Gumnaam playing “Blow Back” in New Delhi, India: youtu.be

Radio 1 Xtra’s DJ Nihal playing “Blow Back”: youtube.com

Naba Napalm is Live at the Breakin' Convention 2012 Foyer events 5-7th May




www.rhythmfactory.co.uk/node/512?c=8

www.breakinconvention.com/events/festival

2012 has been another really busy year for you and can you tell us the highlights in terms of releases, remixes, gigs and any new developments?

My recent highlights include jamming with some b-boys in an open air park late at night in Seoul, South Korea this summer. It brought me back to my b-boy lino days as they even had a boom box retro style!
Freestyling on the block with some young uns outside my club Battlescars....and seeing so much fire and talent .,
Recording and brainstorming with people like MC Mello, Dutty Skilla and Maxi Jazz. I’ve also been doing lots of shows last minute.com as sometimes pressure motivates me .

Your latest tunes "Its Hip Hop Tonight" and "Satta" have been well received, can you tell us where you got your inspiration for these cuts, and who worked with you on them. It's on your label and how many releases have you put out on your labeland what are you trying to achieve with your Cardio Pulmonary Records label?

“Its HipHop Tonight” the 1st Single from my album Love Bullett, is about my love of the hiphop movement, acknowledging its great. Our music is the most successful medium in the industry right now but it also throws up issues good and bad. It inspires the next generations to create but it brings the cash, the circus and the stuff people cant relate to. Most guys would all love a Rolex and an army of naked chicks and the private jet but thats not hiphop - its bullsh*t and marketing. This song is strictly good vibes, good lyrics, good times, no bells n’ whistles, nipple tassles or go faster stripes .
“Satta” is an adventure and a verbal documentary of any town, any country. Its about the streets, gangsters and the people stuck in the middle. Its loosely written around the Dudus Coke manhunt in Jamaica, which took so many lives. Its a mini morality tale for those kids considering themselves tough enough for the game.

On “It’s Hip Hop Tonight” and “Satta” I worked with Gumnaam, a very skilled new talent on the music scene and vocal skiller, Maikal X, who I’ve worked and performed with over many years .

The Label Cardio Pulmonary Records has been in existence for around four years and has had three releases including the “Heavy Moves EP” featuring Val( Japan), Shyrock aka Maikal X and production from Thick N Thin (Canada). There’s the “Willie Pete EP” featuring Jay King and Shyrock production from Tagaya and V.A.1. And my album “Underwater Aqualung” featuring Maxi Jazz and Maikal X with cuts from DJ Random. With the label I’m trying to spread something positive without preaching. I want people to dance and enjoy the adventure but also if they’re in the mood I want people to think. There’s quite enough bling and titilation in the prime time.
I remember when pop, hiphop, you name it, was good but now everyone’s trying to sound the same so they can sell something, Thats rap in capitalism’s hype machine I guess

Prior to this I had a label with my co-pilot, Lawyer, called Buff Recordings, and we released around 5 or 6 joints while touring heavily.

Can you tell us what hip hop means to you and the role it plays in
society in 2012?

I’m trying to reinforce to all that rap is just an element in hip hop and that hip hop’s not a hobby but a way of life and we are all welcome. Hip hop to me means so much for me - it’s the future, it’s nostalgia, it’s mental sex, it’s an empowerment tool, a form of sharing the small pieces of info. I see it as a way of escaping any problems for a hot minute or sharing my pain by howling at the moon.
Hip hop is in the actions of the people and its global peace, unity, love and having fun although most people who want a piece of the cash prize are not very unified right now. I’m trying to change that .

Describe how you first got started in music. Where are you based and when did you start rapping/etc. What was your 1st track and what happened with it?

I first started in music like a lot of hip hop artists and bboys in school wit my friends aged around 11 to 12 years old. At the time I was more in the reggae MC style of things and we were b-boying just prior to the days when “Looking For A Perfect Beat” and “Planet Rock” started popping up on casette tapes .
I came up both sides of the Atlantic because my family’s time was split between New York and London, so maybe at the time I thought I got the worst of both worlds. But now I look at the fact that as an MC, my word plays are enhanced having the influences of different places likes Queens, NYC and Stockwell in South London..
My first proper recording that wasn’t a basement or someone’s dad’s garage was at SWS Studios in south london, on a track called “Chess” and I still remember the blues guitar on it. I wasn’t really interested in recording before that time but I loved it so much, I never looked back. I added to the repertoire, constantly writing, freestyling, and recording with my peers and we toured all over the world including Japan Taiwan, Spain, Italy, Thailand, Australia and North America alongside guys I looked up to big time like Public Enemy, Pfunk, The Last Poets, Company Flow, The Pharcyde, Gil Scott Heron, Mos Def, The Roots, Cypress Hill...the list goes on.

Do you have any favourite tunes that you have made and if so why?

I do have a couple favourites but every time I’m asked this, it changes! I guess “Negative” off “The Inky Fist Asassin EP”; a track called “Crowd Pleaser” on the “Break In A 950S Shadow EP” or most recently from the “Underwater Aqualung”album. The tracks get busy and thick
I like them all for different reasons - they are either melancholy, deep subject songs or wildout bang your head stuff. Every song is just a snap shot to me .

Describe your sound and what you are trying to achieve please. Who has championed your sound what are your biggest biggest achievements to date?

i would say right now it’s a souffle of hiphop and pyschedlic funk rolling along in a reggae wheelbarrow from in my head but it’s an evolving musical lyrical snapshot. I’m trying to achieve something simple I guess - a viable buisiness model of course bit I also want the ability to do as much as I can myself to help people of like minds and talent to get out on the world stage. I love the hiphop movement and good music period but I can’t eat love. I want my music to be available to as many young motivated kids as possible and to get my philosophy across. I’ve lived a fast life that I don’t rhyme about and it’s being aggressively promoted to a lot of guys who relate to the whole sex, drugs, violence lifestyle. If I can make people smile, dance, socialise or get deep in the music and escape, that will be an achievement for me.
Those that suported and encouraged me are many including Chuck D on Bring The Noise.com; the guys at Stealth Magazine, Australia; DJ Jazzy Jay; Grand Wizard Theodore; Common Sense; DJ Love Supreme, Holland; DJ Big Ted; Rodney P; my peoples’ in Queens on the underground and CMA Entertainment, Canada.
My biggest achievement to date is playing to 30, 000 people in Spain with DJ Bizniz and rocking the house and sharing the stage with hiphop greats like Run DMC, Big l and Jurassic 5.
I am also very proud of founding Battlescars with Lawyer, and for those that don’t know its a freestyle Open mic club that’s still going strong ten years later from its launch at Chat’s Palace in Hackney through many different locations including a monthly residencey at Jongleurs, Camden Town; Subterrainia, Tiger Bar in Brick Lane; Cargo and now at the Jamm in Brixton. Battlescars is a place for wordplay and not just a rap battle where respect is low and people can win by talking crap about each others moms.
The rules are loosely based on boxing and martial arts plus a hell of a lot of comedy and all the hosts are potential smart asses as we found it chilled the crowd and helped people outside the rap pack not to pidgeon hole it and come out and enjoy the event.
There’s been a bunch of names came up through Battlescars, and the most prominent being Sway, but I don’t want things to look like we taking credit for the underground heads that gained success. It does also attract underground MC’s male and female to compete such Stig of the Dump, Tenchoo, Menace Mendoza and it’s also a place where real MC’s can come and chill out with no harrasment. Its’ not unusual to bump into MC’s from Philly, NYC and Europe and you can often see Rodney P or Roots Manuva here hangin out. Get on ya google, it’s always a great night.

What are your biggest influences and what has helped contribute to your sound and shape you?

My biggest influences are real life, 70’s music, travel, japanese culture, the way of life and natural comedy in the hood, blues, jazz and my successes and failures in life. It all gets soaked up and transformed into a verse in some shape or form.

What's the plan for 2011 and beyond in terms of releases, remixes, and gigs?

Gigswise I really need to get back to Melbourne(Australia) and I’m also organising the shoot for the “Blowback’ video as well as trying to do another tour of Japan. I have friends there who are like family to me, artists and pals, and I am hoping to raise some cash to help as many people as I can as the tsunami and nuclear fiasco out there really hit home. I did a few charity events but it don’t feel like I did enough. I mean not just being an mc, I’m talking about staking out the West End with my japanese friends and taking donations for the japanese Red Cross. Londoners like New Yorkers are very brash but have big hearts and I love that.
I am releasing a new project with Dutty Skilla, Maikal X and Gumnaam and a fantastic singer called Sinna Casita project title undecided right now. I am also working with japanese artist V.A.l and I would love to bring some traditional asian dancers and musicians here to Europe. I think it could go down well - kabuki mai dances from jun amanto, asian string and wood instruments with freestyle poetry. We call it( kyogen ) - its dreamy stuff

battlescars started as a song i released on buff recordings with sparkii ski and lawyer
on the inkyfist asassin ep the concept was using lyrics to a high level and the stage was the dojo lawyer was the one who buzzed on the idea that we eventually made into Has the digital revolution helped you take off and what do you think of music industry right now

I think it’s helped and hindered me. I kinda slept on technology and I remember in about ten years ago I was talking with Chuck D about hip hop and stuff and he said to me "Yo, son, the turntable and a mic’s gonna need to embrace the internet cause that’s the way forward. You don’t have to be on a big label, you can be your own label and we’ll be lucky if we still have turntables". I disagreed at the time but he was so on the money. Then came youtube, myspace, facebook and millions of new listeners and paypal. Luckily I have a few good people in my corner to help me navigate technology.
I think the music industry is at its most vibrant for a similar reason. You have to work harder than before for less money and a smaller spotlight because the music field is so saturated and everyone wants to be a rapper or singer, and honestly a lot of them would probably be better at the back office stuff that makes the machinery work ie A & R, managemanent, sound technician, roadies. They are all important but everybody wants to be Kurt Cobain and not the dude on the drums.
Rap music to me has become a bandwagon identikit with no individuality, just like the rest
but hiphop still has it. Every so often someone dips a microphone in the gene pool and that’s the new hit for summer. Problem is you get a million copies after of the same ole same old.

Can you tell us something fun, wacky or that we don’ know about you?

A lot of people freak out when I speak japanese - I’m learning to write it too. I’m also a pretty good artist and I have designed my own album sleeves for all the Buff recordings and CPR stuff alongside Luke Frost (Skitzoid). I can cook up a storm, in particularly

“Love Bullet” album including tracks “Blow Back” "It;s Hip Hop Tonight, “Get On It” is out now on on Cardio Pulmonary Records in November. Taken from the forthcoming “Love Bullet” album, also on the same label, Naba’s releases will be available to finetunes.net cpr and riddimandculture recordings and at all digital stores.