The following was a pre-release interview, slated for a post-drop feature. It’s a conversation between The Culturing’s co-founder Joe M. Watema (alternate artist identity – KEZEROD) and genre-fusing rapper Kevin Mawejje.
Joe: Yo Kev, hope you’re good. Just kinda curious, what headspace were you in when you crafted the material on this joint?
Kevin Mawejje (artist): I was in a limbo of sorts, bro, with thoughts of what more I could offer, especially after “Safari”. I had a lot of fans & acquaintances literally ask, “Where’s Kevin?” And that seemed to be both in the sense of what next I was cooking up, but also like where would the creative winds take me after that. I myself did an internal search of where I was, so in that sense the title has an introspective angle to it.
Joe: Which of the tunes on the project did you write first, that’s if you can remember? (laughs)
Kevin: That’s a tough one… but I’m gonna go with “Terms & Conditions”. See the thing is, many artists “write to record”, in the sense that they come up with material to take to the booth. On the other hand, I for one did lots of “recording to write”. I fleshed out lots of material in the studio while wrestling with ideas as I literally laid them out. And so it’s hard to tell which tune shaped out the fastest.
Joe: That’s an interesting approach, hard to imagine it for myself, but defo sounds like a vibe. And that brings me to my next curiosity. If you were pressed to put some sort of label to the subgenre you ply your trade in, what would you call it?
Kevin: (laughs) uhm, well, if I were pressed, then perhaps “jazz-rap” if there’s such a term.
Joe: I mean… (chuckle)…. now there is! Also seems like the kinda sound suitable for a 16-track project, kinda many, as a by-the-way, wouldn’t you say, and what would you identify as the overarching themes on the project?
Kevin: Honestly, the project was even more loaded originally. But my brother, Matt Travers, who himself was quite instrumental in making the joint coherent, helped me to slim down quite a bit and eliminate any possibilities of fillers and redundancies. Regarding the themes, I’d say first and foremost, this to me was more like an address to industry and my peers. Thing is, we can get lost in the pleasantries of being buddy-buddy nice for relationship’s sake with peers, but all that does is stagnate artistic growth, if there’s no candid critique of our state. The second theme I’d say is love, not just in a lovey-dovey sense but also in a f*boy persona typa sense, the rougher edge, if you will. The project also contains quite a bit of vulnerability, in the artistic sense, like there’s nothing wrong with expressing the sentiment of being stuck while creating.
Joe: Wow, that’s insightful! D’you have a favorite track on the project?
Kevin: That’s a tough one on here. With “Safari” it was obvious. But here, I could say I have (a) favorite(s) in different categories. But if I were pressed, the opener “Cliffhangers” is quite something and the title track itself which I mostly dig due to the experimentation that brought it to life.
Joe: Is it a coincidence that your fav tracks are the opener and the closer?
Kevin: (pauses) It’s actually quite an interesting occurrence since, for instance, the closer is actually in a sense a manifestation of many aspirations I had while starting out in my craft.
Joe: Is there any tune you included hesitantly?
Kevin: A number of them, like, I get to address some ideas and people who I’m quite certain will pick up some of references themselves, so we can leave that in their courts (laughs)
Joe: How did you go about the sequencing of the tracks? Any particular formula or mood board or was it a random affair?
Kevin: Yeah, that’s a good question. I feel like I was super-intentional this time, since with “Safari” I was worried that if I put the hard-hitting super-cool stuff first, people won’t listen to the project as a whole but only the first half. Here, I did the opposite. I put my best foot forward in a very direct sense. I led with the hardest jams. And yet there’s no filler and I uniquely appreciate each inclusion. There’s an incidental mood trajectory as the album progresses, but what I’ve previously said was essentially the reasoning behind the sequencing.
