Interview: Kashmere

Kashmere Speaks

Bitter Instinct caught up with the British rapper to talk about hip hop, comics and why he is a major closet Trekkie. 

With Kashmere’s second album ‘Galaktus - the Power Cosmic’ which dropped last week, Bitter Instinct plumbed the depths of this British rapper’s soul to discover what makes him tick, the method behind the madness of his critically acclaimed album’s theme and what to expect next.

Bitter Instinct: How and when did you first get into hip hop? 



Kashmere: I started listening to hip hop in about 1989/90... raiding my cousin’s tape collection. The first hip hop albums that really got me into it were Tribe Called Quest's  Peoples’ Instinctive Travels and De La Soul's 3 Feet High and rising but I always came from the more graphically creative elements, more down with the whole subway graffiti, b boy type of hip hop.



I started rapping in like 90, just taking other artists’ verses and sticking my name in and from there just kept going.



Bitter Instinct: Who did you start working with and how did you become a full time rapper?



Kashmere: In about 1997/98 I met up with this crew called Ill Breed Coalition from north London who I met through a pal of mine at school. They played me a tape and I was like, “rah!”. I had never really met anyone else that spat or was really that into hip hop, I was just on my own but then I started going to open mics with them.

At school during lunch time we would go into the music room and my friend would play drums and go nick a tape player. He would be playing drums and I’d be spitting with another guy. It was live but they didn’t like us being in there and eventually locked it off for us.



Bitter Instinct: Lets talk about the new album and the concept behind it. How did you come to choose Galactus as the main character?



Kashmere: One day Dr Zygote called me up and was like, “Yo, I really want to do a sci fi type of project”. So he gave me this beat CD called Green Hornet with 17 or 18 beats on it and I just started working off that. Then about a year later I was thinking about how to approach this and I came up with the idea of Galactus. I didn’t want to just recreate the comic book stories but instead put it into a hip hop context. I wanted to use the Galactus theme to show the power of the music and just use it as a hook to get wreck with. The Galactus thing is more about just displaying raw power.


The whole album is produced by the Boot guys – Dr Zygote and Jazz T I have also got Ramson Badbones and Chubby Alcoholic featuring on there as well as and Dramicide and Severe who have an EP coming out on Boot soon.

Bitter Instinct: Why is the album coming out on Boot? Aren’t you a YNR artist? 



Kashmere: Well that’s the common misconception as I’m definitely down with YNR but I’m not signed to them and I don’t think any of us are. It’s just an affiliation because I’ve known Jehst for a while and collaborated with him quite regularly.

Bitter Instinct: So tell us about your creative influences and your process for writing?



Kashmere: The process in general is that I’ll first find the concept and then once I’ve got the actual hook I’m just lost in the zone. I don’t’ even know what the actual process is myself it just tends to come. I treat them more as experiments as opposed to an exact science. I just try and make people feel what I was feeling at the time. For example with In the Hour of Chaos, I was definitely in that zone of that whole Constantine (Hellblazer) thing. With this I tried to keep it relevant to a wider audience rather than a very few specific people that actually know about Galactus.

Bitter Instinct: Have you always been into comics?



Kashmere: My pops used to get me some of the Green Lantern and Superman comics but to be honest most of my time growing up was spent being into music. It was only about 5 years ago that I really started getting into comics as I just started reading a lot more. I had this whole image of comics being like Dandy and Dennis the Menace. Then I was reading Hellblazer and was like, “Wow its all over!”. From there I started checking out Sandman which led me onto the Lucifer series which really got me, I have every single one of those. Shit is off the hook!


Bitter Instinct: Is it recently that you’ve become interested in supernatural imagery and mythologies? As a child did you come from a religious family?

Kashmere: Well my family is Nigerian so religion was a big part of my upbringing and I was always intrigued by Bible stories and the life of Jesus and the miracles. My father was also very much into the unexplained which is what really got me into it. So that really got my mind going about UFOs, space and sci-fi in general.



Bitter Instinct: What rappers are you currently feeling? Do you listen to any other genres of music?


Kashmere: I listen to a lot of 1970s jazz fusion and prog rock like Cosmic Jokers and George Duke as he was also quite influenced by space. Its quite leftfield sounding stuff but to be honest I’m really a hip hop head!

In terms of hip hop currently I’ve been feeling that Roc Marciano album and the Celph Titled and Buckwild album. Also the Odd Future Wolfgang heads and in the UK I’m really feeling Children of the Damned and Triple Darkness. I’m into a few future beat things especially Samiyam, I rock to some of his beats live which I wouldn’t do with any other of those guys. I’m obviously a big Non Phixion fan and especially Goretex - that dude is sick. I’d like to hook up with that dude in the future for sure. 



Nowadays most people are so concerned with trying to be new but for me it’s not regression trying to be into the 1990s its just about making music.

Bitter Instinct: Sci-fi and horror play a significant part in your lyrics, which films have influenced your writing most?



Kashmere: Strangely enough the films that get me aren’t necessarily films like that, I’m more of a fan of Beverly Hills Cop and Trading Places. But I am a massive fan of the Star Trek series and films, like Generations and Wrath of Khan.



Bitter Instinct: You have an interesting take on many subjects, how would you describe hip hop in 2010?

Kashmere: In 2010 you can look at it in a couple of ways – you can say there’s a lot more people that are successful and that can be seen as positive but for me I think creativity is at an all time low simply for the fact that if you’re creative people don’t see you as real. People are more interested in things that have nothing to do with the actual music. So in a way I’d say hip hop is in a dangerous place especially in the States as they’re turning hip hop into just one big advert. For me hip hop culture is a beautiful thing and I feel like it’s getting destroyed right now. If you ask the average person out there about hip hop they’ll tell you about rims and Cristal not Africa Bambaataa and Lady Pink and Ramelzee.

Hip hop needs to be hip hop again.

Bitter Instinct: What future projects are you working on and what inspired you to create an album about Hunter S Thompson (Kingdom of Fear)?



Kashmer: Well we did that album in 2008 and before that I hadn’t heard anything about Hunter S Thompson until a good friend of mine gave me Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and I thought this is the funniest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. Jehst and I were already talking about doing an album on a Madvillain tip with him doing the beats and me rapping. We did the album in about a week but it was quite an organic process. I would go to his studio in Whitechapel and just pick out breaks. Then he’d put it through the MPC and flip it and chop it up and I’d be writing as he’d be making the beats.

The main feel of the album is definitely on a gonzo, jazzy, drugged out tip. It should be out on YNR early next year. I’m looking forward to that one, it’s immensely different from Power Cosmic and Hour of Chaos.

'Galaktus... the Power cosmic' is out now on Boot

Bonus: Kashmere - I am Galaktus