He gave a brilliant performance at the YML shows, rivalled only perhaps by Diversion Tactics – and his music is dope – so understandably, the mega-hard-working Cappo was at the top of my “must interview” list come the end of the run of shows. I could write a paragraph here about how great he is but seriously, where have you been? So without any further delay, here’s what the man had to say about (amongst other things): his creative process, insomnia and buried treasure….
How do you think the gig went?
The Sheffield show was a good show. What I tend to do at some points - all shows I’ll try and accept if I’ve got the time and all that - even if it’s for different prices because circumstances vary you know and I can appreciate that from a promoter’s point of view. So what I try to do, in shows where perhaps it’s not…well when perhaps there’s not going to be too many people there or like the attendance isn’t going to be too hot, what I would try to do is just practice out what I’m going to do in future and practise out my future shows – get them really tight so whoever’s there, they’ll still get a good show because I’m really trying hard to give a good show. So no matter whether there’s one thousand or just two people there, I’ll still give it my best. Somebody’s paid to see me so you’ve got to put a show on for them.
Have you ever had any really bad shows?
“Bad shows” in what way? In what way?
From your perspective, shows where you didn’t think it went well or you didn’t enjoy it?
Well most of the shows I do, I try to see them as a learning process whether they were good or bad. It all adds up to experience in the end. So me as somebody trying to be a positive thinker, I would say that there hasn’t been any bad shows. There’s been shows with low attendance and shows where different things happened but at the end of the day, it all adds up to a learning experience and a learning curve toward the person I am now and the stage shows that we do now. So in the end it all gathers up as experience and if it’s a bad thing, you’ll know not to do it again – or if it’s a good thing, you’ll be sure to keep doing it.
Cool. Which came first for you: the live performing or the recording?
The recording came first. When I first came out of school just before I was going to go to college, I was trying to make a demo tape. I showed it to my next-door-neighbor Denise Morrison and she thought that it would be a good idea to speak to people who were heavily into hiphop in the Nottingham scene. And so she gave me a lift up to Akner Arts where I met Courtney Rose, Matt Vyking from Community Service Recordings and that’s when he heard the demo. So I started to go up there week by week and just tried to work on a demo – and that’s how it basically started. The first time I performed live was at the Nottingham Carnival which was a while after I’d started rapping. That was the first time I performed in front of people properly.
Have you always been a solo artist?
When I first came out, I was working with these guys from my school where we used to try and rap together in my old garage in my old house and try to record it onto a Dictaphone. I was always trying to make up names for the group but it never came through. We took lots of photos and all that promotional stuff but we never got the demo together. We tried to talk to a label about it and they seemed interested from the music we played them but it wasn’t proper. We didn’t have the experience in the music industry so we all had to look for different things to go by. The people who I was working with at the time while I was growing up with them and rapping with them at school was Labels – they called themselves Labels and Strider. That’s who I came up with. It would be good to get everybody back so we could start another album – especially now we’ve got the experience of life and its stories. So I’d like to work with them guys again.
How did you get the “Cappo” name – that sounds like a real Mafia thing?
Hehehe yeah. What happened, the basic story of it is this. My father, when I was a youngster, used to call me this nickname “Captain Small” right? He’d see me running about and just call me “eh-up Captain Small!?” or whatever – So basically, with time it got shortened to “Cappo” and it’s just stuck ever since. It’s just stuck ever since for some reason. Everybody in my family – even my relatives out on the Isle of Man – and all my friends - everybody just calls me Cappo. The only people who never really called me “Cappo” were people at school. Everybody used to know me as Paul back then – or “”adey” y’know, just calling me by my surname or whatever. But everybody in my family and everybody who knows me well call me Cappo so it stuck with me. And then, when I started to rap, it was just there – it’d been my nickname from being a youngster so it just stuck with me.
OK. So last year, your album Spaz the world really smacked hiphop in the face –
well UK hiphop at least. Are you happy with how it turned out?
Yeah I’m happy man. I’m really happy with the way people accepted it. I’m proud of it and a lot of the time you’ll find me with a copy of it in my jacket pocket just in case somebody I haven’t seen in a while hasn’t got it yet – I’ve just got to show it to them! I’m proud of it – I’ve got pride in that album. The way it was produced, it’s just an unstoppable force and so I feel proud to have been part of it and how it was done. The way it was made was The Akai Professionals and it was sick!
... Not everybody wants a leader. I don’t want a leader really. I just like to get on with the way I do things and see how it turns out ...
And you say about being part of something. I’m a bit unsure about – well it says “Cappo” on the CD cover but do you not feel guilty about not saying “Cappo & The P Brothers” or like inventing a new group name for the project because the sound really is quintessential P-Bros as well as definitive Cappo?
Yeah yeah… What we decided though was to put an album out for myself. I’ve always had a vision of wanting to put an album out ever since I was on Son Records – and before that even, I wanted to put a good album out into the industry to shake them up a little. How it came about, when we went to the label, it was for me. It was actually my album that we were all going to work toward for me – and that’s something we all understood. So that’s when we made it, we made it under the group name of Akai Professionals, that’s like a crew name when we’re producing and rapping together. When we come out as a team, people are told it’s “Cappo of The Akai Professionals” so there’s no difference or confusion there.
Did you have any feedback from outside the UK regarding the album?
Yeah yeah. We got a little feedback from Europe and stuff like that, saying that they were into it. A few units have been shifted throughout France and Portugal and places like that so you could say they’re feeling it. I think it’s going to take a bit longer but hopefully we’re going to hit the German market hard and try to get out to Europe to do some tours – y’know, just to get out there so I can gauge feelings for myself. Aside from those places in Europe, it’s also being doing well in America and we’re trying to – well I would like to get out there most of all just to try and promote it as much as I can.
Yeah I’d imagine it goes down really well with people who like MF Doom or Kool G Rap and that sorta sound?
That would be a really good thing – and if I knew that those guys respected the album, I’d feel real good.
Coming back to the creative process and working with producers, are you always going to work with the P Brothers?
Yes definitely! If they still want me on their tracks, I’ll still work with them. They’ve just brought out a compilation album called Live Hardcore worldwide part 1. It’s featuring like all the Heavy Bronx tracks that we did and a few extra tracks – it’s like featuring extras from the John Peel radio 1 shows, there’s other different artists on there and it’s also got new tracks on there. So yeah; as long as they want me to be on the beats, I’m going to represent for them, I’m going to call on our fire.
And in terms of the creative process, are you always writing to peoples’ beats or are they writing the beats to what you’ve already written?
Well it would always be the other way around with me writing to their beats. But right now, it’s been quite busy recently because I’m trying to get another album out for April time. So I’m trying to get the tracks done for that but also there’s a few tracks that I have to do for a few producers. I’ve got a few things in the pipeline so I’m just trying to gauge it all – I’m trying to work hard on the things that are coming up closer than the ones that are further off in the future. I want to keep up with it all and keep writing as much as I can.
OK, onto your style. The persona you have on record is like this really dark, malevolent, kinda like Evil-god, criminal genius type thing you’ve got going there –
Criminal god!? Evil Genius!? W’hahahah!
Well obviously you’re not a criminal genius but how do you get in that mindstate?
That mindstate is me at all times. As human beings we all cloak and mask our feelings and we all have to respond to our environment in a certain way - but inside, that’s me all the time. That Evil genius is me man! It’s me! Definitely. No matter what circumstances, I’m the evil genius. Hehehe.
Do you set out with a specific concept for a track or ..?
Yehyeheyeh – well look at a track like Incomparable – it’s not exactly a concept. Sometimes I work with a concept – I used to do that when I was a bit younger, like actually think of a concept and try to write to it. But nowadays, I just want to let whatever I say splash onto the page. So when I wrote Incomparable, I used to just listen to the beat loads, just over-and-over-and-over for a while – just rewinding it and playing it over again. And I wouldn’t write to it, I’d just want to listen to it because I was just really feeling that beat. And what I think that did was just instill a few flows or instill a few certain styles or however you want to put it? – it instilled some structures of the rap before I even wrote it. So when I got to writing it – well a lot of the time, I’ll try to write it out fast and I’ll try to write a lot and then perhaps I’ll only use a small portion of what I’ve written which are the best parts y’know? So with Incomparable though, it all came out basically in one sitting. I worked on it a long time afterwards but the basic ideas, the parts of the song and the way I wanted it to flow and all that came after I’d been listening to that beat for a long time and then just sat down and it just came out like that. I don’t usually pick a concept like say just one thing - I would never stick a song to one thing because it would be hard to keep the detail of that one thing going for a whole song – I respect artists that do that and also I would like to try it again in the future more like I used to y’know? Because I did used to think up a concept and try writing something new.
Is there anything special you do to get those creative juices flowing? Like do you not sleep for three days in a row or take loads of drugs or whatever?
Hmmm, I might try that actually… Well I’ll be working on raps most of the time. In the day I’ll be working on beats and then if the beat’s alright, I’ve always got rhymes to work with. When I write I’ll just smoke some weed – same as when I listen to music be it just as recreation or when I’m producing music. Most of the time I’ll just smoke a reefer while I’m doing it and so I just get into it and see how it works from there. So that’s probably my creative potion – that’s all the ingredients I need hehehe.
So did you catch that Shattered show on Channel 4 where contestants supposedly didn’t sleep for a week (even though they went to bed every day for a couple hours)?
A week!? That would be a killer!
But they didn’t tho. If they had then that then that would’ve been really good but they didn’t. They went to bed.
Honestly?
Yeah for one-and-a-half, two hours every day.
What for medical reasons?
No. The plan was that they had to stay up for the full week but they soon found this plan unworkable because the people all went a bit mental.
Yeah they probably did…imagine that…no sleep…mad! Ridiculous! I’m going to try it now you know –
Well it was worth it for the one who won it who got like ninety six grand. So that’s gotta be worth it?
For a hundred thousand you’re going to stay awake…Well you’re bound to try for as long as you can at least..
Anyway, after that digression, back to the totally unrelated issue of hiphop. What’s the Nottingham scene like now in 2004?
Right now it’s thriving – that’s to me anyway because I didn’t see it in the early ‘80s and times like that. But to me now, it seems more thriving than ever. It’s just full of emcees and producers and writers and we’ve got breaker crews up here as well – everything seems to be bursting out of the seams with creativity and talent from all different quarters of the Nottingham scene. We’ve got all types of new emcees coming through…we’ve got emcees like Lee Ramsay, C-Mone, Scorzayzee - and then you’ve got the new guys like Doogie Howser, people like that also. You’ve got Joe Buddha who’s always producing hard -
... I’ve got pride in that album. The way it was produced, it’s just an unstoppable force and so I feel proud to have been part of it and how it was done ...
yeah massive –
Yeah, giant – And you’ve got the P-Brothers –
Yeah I think I’ve heard of them –
They’re smashing it! You’ve got The Forceful Thousand Mile Drum Styles and the Artic Snares(?) – and you’ve got even more than that. You’ve got The Black Vyking and that whole official fam – like I say, there’s many more than that and I can’t say all the names.
Well I ask because when we did these gigs in Sheffield, we found that whilst there’s loads of talented people, there just wasn’t any sort of infrastructure there and everybody was in their own little splinter faction fending for themselves. Some people hadn’t even met each other till last November. What’s the infrastructure and networking like in Nottingham?
Yeah it’s hard to put everybody’s consciousness or collective thoughts together and go in the same direction so…well maybe it’s good – I feel as if having that sort of competition where everybody isn’t so close perhaps is good for hiphop. Maybe that’s how it was in New York Back in the day? I’m not the person to tell you but perhaps having that side to it where there isn’t any one driving force and nobody is there wanting to be lead on by a one person – not everybody wants a leader. I don’t want a leader really. I just like to get on with the way I do things and see how it turns out. But I understand what you mean; if there was a monetary fund or a label that would really stick to its guns on UK Rap it could be a big thing.
But I’m not even talking on a money level. When we did those Sheffield gigs, there was established acts in Sheffield who’d never even really met each other properly – and that’s people who live a short bus ride away from each other. So I’m just speaking on a personal, one-to-one level of artists knowing of each other’s existence and forming associations like that.
Yeah that’s true…that’s right. Promotion is a big part of that – letting people know what’s going on and who’s about. Yeah that’s true. And plus, this rap business now and hiphop and all that is the biggest thing – musically – so there’s bound to be more people from different walks of life and different situations in life and different environments seeing these same things on TV, hearing these same things on radio and not getting inspiration by it – but their own personalities, because they’re cut off from different people, they get to have this thing to themselves – that’s when they can make whatever they want of it. They can choose to put their own personalities into “hiphop.” Because when you start to rap, you can do anything you want with it because there are no guidelines. If you are on your own, you’re free to go off on your own tangent with hiphop.
OK, and speaking of going off on tangents, you’ve been associated with a few labels so far in your career so could you run through your label hopping antics for me?
The only couple of labels that I’ve been on really and truly was Son Records and Zebra Traffic. What it is was with Son Records was right back at the start. What I did was make a demo tape called The Cap Tape. I put fifteen tracks on there and I sent it out to – well I think I got sixty tapes out there – so I sent it out to a few labels and tried to sell the rest. Eventually, a few months later, I got a phone call from Alistair Nicholson from Son records and that’s how that started. I put a couple of EPs out on there and while the relationship was still going with Son Records, I wanted to make an album and there was an offer of an EP from Son but I didn’t really want to make another EP. So I Switched it onto Zebra Traffic. I shopped the idea to Zebra Traffic because they seemed interested and that’s when we made Spaz the world. So there hasn’t been too many labels for real but there’s been different brushes with other people down the line.
Are you going to stay on Zebra Traffic or are you going to branch out and go fully independent?
Hmmm, I dunno.. We’ve just put out The get out; volume 1, that album’s out independently because I didn’t want it on a label really. We’ve kept it low so it’s probably only sold about?…all in all? 350 even now. It’s been out a few months – but when we hear back from people who’ve listened to it, all the feedback is good. They like it and the way it’s being released. A lot of the time, people tend to want to get something if it’s a little bit less in the circulation – y’know, if it’s something that’s going to be kept for only the Midlands or a certain area or whatever. If we’re not looking for distribution then we’re just going to be selling it out of our own pockets and therefore it’s going to be the people that we actually meet and who come to our shows who’re going to hear it and that’s what I want. So that’s why we didn’t put it out on a label. With the new album I’m going to put out, I think I’m going to call it Resilience. I’m going to be putting it out on MainRock entertainment which is a label that started out in Leicester. It’s had a couple EPs out from the person who owns the label, Apoc – that’s Apocraphy from Leicester. He’s going to fund the album so we can go through with it and he’s going to get distribution because he’s a businessman, he knows what he’s doing – so we’re going to put it out that way.
How would you describe The Get out in relation to Spaz the world?
The get out? Well, in terms of Spaz the World, it was written whilst Spaz the World was finishing and I was looking to do my own thing – y’know, just working on different things. And I decided that before I’d work on my own album by myself, I’d try to branch out with a friend who I’ve been friends with for a long time. We’ve worked on music before but we’d never worked seriously on it before so we came up with a plan to make thirty tracks, take the best tracks no matter how many they were, and put out an album just as a labour of love. Something where I could listen through it and it would be something different from the music I’ve been making recently – a different side of me to show my diversity. That’s how The Get out came about really.
and is this going to be an ongoing series of albums because the CD says “Volume 1”?
Yeah definitely. We’ve already got three tracks made for Volume 2 and they’re sounding amazing! They’re in the same vein of rap and the beats as Volume 1 – but if anything, it’s new and improved because me and Dan (Zero theory), we can tell already – we can hear the beats and we already know that this is going to be much bigger and better so we feel as if we might have to go with a label with this one…Not sure yet because we’ve got a long way to go. This time around we decided not to make a whole bulk amount of tracks: we’re just going to make the best tracks we can and leave it at that. So this time there wont be tracks to throw away. Because what happened with The Get Out; Volume 1, is that when the thirty tracks were made and the final tracks were chosen, we took the master tapes of the thirty tracks, put them in a metal box and went down to a place where I used to live near the river Trent and we buried them. We buried the box about four feet deep in the dark one night. The plan was to bury it in front of this mansion that was across the way of the river. I would explain in a rap on the CD that that’s where it was and then using the map on the cover which we were going to provide, they would be able to find the box. But what happened was, is we buried it and within about a week, I came past the same place to see if everything was alright…and there was this big hole. Somebody had already got it – that’s the messed up thing. A couple of days later we came back to the spot – I go there quite regularly - we saw a man with a metal detector so we were both thinking “hey! Maybe it’s this guy here? He’s got the thirty tracks?” That’s the only existing copy of the thirty tracks we made; the others got deleted off the computer to save memory – that’s the only existing copy that that guy’s got there. So he’d do a good job of bootlegging it if he could.
... No matter whether there’s one thousand or just two people there, I’ll still give it my best. Somebody’s paid to see me so you’ve got to put a show on for them ...
hehehehe. I’ll be on the look out for that on eBay –
Hehehhe yeah, see if he’s got it out there..
You seem to be quite dedicated to the album format which I find unusual for a UK artist?
Yeah definitely. I feel like an album is more of a whole thing. Since I started buying hiphop in my youth, I’d much rather buy an album. I’d buy the odd 12” and that – and in the UK it seems like EPs or small projects is the things to do whereas I would rather do a project that has twelve opinions or options of listening on it instead of just three or four tracks. I would like to bring out an album with a good amount of variety on it that you can get your personality out there – and more than your personality out there, you can get your creative vision and inspiration out there as well. People can hear all that and hear it all in one sitting if they want and hear a whole chunk of your life; instead of hearing little bits or bobs released in drabs over the months y’know? I’d rather put it all out at once. I’d rather have ten singles and put them out in the album format so people can take it on a CD, take it on a vinyl album, take it home and have part of my creative process and my life there. I’ve always felt that way about LPs and albums. I don’t know if that will change but if money’s concerned? Then I don’t know what I’d do. If money was the main goal then perhaps I would bring out EPs and different things like that. But I just feel like I’m going to bring out albums so people can hear all the tracks together. They can get a full meaning of what I mean instead of hearing just a couple tracks and not entirely understanding it.
What’s the last album you copped?
Well last album I was bought was…The Blueprint 2 from my auntie. I got all my Cormega albums – yeah, I bought them recently. I sometimes go to the ol’ kazaa y’know and download Dipset and all that kind of thing.
So you’re quite into the Underground Thun sorta sound then?
I wouldn’t consider it underground – I don’t know whether that’s a name that’s been coined now?
nah – nah – but how else would you describe it? People like Cormega are a kind of Gangsta rap but they’re not like “Gangsta rap” like Snoop and all that –
I really feel rappers from Queensbridge like Nas, Nature, Cormega. I feel they’ve got the history there and I can hear it in their voices. I can hear the pride in where they’re from and all that. I listen to rap from all the boroughs but I just seem to like the Queensbridge sound the most. Also Harlem right now as well with The Dipset, Cam’ron, Jim Jones and all those… Production-wise, Kanye West and Jus Blaze, right now that’s what I like to hear. When I’m downloading from Kazaa or listening to mixtapes those are the tracks that I like to hear.
OK well speaking of Cam’ron, what do you think of this recent news that - well I heard Posh Spice was now working with Rocafella? Apparently she’s released stuff with like Cam’ron and MOP?
Well it’s funny you should mention that. We saw that in the Sun newspaper and decided to get on that type of business ourselves. So what we figured was, we’d go down to London, parlay with all the big celebrities and we ended up getting with Baby Spice. We’ve got a track on the new album with Baby Spice. Man it’s a big-big smash! She decided she’d run with some rappers and a hiphop outfit for a while because of what Posh is doing, she thought it would be a good way to go. So we hooked up a few beats on the old Akai MPC2000XL and she was feeling it! She sung her little heart out bless her, it was sick!
Excellent! So which album’s that coming out on?
That’s coming out on Resilience.. It’ll be the secret track, you’ll have to let the album play for - I think it’s two weeks you have to let it play out for after the final track hehehhe.
Well in a way you’ve already answered my next question but do you have any dream collaborations - anybody you’d really like to work with?
Dream collabs? After this Resilience album is finished I’m looking to go out to America, out to Florida, Inlake City and try and buy up all the records that I like over there, bring them back home and I’m just going to have a hiatus from emceeing for a while – just work with my Akai in my room, not rap for a while – and I might just try and work on an album just with singers or something I dunno…or something instrumental… I might try something different. But singers? I dunno .. I like Leanne Rimes you know, she’s pretty sick y’know? Yeah, I’d like to work with Leanne Rimes. One woman who I’d really like to work with is Judy Suke. I listen to her albums a lot. Judy Suke is an inspiration to me. Her production and the musicians who helped to make her albums were all sick so I’ve sampled it a lot. Also people like Stevie Nicks and people like that – Blondie and people like that who have a real reputation in the business who are still out there doing their thing.
Would you ever be prepared to share the mic limelight with another emcee or do you prefer just solo rap tracks?
Oh yeah man. I’ve got a track coming out with Konny Kon from Manchester. It’s P-Brothers-produced and it’s coming out on an EP that he’s bringing out on Coldsnap Records it’s called CapKon Entertainment. So yeah I’ve just gone down to Manchester to work on another track with Konny Kon and Chuck Nubian. Chuck Nubian mixed a track that I produced and that’s going to be one of the leading tracks of Resilience – if that’s what I call the album in the end – that’s to be confirmed.. But yeah on this album Resilience I’m trying to work most tracks with another artist just to show that whereas with Spaz the world and The get out I showed I could hold it down alone, I can also work with other artists.. We’ll see how it turns out…
Do you see a time when you’ll be making party music or “happy” songs? I like your music but it’s all really dark and intense isn’t it?
Yeah. What I’m doing on Resilience right now is trying to make the tracks more uplifting and trying to make it more of a dance-orientated album. There’ll be some tracks with the same feeling as before because I’m always following that feeling but on a whole, the new album’s trying to be different to Spaz the world and The get out just by being – So I don’t box myself in at any point or shoot myself in the foot. With anything I do, I try to be versatile with the things that I’m making. This one will have a lot of uplifting and those kind of tracks.
OK, to wrap it all up, any famous last words? Anyone you want to biggup on this worldwide basis?
Famous last words? Well I bigged up everybody from Notts already so I think I’m alright. I wanna big up my mum, Lynda Adey aka “Manksy” because she’s the best mum in the world! And I’m also bigging up SM Atrine (Stacey) because she’s the illest. Who else am I bigging up? Icarus Caspien Icarus Caspien Monsters – that’s my cousin forever! We got Zoe my cousin .. got to say Gardeney and everybody else, I’ll se you around! And even Dinos, I’m shouting Dinos –
Yeah you better ‘cus I’m paying for this phonecall –
Yeah he’s paying for this phonecall and he does a wicked interview man! I’ll see him in Sheffield next time I come up – we’ll be there man!
Many thanks to Cappo for doing the interview. Thanks also to Tom Simpson (but not “extra special thanks” because you never got back to me with clarifications of the names Cappo mentions – so sorry to anybody who is incorrectly named) – but yeah, thanks to Tru Thoughts/Zebra Traffic with all their help regarding Cappo and Diversion Tactics. If it wasn’t for Ty’s Upwards, Cappo’s Spaz the world would have been the best UK hiphop album of 2003 – well it’s still the rawest, most brutal assault of vicious rhymes and intense beats ever to be committed to wax/CD in these shores so if you haven’t already, go get – and if you can, pick up The get out volume 1 too.
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