau’s Brewery on a new beer. What kind of beer do you normally go for?
When I was living in California, I was on a tour. One of the bands was called Rx Bandits, and their favourite beer was Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. I tried it, and I just lost it. I said this is my thing. It was my first find, and that’s when I started to own my own taste. I put Sierra Nevada on a pedestal, but I think my own beer is better.
This weekend in Bandshell Park they’re holding Toronto’s Festival of Beer, which you’ve previously played. What’s a beer crowd like?
A beer fest crowd is a little bit more rambunctious. It’s not drinking shots in a dark bar. People are outside, they’re tasting these different things. It feels like a harvest festival, where something is being celebrated. There’s a smorgasbord feel to it, and the whole tasting thing I think leaves them open to someone on stage that might be unconventional.
You played at Harbourfront, for the Panamania festival. What was that crowd like?
There would be no way to categorize the crowd. Canada touts the multicultural. What separates Canada from America is that we’re a real melting pot. So, to be honest, I didn’t really feel much of a difference between my Panamania show and a regular show, playing Toronto, Calgary or Vancouver. It’s a beautiful thing.
I understand your family was there.
My brother brought out my parents and didn’t tell me. My dad was just sitting there. It’s very hard to be a rock star with your dad staring at you from the fifth row.
What’s your take on Kanye West headlining the Pan Am Games closing ceremony this weekend, and the petition to have him removed from the bill?
Canada is going through something now. A lot of the biggest artists in the world are from Canada – Justin Bieber, Drake. So what it means to be Canadian now, in 2015, has changed, to the point where you’re going to get Kanye West to close the Pan Am Games and everyone is going to go “wait a second.” They don’t understand. They think it should a Canadian artist.
Do you agree?
Kanye West is Pan-American. So there is no real argument.
Don’t you think the protest has more to do with his personality than with his passport?
Kanye is a controversial, edgy person. I’ve met him a couple of times. He seems to be an interesting, artistic guy. Who knows how much of what he puts out there is for the sake of media.
Like Bob Dylan?
Right. There’s a long history of people not liking people for their politics. This happens every generation. We can’t get old and get mad because somebody is doing things differently than everybody else.
Do you think the petition smacks of provincialism?
I’m a fan of Zen Buddhism. To know what something is, you have to know what something else is. We can’t know what’s really Canadian, without going outside of Canada. Listen, there are artists in Canada, if you ask an American they wouldn’t even know they’re Canadian. They’re surprised to learn that Ryan Gosling is from Cornwall, Ont. So, the lines are more blurred more now. This is the world we live in.
Vintage Eclectic
Lord of the Sky
Can't wait for this ish. He's had some good albums but is rarely talked about
The latest from k-os is a genre-uniting affair
Backstage at last year’s Pemberton Music Festival, k-os got into a conversation with Outkast’s Andre 3000 about writer’s block.
When the Stankonia star asked the Canadian rap veteran about the status of his next album, the MC born Kevin Brereton noted that he was sitting on a bunch of incomplete song stems. Andre then admitted that his “Hey Ya” had been idle for years before the group turned it into one of its biggest hits.
When grilled for the magic solution for saving a song, the Atlanta rap icon explained that at some point “you just finish it.” That answer’s simple profundity helped k-os reach his own eureka moment, resulting in the completion of his fully fleshed-out and eclectic Can’t Fly Without Gravity.
“They’re good friends of mine, but they’re mad at me,” k-os says with a laugh of the handful of tracks formerly left in the lurch. “They’ve been hanging out a while, but I wouldn’t take them places. I would just hide them. Finally, I was like, ‘It’s time to introduce you to my other friends.’ ”
It’s less than a month away from Can’t Fly Without Gravity’s official August 28 street date, but k-os is looking to enjoy a bit of calm before heading into full-on promo mode.
When the Straight catches up with him on his cell, the part-time Vancouverite is pulling into Calgary in a recently bought VW camper van, which will bring him out to Toronto a few days later. He’s more than earned the mini vacation.
As k-os tells it, he’s been working on some of Can’t Fly Without Gravity’s songs since before he released his 2013 double LP, BLack on BLonde. Though it highlights only 13 of the 400 unreleased jams sitting in his iTunes, they’re crammed with enough twists and turns to keep the faithful bobbing for years.
While BLack on BLonde more or less separated the artist’s hip-hop tracks and rock-mining material on different discs, Can’t Fly Without Gravity is a genre-uniting affair.
“WiLD4TheNight (EgoLand)” touches down with a hazy, cherry-Benadryl drip of synths and slow-mo beatwork, juxtaposed with k-os’s hopscotch wordplay. Elsewhere, gnarly garage-rock aggression and ripped-jeans jumpiness drive “Steel Sharpens Steel”, while the ’90s-vintage boom-bap of “Boyz II Men” joins k-os with Canadian mike tacticians Saukrates, Kardinal Offishal, Choclair, King Reign, and Shad.
“Crucify”, however, may be the album’s greatest unifier. In it, the elegant swing of Ella Fitzgerald’s “It’s De-Lovely” has been contemporized as a chopped-and-screwed vocal hook. k-os, meanwhile, adopts an old-school cadence as a nod to idols like De La Soul, playfully rhyming about “Lex Luthor–ing” rival MCs and eating them like steak. The rapper notes that he’s bringing back these flavours for a younger generation too ready to forget the past.
“I don’t want to make this song about theology, or too religiously romantic, but the thing about when something is crucified is that when it rises again—when it comes back—people respect it more. They see that they were wrong to have done that.”
Tracks like “Hussle & Flow” mix elements of trap and EDM with vocal tics lifted from Cypress Hill and Michael Jackson. It’s all part of k-os’s plan to lift up the spirits of several generations of music fans.
“I think music can get to a point where it includes everybody from 8 to 80, because I think that’s how music started,” k-os notes. “If you were a young Viking kid, or a young black kid in Africa, or a young Indian kid, when music came on at a harvest there was no separation. It was everybody, from grandmother to grandkid, getting down to the same music.”
@jcraft
@bangbreh
@Batch_Monster
@ogc163
@JulesWinfield
@NormanConnors
@Car RamRod
@943oh5
@The 3rd Number
@Brady-Carter
@Northern Son
@AquaCityBoy
@Larry Legend
@frush11
@illadope
@julesocean
@Gains
@Vintage Eclectic
@DredScott
Backstage at last year’s Pemberton Music Festival, k-os got into a conversation with Outkast’s Andre 3000 about writer’s block.
When the Stankonia star asked the Canadian rap veteran about the status of his next album, the MC born Kevin Brereton noted that he was sitting on a bunch of incomplete song stems. Andre then admitted that his “Hey Ya” had been idle for years before the group turned it into one of its biggest hits.
When grilled for the magic solution for saving a song, the Atlanta rap icon explained that at some point “you just finish it.” That answer’s simple profundity helped k-os reach his own eureka moment, resulting in the completion of his fully fleshed-out and eclectic Can’t Fly Without Gravity.
“They’re good friends of mine, but they’re mad at me,” k-os says with a laugh of the handful of tracks formerly left in the lurch. “They’ve been hanging out a while, but I wouldn’t take them places. I would just hide them. Finally, I was like, ‘It’s time to introduce you to my other friends.’ ”
It’s less than a month away from Can’t Fly Without Gravity’s official August 28 street date, but k-os is looking to enjoy a bit of calm before heading into full-on promo mode.
When the Straight catches up with him on his cell, the part-time Vancouverite is pulling into Calgary in a recently bought VW camper van, which will bring him out to Toronto a few days later. He’s more than earned the mini vacation.
As k-os tells it, he’s been working on some of Can’t Fly Without Gravity’s songs since before he released his 2013 double LP, BLack on BLonde. Though it highlights only 13 of the 400 unreleased jams sitting in his iTunes, they’re crammed with enough twists and turns to keep the faithful bobbing for years.
While BLack on BLonde more or less separated the artist’s hip-hop tracks and rock-mining material on different discs, Can’t Fly Without Gravity is a genre-uniting affair.
“WiLD4TheNight (EgoLand)” touches down with a hazy, cherry-Benadryl drip of synths and slow-mo beatwork, juxtaposed with k-os’s hopscotch wordplay. Elsewhere, gnarly garage-rock aggression and ripped-jeans jumpiness drive “Steel Sharpens Steel”, while the ’90s-vintage boom-bap of “Boyz II Men” joins k-os with Canadian mike tacticians Saukrates, Kardinal Offishal, Choclair, King Reign, and Shad.
“Crucify”, however, may be the album’s greatest unifier. In it, the elegant swing of Ella Fitzgerald’s “It’s De-Lovely” has been contemporized as a chopped-and-screwed vocal hook. k-os, meanwhile, adopts an old-school cadence as a nod to idols like De La Soul, playfully rhyming about “Lex Luthor–ing” rival MCs and eating them like steak. The rapper notes that he’s bringing back these flavours for a younger generation too ready to forget the past.
“I don’t want to make this song about theology, or too religiously romantic, but the thing about when something is crucified is that when it rises again—when it comes back—people respect it more. They see that they were wrong to have done that.”
Tracks like “Hussle & Flow” mix elements of trap and EDM with vocal tics lifted from Cypress Hill and Michael Jackson. It’s all part of k-os’s plan to lift up the spirits of several generations of music fans.
“I think music can get to a point where it includes everybody from 8 to 80, because I think that’s how music started,” k-os notes. “If you were a young Viking kid, or a young black kid in Africa, or a young Indian kid, when music came on at a harvest there was no separation. It was everybody, from grandmother to grandkid, getting down to the same music.”
@jcraft
@bangbreh
@Batch_Monster
@ogc163
@JulesWinfield
@NormanConnors
@Car RamRod
@943oh5
@The 3rd Number
@Brady-Carter
@Northern Son
@AquaCityBoy
@Larry Legend
@frush11
@illadope
@julesocean
@Gains
@Vintage Eclectic
@DredScott
www.edge.ca/events/23710
On the release day of the album, K-OS will be performing a Sugar Beach Session with 102.1 The Edge at 1PM. Free entry. Hopefully they upload the content to YouTube.
@jcraft
@bangbreh
@Batch_Monster
@ogc163
@JulesWinfield
@NormanConnors
@Car RamRod
@943oh5
@The 3rd Number
@Brady-Carter
@Northern Son
@AquaCityBoy
@Larry Legend
@frush11
@illadope
@julesocean
@Gains
@Vintage Eclectic
@DredScott
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K-os Still Can't Be Pinned Down and He Couldn't Be Happier
K-os's inventive, profanity-free rhymes have always set him apart, so longtime fans may be shocked to hear the Toronto rapper sneer: "Take off that AutoTune, get the fukk outta here," on "WiLD4TheNight (EgoLand)," one of the standout tracks from Can't Fly Without Gravity, his forthcoming sixth studio LP, out August 28 on Dine Alone. But in a recent interview with Exclaim!, K-os insists that he's never been curse-averse, despite what audiences may assume, before explaining what compelled him to use a little course language.
"I got tired of all these people saying they were singing on tracks when it was AutoTune," K-os says of the synthetically smoothed vocals dominating today's airwaves. "So it wasn't me cursing a person, but the idea of AutoTune, because it takes away the human vulnerability of singing."
He adds that the swearing wasn't meant to be a drastic departure from his previously clean work, explaining: "I swear all the time in my lyrics, because I use words of passion. That's all that swearing is. I just don't often use cliché swear words. It's not that I never swear, I just do it so well that people don't recognize it. But sometimes you have to just swear blatantly to get a point across."
If fans are taken aback by the expletive, then K-os couldn't be happier. Defying expectations was one of his chief goals on the new LP. While much of it features his trademark forays into jazz, rock and electronica, the album's centrepiece would fit on the brawniest of gangsta rap albums. Dubbed "Boyz II Men (LouieCK dirty)," the midway track is a vintage-flavoured posse cut with guest turns from a who's who of Canadian rappers: Kardinal Offishall, Choclair, King Reign, Shad and longtime K-os collaborator Saukrates, all spitting over a splintery, unvarnished beat that chops a portion of Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You" until it's hauntingly unrecognizable.
"I sampled that Whitney vocal in a very RZA way, kind of out of key," K-os says. "I've always loved how a lot of '90s hip-hop was made by untrained people cutting samples that didn't fit and making a new sound. So this song has that edgy feel, which helped keep everyone that contributed to it very sharp."
Aside from "Boyz II Men," Can't Fly also boasts plenty of no-frills MCing on boom-bap bangers like "Crucify," and "Rap Zealot." But it wouldn't be a K-os album without his signature eclecticism — be it pop balladry on album closer "Another Shot," alt-rock on "Steel Sharpens Steel," or early track "Hussle & Flow," which critics have called an EDM hit. But K-os says he isn't pandering to current dancefloor crowd, explaining: "To me, it's not EDM as much as general electronica, which is something I've done a lot, even on 'Superstarr Pt.0,' the first song that most people ever heard me do, which had a house beat.
"Doing many different genres has always been my thing. In fact I don't think 'the music of K-os' has a genre," he says, adding that open-ended unpredictability is his biggest asset — be it clean or profane, gangsta or EDM and beyond. "I always want someone to pick up my records and not know what they're going to hear. If I can do that then I'm successfully accomplishing my mission."
@jcraft
@bangbreh
@Batch_Monster
@ogc163
@JulesWinfield
@NormanConnors
@Car RamRod
@943oh5
@The 3rd Number
@Brady-Carter
@Northern Son
@AquaCityBoy
@Larry Legend
@frush11
@illadope
@julesocean
@Gains
@Vintage Eclectic
@DredScott
K-os's inventive, profanity-free rhymes have always set him apart, so longtime fans may be shocked to hear the Toronto rapper sneer: "Take off that AutoTune, get the fukk outta here," on "WiLD4TheNight (EgoLand)," one of the standout tracks from Can't Fly Without Gravity, his forthcoming sixth studio LP, out August 28 on Dine Alone. But in a recent interview with Exclaim!, K-os insists that he's never been curse-averse, despite what audiences may assume, before explaining what compelled him to use a little course language.
"I got tired of all these people saying they were singing on tracks when it was AutoTune," K-os says of the synthetically smoothed vocals dominating today's airwaves. "So it wasn't me cursing a person, but the idea of AutoTune, because it takes away the human vulnerability of singing."
He adds that the swearing wasn't meant to be a drastic departure from his previously clean work, explaining: "I swear all the time in my lyrics, because I use words of passion. That's all that swearing is. I just don't often use cliché swear words. It's not that I never swear, I just do it so well that people don't recognize it. But sometimes you have to just swear blatantly to get a point across."
If fans are taken aback by the expletive, then K-os couldn't be happier. Defying expectations was one of his chief goals on the new LP. While much of it features his trademark forays into jazz, rock and electronica, the album's centrepiece would fit on the brawniest of gangsta rap albums. Dubbed "Boyz II Men (LouieCK dirty)," the midway track is a vintage-flavoured posse cut with guest turns from a who's who of Canadian rappers: Kardinal Offishall, Choclair, King Reign, Shad and longtime K-os collaborator Saukrates, all spitting over a splintery, unvarnished beat that chops a portion of Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You" until it's hauntingly unrecognizable.
"I sampled that Whitney vocal in a very RZA way, kind of out of key," K-os says. "I've always loved how a lot of '90s hip-hop was made by untrained people cutting samples that didn't fit and making a new sound. So this song has that edgy feel, which helped keep everyone that contributed to it very sharp."
Aside from "Boyz II Men," Can't Fly also boasts plenty of no-frills MCing on boom-bap bangers like "Crucify," and "Rap Zealot." But it wouldn't be a K-os album without his signature eclecticism — be it pop balladry on album closer "Another Shot," alt-rock on "Steel Sharpens Steel," or early track "Hussle & Flow," which critics have called an EDM hit. But K-os says he isn't pandering to current dancefloor crowd, explaining: "To me, it's not EDM as much as general electronica, which is something I've done a lot, even on 'Superstarr Pt.0,' the first song that most people ever heard me do, which had a house beat.
"Doing many different genres has always been my thing. In fact I don't think 'the music of K-os' has a genre," he says, adding that open-ended unpredictability is his biggest asset — be it clean or profane, gangsta or EDM and beyond. "I always want someone to pick up my records and not know what they're going to hear. If I can do that then I'm successfully accomplishing my mission."
@jcraft
@bangbreh
@Batch_Monster
@ogc163
@JulesWinfield
@NormanConnors
@Car RamRod
@943oh5
@The 3rd Number
@Brady-Carter
@Northern Son
@AquaCityBoy
@Larry Legend
@frush11
@illadope
@julesocean
@Gains
@Vintage Eclectic
@DredScott
