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South West London rapper 9 Lives is no new comer to the UK Rap game as he featured heavily on the well respected classic underground release from Socials Misfits as well as being an integral part of Stone Circle, the group responsible for the brilliant for the 2004 album release "Infrastructure". Now in 2010 he is back as a solo artist with loads going on, so we sent Tricksta to get the lowdown…
Easy 9Lives, hope your good fam. When did you start making music and realise that you wanted to be a rapper?
I started writing poems when I was very young, I am talking primary school age here. The rap was a natural extension of that. My older brother introduced me to House of Pain and Cypress Hill back in the early 90's. Although, I think the biggest turning point for me was when I heard 36 Chambers by Wu Tang. I was also hanging with a crew called the Steel Horses and also many of the guys that would later form my clique, Stone Circle. These guys were my peers and so pushed me to work on my skills and style and such. I just wanted to be nice with the craft from back then. The rest is history.
Was there a person or record that inspired you to pick up the pen and start writing songs and hit the studio?
I was kind of into the whole American East Coast rap scene. However, I remembered hearing my first DJ 279 show on London's Choice FM back in the 90's and thinking, 'wow! These British guys are amazing'. I've been fortunate enough to meet pretty much all of the UK rappers I looked up to as a kid.
Where exactly are you from and what’s the Hip-Hop scene like there?
Tooting is like zone 3 on the Northern Line. If you are from London, or know London, it's South West in location - neighbouring Clapham, Brixton, Streatham, Croydon and similarly urban. You've got a mix of the middle class people gentrifying the place, but it is still kind of street in it's own way. You know, the usual: police crime scene tape cordoning off areas; reports of random attacks; knife crime and the rest. Back when I was starting out there was a crew called Shadow Law (hope I spelt that right) doing their thing. K2 Family were based here. Cyrus (da Vyrus) also lives in the ends as did 10 Faces. You may have heard of some of these guys, you may not have. You also got mans like Blak Twang, DJ Big Ted and the rest of my Social Misfits members.
Let’s talk about your latest project. Where can people get it, who features on it and who dealt with the production?
The current project is a street album, entitled The World Could Wait, and is available as a free online download. You can pick it up at www.9livesuk.bandcamp.com . The associated myspace is www.myspace.co.uk/waitingworld where you can find full details about it. Before you ask, the project is free as I am raising money for charity for Reunite International who helped me in a major way and I just want to say thank you. Please see my justgiving page www.justgiving.com/waitingworld for more info and to donate and show your support. Back to the music, you naturally have verbal contributions from nearly all the Stone Circle members on there. I also got bars from Manny Moscow. You have I'Chelmee also on there repping for the rest of the Social Misfits. I have to also mention Smiler - who is doing his thing at the moment with his single Enza! But overall its my boy Middleman and Mani7est who are all over the project in a big way. Sir Prestige, Social Misfit Entertainment, is on the keys and faders throughout this one.
How are you getting your project out there? Do you have a distributor involved?
We are on some D.I.Y. on this one. With no profit margin we are keeping the overheads tight and doing as much as we can do for as little expenditure as possible. We gotta small team dedicated on pushing it via the internet mainly and we looking to bring in a proven PR company to reach the parts we can't reach. Letting people know it is there is always the hardest part and we’re definitely putting in work on that front but spreading out the efforts for the next few months. The shows are coming in too. People are being shown it’s available, it’s free and it’s a very good project. The internet is called the World Wide Web for a reason, so we are just trying to make it as accessible as possible. I am really open to both business opportunities and suggestions, so we will see what comes our way. We've planned to push this organically and by the time the follow-up project is in done everything should have nicely fallen in place for us to take full advantage of our efforts thus far.
Is there a shop or website stocking and supporting your music?
Yeah, as I said its presently online exclusively via a fairly new but increasingly popular platform called Bandcamp, which seems like a very upgraded version of Myspace. Artists can sell their music directly whilst also watching statistics on visits, sales, playbacks, downloads, etc. I'd highly recommend it for independent artists. Check my page at www.9livesuk.bandcamp.com As for websites that are also supporting my music, you got Reunite International, the charitable organisation that I support due to the previous assistance they’ve offered me - check my track "Lost Property". I recently made an appearance for them as a guest on Sky News, breakfast prime time! Check the link, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUyuLjvEiNE.
Getting radio play is real gripe for a lot of Hip-Hop artists, but have you had any radio play? If so what DJ’s and stations are supporting you?
In a word, no - well, at least not yet. We are shooting a couple of videos at the moment, with a view of picking off the one or two tracks we are going to run with hard. This is when we will be approaching the DJs and such. It’s early days still and we are confident we'll get play from all the usual stations and DJs who have previously supported Stone Circle and the Social Misfits collective. In the past, my crew Stone Circle have guested on Kiss FM. We've been played on Choice FM, BBC Radio 1Xtra and a host of other small scale pirate, community and online stations across the country.
Do you think that radio is still as important as it was in the digital age?
I am old skool in some respects and still wanted to do the CD thing, but you move with the times. Radio is still the holy grail for me, but YouTube is doing it's thing as is Twitter. These are things you have to embrace and employ to your advantage. As for the importance of radio nowadays, I'll have to get back to you on that one when we are on that road.
Do you think the internet helps or hinders independent artists?
The net is great. You can get hold of absolutely anything you want, but you have to know where to find it. It helps massively. Anyone can be a star overnight, but not necessarily everyone will. Letting people know, having good strategies in place and building momentum are still equally important. Having good music as always is a bonus.
When it comes to making music what would you credit as your main motivation?
In short, my family, my friends and my son. ‘Nuff said really. I like writing, I just find that music is the medium that best lends itself to the type of writing I enjoy doing. I draw off life, so it is important to live. Experiencing different situations then feeds into my music and my writing. It's all kind of cyclic.
Let’s talk image and branding for a minute. Some artists spend lots of money on artwork and other acts aren’t that interested. How important is image, artwork and branding to you?
Man, aint gonna lie I have terrible fashion-sense and kind of just go with the flow when it comes to what to wear. Ha ha. Yeah, but I get the branding thing. It is more than just looking the part. People want to buy into something - more often than not they want to buy into something they're not. Having certain professional touches on your project and your whole campaign can just tick certain boxes. Considering we’re kicking this project off online, we definitely put in the effort on the Jpegs and what not. We’ve got the nice artwork that comes with the music download if you wish to print it out or just look at it on your iPod. There’s the hot myspace that is getting untold compliments and I also got a logo for my name done that hopefully soon you will be seeing everywhere. But, I gotta give credit where it’s due, so check out www.jkharveydesign.co.uk - the girl who did the logo, your boy Skrilla at www.skrilla.co.uk who dealt with the album cover art and not forgetting our guy Cheeks, www.myspace.com/ch33kient who hooked up the myspace and various other bits you'll be seeing soon.
I think that any artist coming into the game these days needs a music video. I mean You Tube is one the most visited website in the world and its still a great way of promoting a track. Have you got any videos on there and have any of them actually got played on any TV Stations?
As I mentioned earlier, we are presently at the late editing stages of my first video. Its for the song “Endless”, which features Mani7est and it’s looking real good so far. It'll be on YouTube in due course so be on the look out for that. As part of Social Misfit Entertainment, we got a fully equipped in-house video production entity and we’re at the early stages of storyboarding two follow up videos. Meantime, I have the footage of me on Sky News on YouTube plus a video of me performing at a gig for the London Borough of Sutton - It’s only a simple performance video to give people an idea of what I do. And we’re also looking to shoot a short documentary on the project and its success so far once we got all these things in motion.
What was the last album you brought and where do you buy your music? Is there a good record shop in your area or do you buy on-line?
Wow, let me think… it was Only Built 4 Cuban Linx II, by Raekwon the Chef. If it is a big release like that, there is a HMV near my work place. For anything more obscure, it might be online through Amazon.
Well thanks for the interview fam… good to catch up and all the best of luck with your future ventures, and to everyone else make you look out for this...
Interview by Tricksta
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