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KEV BROWN INTERVIEW


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Brazil is not an odd place for an American producer to travel to, but what makes Low Budget rapper/producer Kev Brown’s story stand out is that he’d booked two shows initially — one in Rio De Janeiro and one in Sao Paulo.

“Lets just say I got talked into staying and leave it at that,” he hints. Considering he can count on one hand how many times he’d been to the beach in the United States, he does say it was the flip flops, food and permanent beach weather that made him want to stay on longer. Whilst there, he met fans, and musicians who would become good friends. Back home in the states and having recently released “Brazil Dedication/Dedicacao Ao Brasil” via Redefinition Records, tracks he’d produced with his MPC while visiting friends in the favelas or the studio are now available to buy on vinyl or Bandcamp. Within the bars of the beats there are stories and memories for Brown; reminiscent of the experiences that captivated him whilst in Brazil’s complex culture. “It’s kind of hard to talk about Brazil because I was there for two months and I soaked so much in. There’s a lot to Brazil, it’s a third world county so, you know it’s not all glamour and glitz out there either.”

Why did you go to Brazil?
I had some shows, a little mini tour in Sao Paulo and Rio De Janeiro. It was dope, the shows was dope. It’s two different kinds of areas. Sao Paulo was more like the city area, the place I was at, they had beaches and stuff too but they still have a big city area. There’s a lot of culture — a lot of artsy people and stuff mixed in with the city life. And then Rio, most people know it as a tourist area, Copacabana and stuff. But there’s more to that too, you know, Brazil is a third world county so it’s not all glamour and glitz out there either.

And you stayed longer than you intended to?
Yeah the shows and stuff I had was dope but I guess you could say I kind of got talked into staying a little longer, yeah I’ll kind of leave it at that.

Culturally what was your personal experience of Brazil?
It’s a very rich culture — it’s kind of hard to talk about Brazil because I was there for two months and I soaked so much in, so it’s kind of hard to narrow it down. But I took a lot of the culture in. Even the capoeira. I didn’t do any — I wasn’t trying to get kicked in the face [smiles] because they do that out there, it’s real. Shout out to my man Pai Lua. Him and his man took me out to the capoeira joint, I actually got to see the real, they play the music and they doing flips and stuff, it’s crazy. They have everything, that as an American, every style of music we have on this side — but the Brazilian counterpart. Like soul music, there’s Brazilian Soul music, there’s Brazilian Jazz, I guess at the end of the day it’s all Soul music, you can’t really label it but they have their own artists that do Soul music and jazz, a lot of jazz, very rich. Also of course the Samba and Bossa Nova came from Brazil, it’s a kind of Jazz and it’s music that people listen to now every day and I guess people might not realize that.

So how did it occur to you to make “Brazil Dedication”?
Well I was making beats out there, everywhere I was at, I pretty much made beats — in the hotel, over at cats houses, in the studio I had a bunch of beats. Some of the stuff I had planned on working with some Brazilian artists too so I was like making beats just to have some new stuff to play for em. When I came back home I let the crew hear it and let friends hear it and it was a longer beat tape with more on it. You know cats was like, “You gonna put this out, or”? At the end of the day the label was like, “Yo you got anymore projects you wanna do?” And it was just like, why not…I went to Brazil, it was a real experience.

Describe working on the Bailie Black Remix?
If you go on YouTube you can hear the original version, it’s an artist named Hyldon. Yeah it was dope, I met him, [when] I did a show in Rio out in front of a stall called DNG, which is a clothing store. I met him there and I didn’t think I was going to really work with him — but somehow, being that it’s a small world, I met some more people that know him and we actually worked together. He asked me to do a remix, I went to one of his shows — this part was crazy, he called me up on stage to kick a rhyme and that’s, like anybody that knows me knows that’s not a regular thing cause I’m not super rappity-rap, like call me up, that was crazy. I was shook. But after that it was nice meeting him and stuff and he asked me to do a remix to one of the songs. I remember him telling me he wanted something like D’Angelo, so I was like okay, but that just made me think he wanted some funky soul or whatever so I was like alright. But he gave me the whole session, you know the waves and the studio session and I took it over my man Pai Lua’s crib, he is an emcee also from Brazil, and I stayed over his house with his family, his mother cooked for me everyday — crazy.

So you got to experience Brazil properly?
Yeah definitely. It was definitely not like a Kev Brown tour. It was just like, I was in Brazil. I met all kinds of people like what I’m telling here is just one little episode of the two month trip. But yeah, I stayed over at his house and everything, we was kicking it and he’s working on an album too, I did a track on it.

Did those cats know who you were before you got there?
I’m not sure if Hyldon knew, but Pai Lua knew definitely, because we was talking on Facebook before I even got to Brazil. But Hyldon is definitely up on a lot of stuff. I remember talking to him, he called Pai Lua’s house, he was listening to like Alicia Keys so he knew certain joints. But yeah it’s not a regular thing [for me] getting into a regular studio session, actually sampling live instruments.

How was that for you?
It was tight, it was cool. The main difference with this was, I could manipulate the samples, but I couldn’t manipulate them crazy enough. Like usually when I sample something I’m trying to manipulate it, change it, I usually have more freedom. I can change the pitch of the sample, chop it up a different way. He’s a singer so I couldn’t do too much to the beat as far as changing the pitch or anything but you know I could still put my own bass line on it and chop the guitars up a little bit — make it go a different way, change the drums, but the horn section is still the same as the original. The original sound is more like a 70’s disco track, you know. Check the video out on YouTube because I think they actually do have Soul Train clips and people dancing and stuff. But this one is more like a funk kind of — I let some cats hear it and they said it sound like a Battlecat joint.

What was your favorite thing to do there?
Other than studio sessions and linking up with cats and stuff, I liked going to the beach a lot. I never was the type of person to go to the beach anyway, I could probably count the times on one hand that I’ve been to the beach in America, like times where I actually get in the water and stuff. But it was such a regular thing, just wearing shirts everyday [laughs] like shorts and flip flops. I can tell you this, like the electricity went out one time and everything still stays open. They were just using calculators and candles in the store. They keep it moving out there.

Their version of a third world country, did that strike you at all?
Yeah, they definitely, it’s hardcore. They got the favelas and it hit me because when you think of rich people, they usually live up on the mountains and stuff — they do have areas where the rich people live on the mountains but there are a lot of areas where the favelas are in the mountains you know, it’s strange to see that’s the hood, it’s in the mountain. Usually rich people is up on the mountain and they told me crazy stories about guns and they were telling me crack had just hit there. So just imagine that. You know, at least it’s not as new to them as it is to us, like it’s properly just hit in the last couple years or so. And they got the crazy stuff with the government, there’s a lot of stuff with Brazil. The way I seen women get treated and stuff, shoot, um, it’s a lot.

Ok, You’ve mentioned that maybe you would write a book one day about your Brazil trip, what themes would it have?
It’s gonna be a movie [laughs] and it’s going to be the greatest movie starring Denzel Washington, Oscar Award Winning [jokes]. If it will be my joint there will definitely be some show scenes in it, there would definitely be some beach scenes…It wouldn’t be like an action movie or nothing. It would probably be like a drama/biopic type movie I think but it would be just that episode though, it wouldn’t just be a life movie, it would be like hey, this is the part of my life when I was in Brazil and I went out there for a week and ended up staying for two months, see that’s a movie already. Like what happens to him to make him wanna stay there and then how did he get back home you know. But I got to leave that to the imagination, just enjoy the “Brazil Dedication” and rock out to that.

Has Brazil changed the person you are in retrospect?
Definitely. On the first hand, to know, as a musician, there’s fans in Brazil; like you know, it’s another thing that I realized when I came to Wellington and that part of the world, Australia and New Zealand, I was telling a friend of mine the other day like, cause he brought it up, he was like yeah, we making this cold weather music and I used to think the same thing — then when I think about when someone brought it up in Brazil, they were like, “Yo when you drop joints in your winter, it’s summer time over here when your joints come out” and that just blew my whole mind. Cause I’m thinking we dropping music in the fall, you know, weather is cold, there’s leaves falling off trees, whatever. But like to know that people might be riding around with us in the car with the top down, you know what I mean, like it’s a nice day let me throw this Low Budget joint on you know, that’s dope and places like Brazil where technically it’s summer time every day. Just stuff like that as a musician, it opens your mind up. Because as a musician sometimes you can be very narrow minded and that’s really inspirational to know every summer people are waiting for some new Kev Brown stuff, like they going to the beach listening to Kev Brown so that’s pretty dope.

What’s your definition of Grindin’?
That you’re working with a focus to get a specific goal accomplished.

Interview by Aleyna Martinez

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