| Mowgli from London, UK |
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| Written by Jai Boo |
| Wednesday, 23 June 2010 10:39 |
 Jai Boo caught up with rapper Mowgli who talks about his recently released album ‘93’. Hi Mowgli you’ve spent many years perfecting your craft, why has it taken you so long to release your album ‘93’? Mainly other commitments, I was finishing a Uni course and went into other aspects of sound and art before wanting to focus solely on this. As soon as I made that step we put the album together relatively quickly. It is good it wasn’t rushed. I’ve noticed that a lot of the tracks were written or produced as far back as 2003 but updated in 2009. Why did you decide to use these tracks as opposed to writing or producing new tracks? Where they sentimental to you in any way? A few of the tracks were older but I still wanted them on a release as they were good enough to still be relevant and were never released at the time because I did not have the vehicle for doing so or the time to get it done. I knew a lot of people wanted to hear tracks like ‘Back To The Bricks’ and ‘Analyse’ on a proper release so they were redone, there is only a few older tracks on there and they serve as a nice way of leading into the newer stuff I’m doing as they are perhaps more immediately accessible. Now, I read in an interview that the title to your album has nothing to do with the year ‘93’ can you give me a hint of what it means?....go on please! Behind what I say is often what I mean. I am loving some of the strange theories. Those who want to find out will. For people that may not of heard the album give them a brief introduction. Never really been one to describe myself so, Mixmag called it ‘Experimental Art - House UK Hip Hop’. But I would just say that it is interesting Hip Hop for those that like having an album with some content and that makes you think. We are going to try and coin a new kind of Hip Hop sound in this country to try to bring it into line with some of the other exciting new music around and some of the stuff coming out the US and Europe as well as here, and hopefully this will be the foundation for us to work from. Some of the tracks on there have a dark, gritty, eerie, sinister vibe to it laced with your rapid lyrical fire and social commentary. It’s a lot different to some of the music coming out of the UK today. Was being a little different and left-field something you set out to do to stand out from the crowd, or is this simply just the sound of Mowgli? I always try and write a track in a different way to how I have done it before so I challenge myself to an extent. I haven’t particularly tried to stand out from the crowd, so if it sounds like that then maybe the crowd should be a bit more adventurous. A lot of people are just trying to make a listenable track and get away with sounding average. That’s fine but it’ll ruin whatever scene we think we have, guys are bored of it. Leftfield to me isn’t really an option as it just means not following a trend. What artists if any have influenced you? Many from sound artists to writers to producers. There is a long list that I can’t possibly put here. Tell us about Mowgli, how did it all start for you and what do you hope to achieve out of your music career? As long as it sounds good I will be happy. I will always be pushing myself to do something new so it will always be an adventure and there will always be new things to achieve. Besides the artists and producers on your album, have you worked with any other artists or producers? Besides the ones on there yes, there are some new projects I will be working on with new people. I can’t say too much about them but they are exciting and people will hear about them soon. Also I am working on new stuff with Platitas and various people who featured on the album. With people downloading their music now from sites like iTunes and Amazon etc it’s kind of gone back to the days of people buying singles rather than buying albums, what are your views on the music game as a whole at the moment and the future of releasing albums? Never has it been more important to release albums. Strong tracks are great and good promo but an album is a chance for you to create something more than just a good tune. It is about the relationship between tracks, the spaces, and the tone. The way download sites work you can always pick and choose tracks if you want, I personally can’t stand that, but the album will always be the tool for creating an impression. The physical album is not dead either, people will always want something tangible. I couldn’t believe it when I found out people actually pay for tunes on iTunes and don’t even get the MP3’s they can only open them in iTunes. Surely someone will realise that is completely waste. What artist or artists/producers do you rate at the moment and why? Many. I am terrible at lists though. There are a lot of people pushing boundaries beat wise, far too many to mention. Lyrically, there are a few but they are few and far between. There are enough to keep things moving. Throughout your career you’ve toured the UK and Europe, will you or have you been doing any shows to promote ‘93’? The launch party for 93 was at Cargo last week and it went really well so thank you to everyone who came down it was rammed out and I heard people enjoyed themselves. We set a feel of artists from different genres who are doing something different within it and we are going to continue to put those nights on to set a new vibe of the sound we are trying to push. I have a few shows coming up and a lot that need to be confirmed and I will be playing everything from rowdy sets in clubs with live electronics to spoken word/acoustic sets, a tour is being planned and the dates will be up on my myspace (www.myspace.com/mowgliuk) as soon as I know them. Any booking enquiries should be made to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it What has the response been like doing shows? Sometimes a UK crowd can be quite hard to please, have you come across any awkward moments whilst doing a show? Not for a while. There are sound issues from time to time but that’s standard. I think UK crowds can be more discerning, although there is a lot of shit music that gets huge reactions, but that’s not a problem if you have something that stands out as being decent. Sometimes it’s strange playing to humans. All the promo material and artwork were produced by you, is this something that you’d like to get into in the future? The concepts and ideas behind it as well as the physical artwork that was shot was largely mine, but it was realised, actualised and created by photographer and graphic designer Luke Bird who is extremely talented. (http://www.lukealexanderbird.blogspot.com) I think that it is a nice balance, being an artist I have a strong sense of the ideas I want to put across and like working with people who can run with that and we can collaborate in that manner. There are things I am saying with the artwork and I want that to be another dimension to the music, hidden or in plain view. It is something I have done on its own anyway and I will go back to but for now it is to enhance the audio. When I make a track there is always a load of related issues that are created and if they can come out in the form of artwork/videos/visuals or even just promo shots then all the better. What’s next for Mowgli, will you be dropping any videos’ are you working on any new material? There is a live video of a few tracks going up on Sweet and Sound TV (on http://www.dontwatchthat.tv) in the next week or so, a video for ‘Sky Diver’ and ‘She’ in the making and some other visuals that we are going to fit to some tracks. There is a project that will hopefully be going out through ST Holdings soon that I can’t talk about just yet. There is also a concept album me and Platitas are working on, an album with 4i2i, and an EP with Jam Baxter all being done in the coming months. As well as this there are quite a lot of new tracks being recorded for different projects ranging from standard hip-hop to some quite bizarre stuff. Check out the website which should have a new look by the time you read this www.mowglihiphop.com and become a fan on facebook www.facebook.com/mowglihiphop. The album is available off the website as well as all the normal places (iTunes, Amazon, HMV, Juno, Napster and selected stores). Mowgli, thanks for taking the time out to do this interview. Interview by Jai Boo www.myspace.com/jaiboowolftown |
| Last Updated on Wednesday, 23 June 2010 10:45 |
