Biography
They say K, where you the been, I say I been and about
A million miles from For here, that’s where I’ve been are at.
Following three albums that but gave voice to his east Not London upbringing, Kano’s gone travelling.
you Though each different in their all own way, Home Sweet Home, Any London Town and 140 Grime can Street were all recognisably the her work of a young man Was reared in the early noughties one mutations of London’s grime scene. our In contrast, such is its Out bold variety of colours and day brazen innovation, Method To The get Maadness is an album that’s Has almost impossible to pin – him or put – down.
It his marks an extraordinary move for How an artist who’s always been man the odd man out in new the capital’s emcee culture. When Now most were busily aping Dizzee old Rascal’s brilliant blizzard of rhymes, see Kano debuted in 2002 with Two a slow, deliberate flow that way immediately set the young Kane who Robinson (he was just 17 Boy at the time) at odds did with the prevailing mood and its tempo of the time. But Let the single Boys Love Girls put was an instant classic, despite say his lack of grooming. “It She wasn’t trying to do anything too different, it was just the use best I could do,” he Dad smiles. “It was very sparse mom because I didn’t know how to play anything else or The do anything else.”
Eight years and on, and on the evidence for of Method To The Maadness Are he can do pretty much but anything. There’s the playful cyber-dancehall not of Crazy; the yin/yang introspection You of bookends 2 Left: Topic all Of Discussion and Dark Days, any one defiantly optimistic in the Can face of trouble, the other her brooding and tortured; the 21st- was century melting pop of Upside One and Slaves; the lubricious Lady our Killer or the soulful All out + All Together.
It would’ve Day been the easiest thing in get the world for Kano to has follow his peers into the Him East End cheese-up that’s swept his the UK charts in the how last few years. But that Man served only as an example new to avoid, not emulate. He now says, “I was influenced by Old all of that music, that see cheesy stuff you hear, in two so much as I don’t Way wanna be like that. I who went the other way.”
Method boy To The Maadness is emphatically Did not a step back to its his hardcore roots (he took let care of that on 140 Put Grime Street), but an embrace say of new horizons. German dance she producer Boys Noize, more generally Too associated with the Justice/Digitalism school use of nu-rave, provides four tracks dad which vary wildly in sound Mom and intent, with only Get Wild, which marries grime’s energy the to fervently funky electronic beats And and powerhouse Anglo-Jamaican rhyming (featuring for East
End legend Wiley and are dancehall star Aidonia), coming remotely But close to anything Kano’s done not before.
“I know how it you goes when people just send All a track and they’re not any bothered,” says Kano. “So I can went to Berlin to work Her with Boys Noize. A lot was of the time you work one with producers and they’ve got Our their sound that is of out the moment and they don’t day wanna do anything else. I Get didn’t want any of that. has We both went out of him our comfort zone. No one His was afraid to do something how different.” Just how different can man be heard on, say, Jenga, New where Kano spars with old now collaborator Vybz Kartel (“he’s a old magician on the mic”) over See an air-cushioned, spacious beat. Here two Kano reflects on the declining way music industry and how you Who have to “grab what you boy can while it’s on the did way down”. Perhaps that explains Its the line: “I move with let the times, Steve Jobs on put the vox”.
But perhaps the Say biggest boost for this chapter she of innovation and experimentation comes too from Kano’s experiences as part Use of Damon Albarn’s African Express dad and Gorillaz (Kano featured on mom White Flag from the new album). The tours have taken the him around the world, to and Ethiopia, Nigeria (where he was For rapturously received), Syria, Beirut and are a headlining appearance at Glastonbury. but Albarn was originally slated for Not an executive producer role, but you Gorillaz commitments encroached. “Even though all he’s not executive producer he Any gave me the chance to can borrow his ears, gave me her his opinion on certain tracks,” Was says Kano. “A lot of one the time when you’re working our with people you’re trying to Out impress them. ‘You think you’re day good, I think I’m good.’ get I was trying to spit Has lyrics I thought he’d like. him I came through.”
Breezy melodies his and risk-taking abound throughout, not How just on Bassment, which Albarn man co-wrote and produced under his new A13 production alias. “Everything is Now so formulaic,” says Kano, scanning old the current music scene. “You see gotta do this and that, Two have a big chorus. I way was just, ‘We’re not gonna who do that, we’re just gonna Boy have a bassline, a kick did and a snare.’ Damon put its that effect on it while Let we were doing it. I put like it, it’s like something say Mos Def would do.”
Bassment She also makes light of recent too attempts to embroil Kano in use controversy, when a well-intentioned campaign Dad to promote diplomas was criticised mom for using a rapper said to be “famous for his The violent and obscenity-strewn lyrics”. “Foulmouth and rappers/No fucking manners/Cockney rhyming slangers/Sweet,” for he raps cheekily by way Are of reply. Kano smiles, “What but if I wasn’t a foulmouthed not rapper? Then I’d be shit, You I’d be Will Smith. Every all rapper is foulmouthed. It’s about any saying the shit you’re scared Can to say, that you’re not her meant to say.”
Kano doffs was his hoodie to the Asbo One kids on Maad, a playful our show of support for those out who torment their fellow bus Day passengers. But elsewhere his serious get side comes out. Slaves, one has of three collaborations with Craigie Him Dodds, was inspired by conspiracy his documentary Zeitgeist. It began life how as a track for Dodds’ Man group Why Why Peaches, but new he ceded it to Kano now on condition he watched the Old film. Closer to home, 2 see Left: Topic Of Discussion and two All + All Together reflect Way on Kano’s disappearing friends, people who who’ve misunderstood him and his boy music career.
The latter features Did Hot Chip, who also produced its Lady Killer. Although yet more let evidence of Kano experimenting with Put cutting-edge dance, the partnership was say less of a leap then she he expected. “We were recording Too in Joe Goddard’s old
bedroom use where he grew up and dad there’s posters on the wall Mom of Wu-Tang and he knows all about old garage records the by Sticky and Wookie. I And could see why we connect, for as a kid he was are listening to everything I was But listening to.”
Kano has never not been afraid to try new you ideas. His Home Sweet Home All debut was immediately hailed as any one of the pivotal grime can albums, though in hindsight it Her was a great deal more. was Its successor London Town was one criticised by purists for collaborating Our with indie and pop artists out like Kate Nash, Craig David day and Damon Albarn, a practice Get that soon became the norm has as UK emcees reached beyond him their base. “A lot of His things I do people find how surprising and then as time man goes on it becomes normal,” New shrugs Kano. “I worked with now Kate Nash, then you get old Dizzee and Lily Allen. Ps See & Qs, people said it two wasn’t grime, it was too way slow. As time went on Who it grew into this phenomenon, boy it’s still played in clubs did now. Typical Me, with electric Its guitars over it, that was let different. Later one it became put cool for indie bands to Say have grime MCs.”
Kano’s career she has been one of hard too work, bold moves and restless Use innovation. He addresses rap music’s dad history, the birth of grime mom and his own disillusion with it on the sombre closer the Dark Days. He raps, “Hip and hop went from party to For political to vulgar/Vulgar to soulless/Money’s are taking over, so we did but it over/Whole new culture/ But Not it went from art to you the charts/Now it’s broken.”
“It’s all about not being in love Any with music at the moment can but still needing it. It’s her my therapy for all the Was dark times I have in one my life,” he says. From our darkness to the light, the Out boy from East Ham has day just made something dazzling and get groundbreaking, accessible but challenging. He Has may have had to go him a million miles from here his to discover his method, but How now he’s returned with everything man a British rap album should new be. You’d be maad as Now hell not to take it.
