KAM - Veteran Of The West

[big dawg]

OG West Coast legend KAM, a man that needs no introduction, talks with Yo! Raps about his recent projects, political views, and his long-anticipated album, "Self & Kind". He shares with us the remedy of "Stayin True To Tha Game" without selling out. A veteran of the West that has been around long enough to sketch the blueprint of the music business as well as mentor today's growing, misdirected youth. With all this conscious knowledge, there's no question why, "We still got love for him".



Let´s get right into it. Your new album is titled “Self & Kind”. Is there any deeper meaning behind the name?



Yeah the idea and meaning behind me titling this album "Self & Kind" is to get all people, but especially Black People in America to focus on our selves and our own kind to determine what roles we have been and are still playing in the problems that we face, rather than us Blacks continuing to try and put all of the blame on the "White Man". That ol' "White Man excuse" don't really work today, because we have had enough time and enough information circulated to us over seven decades about who that enemy is, to have been able to unite and organize with ourselves to prepare something for ourselves to counteract their racism and discrimination against us. So the real cause of our problems today ain´t them as much as it is us. Our biggest enemy today is our ignorance and our cowardliness. Most of us Blacks in America are too afraid of the power of Whites to persecute us. So we either never fight for our own independence from them, or we sell out after fighting for a little while. So "Self & Kind" means, "It's time to look at the faults of ourselves now and instead of worrying and complaining about how dirty the White House is. It's time to focus all of that energy on cleaning up our own house.



There are a lot of great features on the album, including Tyrese, Snoop Dogg, The Game and Nate Dogg. So your disc is straight West Coast?



There are a lot of features on this album from West Coast heavyweights, but there are also features from East Coast heavyweights, South heavyweights, etc. I'm definitely not trying to have this album be put in a "West Coast Box", but everybody knows where I'm from so it ain´t no reason for me to "overkill it" with “westcoastness” [laughs].



I read in your press release that Dr. Dre produced a track on “Self & Kind”. How was it working with such a legend? Talk about the track?



Yeah, Dre produced a record on the album called, "Murda' Dem Murderaz". I´m still not sure if we are gonna use that song for this album, because it´s real controversial, and I don´t wanna pull nobody into the "Fryin Pan" with me who didn´t ask to be there. I’m use to being in hellfire, but that don't mean that someone else who I'm working with wants to sign up for that [laughs]. But I'm gonna try to get some other tracks out of him if I can.



You are known to be a political rapper who is addressing real life issues. Is that important for you to not only releases club bangers but political/controversial material as well?



Yeah, my music always gotta be saying something real. It don't always have to be political, but if you really look at it, every aspect of this world’s life is political in one way or another. I'm just into telling the truth as clear and entertaining as I can. I just make the kinda rap songs that I would wanna hear other people making. But since I don’t hear them making these kind of potent rap records (on a major/commercial level), then I guess I gotta be the one to make them. I'm tryna help to raise a mentally-dead nation of people up by the thousands. I'm trying to wake us up to who we really are and who the real enemy of truth, freedom, justice and equality is, and to what time it is that we are living in now and what must be done now according to these times in order for us to survive what´s coming.



Does it bother you when artists are “playing” with their fake “Gangsta” image, just to sell more records?



Yeah, I am kinda bothered when I see and hear rappers today "over-bangin" on records and in music videos, when I know that they are not (or never have been) living like that. I'm only bothered by it, because that image that they portray is being flooded into the minds of our youth (who don´t really know that these rappers are just acting), and the youth go out and take it literally and seriously and wind up destroying themselves or somebody else by trying to emulate these rapper's false images.



It is hard staying true to yourself in this music business. How do you go about it and what is your formula?



Shit, it's hard staying true to yourself in this world, let alone in this music business [laughs]. My formula for staying true to myself is, first having a knowledge of self to stay true to. Any person has to have a solid mental foundation rooted in the knowledge of “Self & Kind”. For example, if through 453 years of slavery, suffering, deaths and persecution by Whites in America, Their "Educational/Judicial Systems" teaches that Blacks are only "3/5ths of a Human Being" and teaches us that we are inferior animals, then if I am programmed to accept that as "true information" equals "knowledge", then I will attempt to stay true to that, and act that out in my everyday life. So to me, the key to staying true to yourself in this business and this world is not letting man define who/what you are, but find out who and what the one who created you says that you are and stay true to that. But you still gotta be careful, because it was religion that was used to make us slaves and it is the misrepresentation of God and religion that has the whole world in the Hellish condition that is in right now. So be real careful…



Another big project you are currently working on is the group Warzone, you formed with MC Eight and Goldie Loc. How did it all started?



This group Warzone started as a result of Snoop Dogg's Western Conference that he held a couple years back. The idea was to make a statement of West Coast unity in rap and put people together who had never worked together and probably wouldn’t ever have worked closely together under the normal circumstances that we had been used to on the West for so long. The group was Snoop’s idea. It made good enough sense to me when he brought it to me, so I rolled with it.



The West Coast is known for that every artist is doing his own thing. Why you think that is?



The main reason why West Coast artists have infamously been known to be on some every man for himself shit is because of the whole gang banging, dope dealing and pimping culture/lifestyle of the West Coast. Tribal/territorial shit, which of course was created by the enemy through manipulation of our ignorance.



Is that the reason why you formed Warzone?



Yes, this is one of the reasons why the Warzone was formed. To break that cycle of division in West Coast rap. To lead by example. So we had to start somewhere, right?



When can we expect the Warzone album? Talk about features and production on the disc. I´m sure it´s a great line-up of West Coast acts.



You can expect the Warzone album to drop in early August 2008 now. The Warzone album, unlike the KAM album, is pretty much strictly West Coast. There's not really any features from anywhere else. But like I said, that's because we are trying to clean up our own West Coast house, first.



Do you think the South will still be dominating in the next few years or will the East Coast and West Coast make a return?



I don´t really care who will be dominating in rap in the next few years as long as everybody is getting an equal/fair opportunity to get their music out there to be heard. Freedom, justice and equality is the key in that area, too.



In the end, let the people know where they can find you online.



You can find me online on MySpace at www.myspace.com/westcoastkam1.

yoraps.com

[John.F.Remedy]

Kam is a G. Good shit fam.