|
  Conspicious Interview
interview 0334 added 14.09.05 words: Nikesh
technical:
QED
Conspicuous the Coroner,
one of the men from the Colony,
has been around the
scene for a while. He’s been slowly building up a profile,
working with the likes of Evil Ed and his own Colony people to
create a soundscape of crazy rhythms and images, that quite
frankly, scare you. After his “Dictionary Meaning Revisited” EP
of last year, he decided to put out an album. The result is
“Backgammon”, an intensely personal and reflective set of
soulful tracks where Cons talks about his fears and
insecurities, deaths and tragedies in his family and deep
soulful themes about his life. It’s a weighty piece of work,
using his own production and appearances from Evil Ed, Ghost and
Jehst amongst others. Whilst he feels it won’t be the record to
blow him up, it definitely will be an album you’ll be revisiting
time and time again as it stands up as an honest piece of work…
and in this day and age of punchline after punchline, it’s a
refreshing thing to listen to.
I caught up with the Coroner in a typical East End boozer to
discuss the album, his hope for the future and… well, being
branded by the Colony.
Introduce yourself and tell us the most
conspicuous piece of clothing you own.
 Wassup people, this is Conspicuous the Coroner, the dutty
stinkin’ Turkish foreigner aka Cesar Romero, King Cons the ape
man, haha! The most Conspicuous piece of clothing I own is a
Jeff Hamilton jacket with all the NBA teams badges on it. It’s
completely black even the team logos. I got that in New York
about 3 years ago and the bitch is still going strong!
People might know you from The Colony.
Tell us about Conspicuous as a solo artist.
As a solo artist, I approach things differently to when I am
with The Colony. Let me give you an example: If you’re on the
train and you see a hot girl on your own, you will approach her
differently than if you were with your boys. On your own, you’ll
probably be polite, try spark a conversation and try play it
smooth, but with your bredrins you’ll probably act a fool and
try show off! That’s how I am with my music. On my own, I’m more
calculated and put more thought into what I'm doing, I get very
personal as I feel I have a lot of stuff to get off my chest as
my music is my therapy. With The Colony, I can experiment more
and let my hair down -what I have left of it- and be a lot less
emotional! The Colony is my family and I love making music with
those guys like I say time and time again, Grimlok, Willo and
Smurf are my favourites in Hip Hop FULL STOP!
What can we expect from “Backgammon”
the album in terms of lyrical themes and producers?
I'm a soul child from back in the day. I always used to hear pop
music in my house and I used to hate it. One day I heard a
Marvin Gaye song on a commercial and I went nuts trying to find
out what it was! And I remember a friend of mine had the album
(well their parents had it), I listened to it and I knew that
that’s what music was REALLY supposed to sound like. In turn, I
put my soul into my music. “Backgammon” is my release… my
therapy and I'm just using “Backgammon” as a metaphor for my
journey in life, there is a paragraph in my inlay card in my
album that explains this in more depth! Production-wise, I did
about 45% of the LP myself and the other 55% is split up
between, Apollo, DJ Dise, Evil Ed, Ghost, Jehst and Propaganda.
Each person complimented me with a nice sound that suited what
I’m on.
"...My aim is for the listener to spend time with me and
get to know me as a person through my music..."
I always wanted a summer anthem and Ed gave me that with
“Focussed” (and a little help from soul brother number 1, Shaun
Escoffery!). One of my most emotional tracks is “Untitled” and
it’s a 16 bar dedication to my aunt who passed away from Cancer
(R.I.P Ayse Karaoglan: I wish cancer was your star sign and not
your illness) and Propaganda made a beat that completely
complemented the way I feel about her, I had to ace it there and
then. Lyrically, the album is very personal. My aim is for the
listener to spend time with me and get to know me as a person
through my music, and I can’t do that if I'm rhyming under false
pretences. I write about my family break-up, my insecurities and
all human emotions that a lot of people try to hide because they
see it as weakness. I see it as growing strength.
You've hooked up collaborations with
Ghost, Excalibah and Evil Ed amongst others. How did you get
this far in the UK scene?
From open mics and ciphers I met a whole bunch of people and a
BIG SHOUT TO USMAAN… he hooked me up with 2 of the illest
producers. I had the chance and pleasure to work with Ghost and
Evil Ed. I used to bump into Jehst at open mics, and I met
Apollo and Excalibah through the now infamous Homegrown internet
radio show. Me and Excalibah have known each other for TIME now
as has Apollo, as a matter of fact Apollo was the first person
to hook me up with a beat outside my circle. I’ve been on the
scene since 1999, learning and growing from watching how this
business is taking off and I feel that now is the most
appropriate time for me to release my material to the world. And
I also pay close attention to my stage performance; it doesn’t
make for good entertainment- watching people spit to their feet
while there is an audience to attend to!
Who amongst your UK peers do you look
up to?
Apart from my crew, I have to say my favourite crew over here
was Champions Of Nature (C.O.N Artists). That was Apollo, Supa
T, Jehst, Profound, Lewis Parker, A.M and L.Dolo. I remember
when The Colony first started making tracks, we approached Lewis
for a couple beats and he played us the Champions stuff!
AMAZING! The beats, rhymes, concepts, styles everything made me
think “Rah we gotta step this shit up!” We recorded 3 tracks
with Lewis, one in particular was called “Colonial Blueprint”
and without blowing my own horn, the track was ILL! There were
complications in the mixing and use of the track that became
real long.
"...make the music you feel you want to make and feel 100%
confident in doing you..."
Lewis was gonna put it out and then he left for NY and I haven’t
heard from him since, I still got that track on an old cassette
somewhere! But being in that environment and hearing what they
was coming with really inspired me to step up the beats and
construct song and tracks in different ways, and stuff always
sounded so unique on Lewis’ set up… the sound was real nice.
Every track had its own feel and character! This was around the
same time Klashnekoff was recording with Lewis before “Murdah”
and that, and everything sounded so nice, those times were real
inspirational.
How did you get into hip-hop?
Like I said, I was always into soul music but from 12-14, I was
mad into jungle. My cousins were bumping the first Prodigy album
and General Levy, UK Apache, Demolition Man, all that stuff!
Then they moved to Cyprus and for some reason I went to buy a DJ
Randall mixtape and came out with Dr Dre “The Chronic”. That
blew me away because it interpreted all that soul stuff that I
liked and made it more relevant to a newer audience! Then I
started picking up hip hop albums on a regs, Wu-Tang, Snoop,
Cypress Hill, Naughty By Nature etc. I always slept on the East
Coast though; I never really got into Nas, Biggie and stuff like
that till Willo kinda forced me into listening to them (I was
Westside till I die!).
"...it doesn’t make for good entertainment- watching people
spit to their feet while there is an audience to attend to!..."
How easy is it for you being an
independent artist, pushing and promoting your own music as well
as making it? What advice would you give to other artists on the
grind?
 Believe me when I say, nothing about any of this is easy. The
key is to remember that you are not a restricted record
label-owned artist. So make the music you feel you want to make
and feel 100% confident in doing you. Forget crowd pleasers and
formulas… do what’s natural. I have been working my backside off
trying to promote and prepare this album. Now, for me, it’s
about establishing myself. I don’t expect to blow up off this
album. I expect to do well and there is only so much you can do
on your own, but personally I feel that you can deal with your
music best yourself. If you don’t have the money or experience
in putting your stuff out, approach the smaller independents
like Janomi or Zebra Traffic rather than aiming for the big and
heavy BMG or Sony, cause at least then you are dealing with
people who share your interests.
When can we expect to be “branded by
The Colony”? What are the other members up to?
Tssssssssssssssss YES SIR! Haha! The Colony is ready to start
recording their debut LP. Production-wise we are using Apollo,
Evil Ed, Propaganda and myself. The project will be overseen by
The Colony and Jehst. I can learn a lot from him and admire his
business moves. He also feels what we are doing and is already
taking Smurf onboard YnR for his debut LP, entitled “Myalpha”
(due to drop real soon. Look out for the single and video
“Outside”). We are gonna record about 40 tracks and pick the
best ones. We are also going to introduce a few of our extended
family members on the album too.
"...I never really got into Nas, Biggie and stuff like that
till Willo kinda forced me into listening to them (I was
Westside till I die!)..."
We are gonna have fun with it and make some real unique music.
But apart from that, we are working on The Colony/Stronghold
mixtape featuring the likes of L.I.F.E Long, Poison Pen, Swave
Sevah and those guys, and we’re gonna be in NY soon putting that
together. Willo has an EP in the works and Grimlok is recording
consistently. As for me after this LP, expect to hear the Evil
Ed/Conspicuous album entitled “The Get-together”. We have about
50% done with that and to tell you the truth, we are looking for
people to put that out for us because we are so busy. If all
that fails we will definitely put it out by next summer!
Any plans to hook up collaborations
with grime MC's or attempt some sort of crossover like Sway
does?
You know what… funny you should say that. I was supposed to give
a beat to Hot Head Promotions (big up Cappo and Ratty) for their
Lord of the Decks DVD series but I ended up using the beat
myself. But yeah… I’m feeling Grime and I’d work with certain
heads. I’m loving the Roll Deep “When I’m Ere” track, and Crazy
Titch “Sing along”, oh yea Forward 2 is BIG! To me, music is
music I’d work with a techno artist if I felt the music they
approached me with.
Final shameless plugs/shoutouts?
You know what… I got all my shouts in my LP but I noticed I
missed a couple names and I’m just gonna big those people up
because everyone else got theirs hahaha! Asaviour, Abs (my web
designer), Micall Parknsun. Elite Team, Ill Smith Estate, Mr
Brain, Last Skeptik, Beat Butcha, Chemo, Manage, Broke’n’English,
MSI Asylum and I think that’s it! One last message, my email is
ottomanelfmusic@hotmail.com please get in contact with me
regarding any feedback you have on my projects thankyou and
check
www.ottomanelfmusic.com up and running soon! Peace and
Blessings… Cons!
-
Nikesh Shukla
Related Links:
 
|
