HHDX: There are some definite similarities with your music and Gnarls Barkley’s in that it’s all very genre bending. Does that encourage you that the market will be as opened minded with your music?
K-OS: Yeah I was definitely encouraged that I had a better chance to overcome the genre thing. I’ve been making genre-twisting music for a long time, really ever since Exit in 2002. So it really confirmed a lot for me as they proved you could become large off that sound cause they seemed to have the same ambition that I have, even if the sound isn’t the same. It was nice to see someone overcome the whole genre thing. At the same time it’s ridiculous what you have to deal with from some people when you make this type of music. There was a review of this record that points out I’m rapping 15% less on Atlantis than I did on Joyful Rebellion. Why the fuck do you care how much I’m rapping? Why is so important that hip hop is not an attitude and just about how much you rap? Otis Redding was hip hop, the Sex Pistols were hip hop. Why can’t people just get off of it and realize that there are cats who’ve never rapped a day in their life and are more hip hop than everyone on MTV. How do you explain that? He doesn’t make a rap record, he just loves the music; he puts on his kicks, puts on his headphones and bobs his head up and down to the music all day. But that is hip hop! That’s why I made this record, it’s a revolt against that attitude cause I know I’ll wake up at 3 in the morning and start rapping a few verses from "Triumph" before I go back to sleep, I just hip hop. At some point though it’s ok to just switch it up and listen to The Police or Bloc Party. It’s a rather defensive place to be but hopefully 10 or 20 years from now people can look back on this album and others out there and realize that it’s ok just to make the music that is in your heart and not worry about classifications.

HHDX: How was your approach to making this album different than from making Joyful Rebellion?
K-OS: Joyful Rebellion happened when I was about to take a break from music for a while. Then I was in my living room and made the beat for "Crabbucket" in about 3 or 4 minutes. Over the next couple days I did "Love Song" and "The Man I Used To Be" and it all just kind of came out. I sent it to my label and they said "yo you’ve got a record here" and it was all said and done in about 4 or 5 months. Then I went on tour for a while, got home and decided to go out to the woods for a while and try and write some new music. I got out there and tried to write some lyrics and had nothing. So I just started writing music and before I knew it I had 11 or 12 tracks done with no lyrics. Finally my engineer asked me if I was gonna put some lyrics to it and I said "nope." It was all about just making the music to get myself hype. Then out in Vancouver I just put it all down at once basically, just track after track. Some I wrote some I just freestyled. "Sunday Morning" is the only track on the album that I wrote the lyrics to before I had made the music. It always goes down differently. Continued on page 4 »