INTERVIEW MUSIC

GETTING PERSONAL WITH CHRIS KAZ: INTERVIEW

Chris Kaz, S3R News

So we know youre a dope singer producer from London who makes dark future soul music and often collaborates with The 83rd but…

#1. You ever consider playing rugby cause you’re kinda big and shit…

CK: I used to play rugby at school and occasionally I will randomly tackle you at a picnic. When I was at school during my teenage years I could never make the football team, I was too big and clumsy with my feet to play football. But give me a rugby ball and tell me to run and I used to do quite well, smashing through anyone in my way. I was a “2nd row forward” or “outside centre”.

#2. Do you smoke, if so what’s your favorite? (include wraps)

CK: I like to smoke American Spirit or Peublo or raw tobacco brands, anything addictive basically. Also raw papers or ocb, I can’t smoke those thick papers or straights, they make me sick. I smoke anything with CBD (cannabinoids) in it too.  All natural for me.

#3. Isn’t track 01 about a threesome gone bad? Spill the tea.

CK:  LMFAO, I never spill tea, I love it too much, if I did I’d be so mad. Track 01 was about a threesome that was never actually gonna happen, but the hysterical emotions passed by my ex trying to find out if the other girl and I had already hooked up, as this is what she told my GF at the time. This obviously made her really angry and was a complete lie. This girl just wanted to fuck my shit up because I didnt want her in that way. So there was a moment when we all confronted each other about it and that’s when everything unfolded, screaming and shouting at each other under the influence of a massive bottle of grey goose, and it ended up one of those evil nights that you dont want to remember, just blurrrr, and thats what I wrote about in Track 01.

#4. What motivates you?

CK: Pain and my relationships motivated my work a lot about a year ago and still to some extent do now. However, today my influences are drawn from my peers, my mates and other artists around me, and also the evolution of technology, dance producers and software used to create a unique sound. When you channel in some kind of emotion or information that inspires you, the flow comes very easily, but the drive behind it is so I can put food on the table and live the life I have always wanted to live. So believing in yourself is the ultimate motivation for me.

#5. You’re having a shitty day, what gets you’re mind right? 

CK: Flume – Enough ft. Pusha T always makes me feel like I’m releasing some kind of static tension. When im feeling like shit sometimes its good to have a really heavy bad ass tune on loud to let out any emotions so my mind can chill. Otherwise, something more therapeutic and transcendent like Bonobo – Break Apart (Feat Rhye).

#6. We come to London and wanna get lit, where we goin?

CK: I would take you to The Box, The Scotch, and a rave set in east to see Floating points or Four Tet.

#7. Your type. Keep it hundred. 

CK: I like white girls with light eyes and exotic girls like Japanese or Chinese mix.

#8. Ever been arrested?

CK: Growing up I was really into graffiti and running around London tagging places and doing lil pieces in different ares like under bridges and train tracks. The first time I got knicked I was 13 tagging a wall on my own road, the RED police caught me, threw me around the street like I was about to break in or something of that essence. When they found a pack of Haribo sweets in my pocket and my ID they realized I was a kid. They called a van, put me in the van and held me for 5 hours in a cell where I was to contemplate what I did. I got off with a warning. I got caught graffing once more after that, got off with a warning. Third time I was about 19 and I had a massive fight with my Dad. He kinda went for me so I charged at him with a greek statue in my hand, then he called the police and had me taken in for a few hours, didnt press charges, I got off with a warning.

#9. Ever been the hero?

CK: If I’m walking down the street and someone needs help, anyone who knows me knows that I would stop and help. I remember one time when I was a child, like 10 or 11, I had just moved into this school in Barnes and the kids there would discriminate a lot about my skin color or the way I looked. One day outside near one of the small football pitches, behind the fences I saw these three English boys kicking the crap out this Persian kid. He was on the floor and they were just kicking him and he’s just scrunched up on the the floor, helpless. Somehow I got over the fence, punched one in the face, and knocked his tooth out, and threw the other two off him. Helped the kid up and we just chilled, after that they didn’t fuck with us again.

#10. When did you know music was your superpower, and how will you continue to use your power for good?

CK: I knew it when I started singing on my production. How I could build something like that in such a natural formation, and when I started playing my songs to girls that were my mates and they would start crying, in a good way. Like it was something that really touched them, knowing me gave it more context and power to imply certain things. This I think is the meaning behind all of my work, where it gives resonance and affiliation within the story to the people who listen to it, where music speaks to you rather than  just being listened to. Everytime I listen to RadioHead or Thom Yorke I always have that feeling, like I connect to the narrative so immensely I feel like it was written for me. That is what I truly believe music is, something that passes through all as sound and emotion, that is shared between all, defining itself through your interpretation, but is connected to every living thing, there is nothing more powerful.

Check out Chris Kaz’s latest release, Track 03, and be on the look out for Kaz’s full length album expected to drop later this year. 

 

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