As only a surface-level fan of hip-hop, I must admit, of my unfamiliarity with the name K-the-I??? when I first approached his recent Backwoodz Studioz album—Genuine Dexterity. Consequentially, it all came to me as a surprise, how uninformed I was of the spectacles that the foregone years of underground hip-hop have gave us.

From an early age, K-the-i??? started rapping in Cambridge, MA, thanks to his cousin’s recommendation. 2002 saw the start of his recording career, soon to be followed by his signing with the Mush records—the alternative-rap paradise of the time—where he released his two most well-known albums. Outside Mush, he was able to release multiple projects projects here and there.

His collaboration with the renowned producer Kenny Segal occurred more than sixteen years after Mush, simultaneous to his debut in Backwoodz Studioz. Albeit his six-year break, the album was by any means dexterous. He explains the source of this quality in our interview, “The Kenny thing was a little bit different because I took a break for like, a decade. So, I had everything to write about.”

Thus, this column’s primarily focus will be on K-the-I??? and Genuine Dexterity. It will provide an insight behind the creation of the masterpiece of Genuine Dexterity, as well as K-the-i???’s analysis of the American hip-hop scene and how he was able to successfully withstand its changes.

Experimental music?

My production is definitely experimental. There's music, there's rhythmic elements to it. So, you can bop your head, and you can dance to it however you want to. I would call it experimental. I like to take samples and completely rip them apart as much as I can. Even if you know it, you know I did a lot to it.

Can experimental music movements turn into a cliché? I would say yes. I don't know how to how to say it, but you can tell when somebody is being weird, trying to be weird, rather than somebody being naturally off the hinge a little. I'm a lefty, so I already automatically think with opposite side of my brain; I use the hemisphere that no one uses. So, I just think, again, it goes with the thinking outside the box. If you're somebody like, “oh, I'm trying to be weird,” it comes off corny. You could tell that. You could tell the difference between somebody trying and naturally just being what they are.

Current rap scene

I always try to tell people—when people tell me hip hop is like, the scene is whack and all of that—that means you haven't been looking. There's always amazing stuff out; it's just what direction you're looking at. You know, people wouldn't even expect it, but I even like some of the things that they would consider us older heads to dislike. I listen to Lil Yatchy and Playboi Carti and all that stuff. People don't expect that. But I do, because I like music in general. So, if there's something that you can impress me by, like, for example, Yatchy… I'm not the biggest fan of him as a rapper, he's not saying anything, but I understand sonically what he's trying to do. And the beats are cool. It's not beats that I rap too, but I can understand that they're cool. Somebody went in the studio and put their time to create this. So, I just respect all elements. It might not be my criteria for say, but I respect it. I never want to look like the bitter old guy. Like, “oh my god, these dudes, what the hell are they doing?” No, let them play. Because, believe me, when we first came out and we were doing robotic, mechanical… it looked weird to people. That era of hip hop was straightforward, just raw hip hop. When some of us came in and said “whirp-whirp-whirp,” it took them some time to be like, “let them in.” And that's how I feel about the new kids. Let them in, they'll figure it out. Respect everybody.

Crafting a solid Identity

Crafting a solid identity as a rapper is not necessarily. Some people are different. Well, let me just explain to you. Me, I'm a… what they like to call like, I'm an overly friendly human being in the in the world of MC and you know, I'm saying because I'm friendly; I like humans. I'm humanitarian; I like humans. So, I'm like, “Hey, what's up? What's up? What up? What's up?” Most artists, and I'm not speaking for everybody, but I most artists want to keep themselves secret because they consider this their superpower. They don't want to show you, their Clark Kent. They rather show you their Superman strength only. So, they keep their identity and their anonymity to themselves, and they don't want to show you, like, who they actually are. Me, Kiki is no different than K-the-I???, you know what I'm saying? The people who know me, they're just like, “oh, you don't turn on the rapper switch.” No, dude. I'm the same person, and so I'm more humanitarian than most. They're just like, they rather keep just to themselves, you know, so the so the appeal is hidden. Me. I just don't care, and I've been told that by certain people like “you shouldn't be so friendly with people,” “you should be…” so they don't even get to know who you really are. I don't know if there's a phrase like this in Hong Kong, but usually people say, “never meet your heroes,” because usually when you meet people that you consider a hero, they're going to disappoint you in some way. But I have the opposite, where people are like, “you're not a bad person.” And they're surprised by that. They're like, “you've been around so long I've been listening to you since I was in high school. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and you're not like this.” And I'm like, “am I supposed to be?” Then I realize, because I legitimately, I have met people that I consider my heroes and have been disappointed. I'm like, “oh man, I'm glad to meet you.” And you're just like, oh, wow, this person’s not nice.

Genuine Dexterity

I'd say that Genuine Dexterity took like eight to nine months. There's even a few songs that didn't make it there, we utilized it for something different. We really just got busy, recording, recording, and recording, narrowed it down to the 11th best songs Kenny put together the track listen perfectly. So it was, yeah, eight to nine months. In my world, I call that pretty quick, but I know a lot of people can, like my boy, Fatboi Sharif, can make an album in three months. Yeah, he can, he can make an album in three months. Me? Can I do that? Yeah… but my brain won't allow me to do that. I have to go read nine books before I can write. You don't want to constantly say the same thing. I have to read or go watch 800 movies for me to see something else. The Kenny thing was a little bit different because I took a break for like, a decade. So, I had everything to write about. You see how America is. So, it's very easy to write. There's a lot of stupid stuff that go out here. So, it's very easy to write. Hong Kong, you're not going down on the street, shooting to each other on the neighborhood; we are. Because I visit a lot of countries, and every time I visit a country, all I can say is, “damn, we messed up.” Because when you go to other countries, for example, Switzerland, if the government tells them to do something that they dislike, the people will make it clear that it's not. They're not going to let that happen. Us, we rather be scared to be like, “um-um-uhm,” then just take it. It’s wrong, but we’ll just sit there and take it. Other countries don't, so I respect a lot of countries for that too.

Science Ninja Team Gatchaman

Gatchamen was my that was my stuff growing up. And I gave the thought, you know, like when you were working on that record. I explained my friend Dredskee, the guy who made the artwork, that I'm a big fan of the Gatchamen. We call it a G force here, but I'm familiar with Gatchamen, oh, you know Tatsunoko. I love all of that stuff. I'm a Street Fighter player too. So, I know about the Tatsunoko and all of that stuff, right? So, I tell him, like, “hey, I want you to paint us in the image of the Gatchamen.” And when he did it like that, flawlessly. You know, then the video, well, Chris took an episode and reanimated it and did it too. I was like, “perfect.” So, we kind of have to ride that, Gatchamen wave now.

Inscribing puzzles

Do I consider my rap as a sort of political and conscious hip hop? Yes and no, I like to hide it. I don't like to be overly political, because when you're overly political, your opinions could sometimes make you look stupid. So, I don't like to be overly political; I just like to state my point. I do be political, but I'll hide it. The only thing that you constantly will understand is the little nuances of like, me talking about the watching the world burn, as you see, LA is burning and all this stuff. So, I’d rather kind of put easter eggs in my songs, and if you figure them out, you figure it out. And people have got me, “yo, you were talking about blah, blah, blah,” six years later and I'm like, “ah, you figured it out.” I don't want to be like, “oh, screw the government.” It's too it's too easy to do that. And when you do it like that, you get to look stupid, because if your opinion is wrong, if I say something about Flat Earthers, then it shoots me back in the foot if somebody's like, “no, that statement is incorrect.” Look, I'd rather just leave it loosely based for you to figure it out yourself, or make light with it, what you will. So, not overly political, just like a puzzle.

I would rather leave this earth, knowing that I have artifacts for you to translate later, rather than me to tell. Because if you're going to some hard things or whatever, there's no reason for me to outright be like, “oh, I'm sad.” And people who know me, they'll be like, “yeah, I know what you're talking about.” But I'll never be like… I just find ways of hiding it. There's too many words in the world for you to be extremely simplified. Go read a book, go watch a movie, go watch a documentary, go feed your brain. That’s what I always say, feed your brain, man. And don't let anything overly take you, so you look stupid, you know.

Local Anastasia

My brother Open Mike, it was fun. Me and him have been talking about doing songs for a long time. So I'm glad that got out the way. I've been working on trying to get a song with him for a while. And the song we finally did, I'm like, “yes,” because it came out better than I expected. Initially, I had my one verse on it, and we did something different at the end. But we asked Mike, like, “Hey, Mike, you know, you should jump on this record?” And he was like, “sure.” So I sent him a couple of beats, and that beat, he was like, “no, I want to rap on this beat.” Then when he sent his stuff back, I was really happy. I think he was like, the last person, Armand Hammer and him were like, the last people to get on the record. I already knew Armand Hammer was going to be on it. But, they were on the road and doing a bunch of stuff at that time. Mike, I literally asked at the last moment as we're about to close the record, because we felt like there's a few spots he can be on. He jumped on that, got to it. Then we sent the record out. We got the verses sent.

Spellcasted Television

That's my most political verse, that and the song with Jesse, Immediate Imminent Immunity. Spellcasting television—we're being spellcasted by television. Anything on TV, we follow. Instead of us using our own brain to look at the situation, taking a step back and looking at the situation and say, “no.” We rather just be like “TV said, that's what it is, that's what it is.” They put this illusion, like they casted a spell on us.

That's literally the most hidden… now that I say that you go listen to it again, and you're like, “ah, okay, I see what he's talking about.” My mellow, my serum Troglodytes syncopated. Troglodyte is the original term for humans. So, I'm telling you my original ancestors, we anticipated this. And my original ancestors on the song would be Armand Hammer, because they're my black fellows. And you know how drums come from illustrations. What did Africans do? We drummed and we partied together. This is our history when we're troglodytes. So, there's more secrets in that song than anything. But I could mask it and just make it sound like a cool rap song. But when you break it down and listen to it, you'll get it. And I even try to say “my mellow, my serum troglodytes syncopated.” Mellow is a term that we used to say, like, my mellow, my man: that’s the smooth cat, that's the smooth brother. So, I squeezed all of those together. I squeezed old ancestry, hip 90s talk. So, I just find ways of masking it and making it fun. But when you actually tear the layers apart, you go, oh. Just take the words and break them down each sentence, you'll notice it.

Sometimes I write word; I know this sounds weird. Sometimes I write word for word rather than line for line, like people usually pick up lines. If the word isn't cool for me at first and the second word isn't as cool, I'm not going to go for it. So that's why I understand you say it's, it's an intricate piece, because I literally think like that: “scale back, next word.” Some people can just think of that line. I'm like, “yo, what's that's a good word to go next with that word.” I literally, will literally start, then repeat it until I like it. I rewrite myself, like, three or four times until it's the way I want it to be. It's a haiku, to say. So, you write a specific way, in a pattern, then you go back in that pattern and apply more patterns within that pattern. So, it's all about taking it… and I appreciate that you actually understood the intricacies of that verse, because I did take it there on that verse. That verse, in the last song, is where I completely took it to, like, “good luck getting this guys.” But, with Woods and Elucid (Armand Hammer), It makes the song so fun, that it takes you away from me being a political nuisance. You’re just like, “oh, they're just rapping and having fun about spell-casting television.” But if you're familiar with how America works, we run off TV. Yes, I don't know how it is in Hong Kong, but TV makes us move. What the news says is the gospel.

Seasons Of The Sickness

Fatboi Sharif, that's my brother, one of my new top homies. Me and Sharif, we have a lot of stuff; wait for a few months, this year, we have a lot. We even have a group Buffet Boys. So eventually we're going to do stuff, a group thing, but me and him, we got a gang of songs. I'm featured on a couple of new stuff that he got coming out. He's featured on a couple of my new stuff coming out. Me and him, we have interesting music chemistry. Anytime I work with him, he’s the only person that I can get sit down and work with and we just make music right there. Every time I make music with him, it's like, 10 minutes, you know?

The first song that's not on the record is even grimier. It's loud, noisy. Yes, it didn't make it on the record because it just was too grungy compared to everything else. We're going to use it. We're going to use it because the song is really good. It just didn't fit the album. But, when we sent our verses back, Kenny was like, “I really enjoyed the chopped-up cadence of you guys rapping with each other. First song is better sonically, but I wish you guys…” So, we gave him the option to go. “Hey, you are creative. If you could make something out of these verses, go ahead for it.” And he legitimately chopped it and put those verses together.