Kardinal Offishall

This interview is between Hugz Boss and Kardinal Offishall. The interview was conducted on May 12th, 2000. Kardinal Offishall is a Canadian artist from Toronto. He was been nominated for a Juno award for a single of his ('Naughty Dread') and won one for the track 'Northern Touch' that he was featured on in '99. His most recent release was the 'Husslin' EP and he's set to drop a new single this summer. Okay, so how and why did you get into Hip Hop ? Uh, not for any particular reason except I liked the music. Okay... How, is just I grew up with music around me, so...that's just basically it, it was a natural thing it wasn't just any forced thing. Who we're your inspirations to start up ? BDP, Rakim, Heavy D, EPMD, ya know. What do you think about the line starting to disappear between the underground and the mainstream ? By that I mean more less known artists getting better known. I mean it's good because I guess now people are going both ways. Underground stuff has always been able to become pop or whatever you want to call it. I mean some cats that are underground have sold pop numbers, so...I think the line had to start to shrink up anyway. I just think now underground heads are starting to be a little bit more open and not be so hard headed as to what's dope and what's not. And what's Hip Hop and what's not and all that kinda stuff. How do you think Americans, specifically the Hip Hop audience, percieve Canadian artists? For the most part they still have a certain ignorance towards Canadian artists, I mean they still look at us as Canadian rappers, as, I don't know what you want to call it...followers if you know what I mean. As, they still look at Canada as the Mounties, they still don't know what's going on in Canada for the most part so we still have a lot of ground to break. When I say the words dopest LP....what immediately pops to mind ? The dopest LP, 'By All Means Necessary' BDP, 'It Takes A Nation Of Millions' by Public Enemy and OutKast the 'ATLiens.' Who would you most like to work with ? (Long pause) I don't know (another longer pause) probably a dancehall artist, like if I really had the choice I would work with a dancehall artist like Bounty or somebody. As for Hip Hop, Hip Hop I don't know. I don't know who I would mesh good with, so...it would be a harder question. What's your favourite LP of 2000 so far ? Common 'Like Water For Chocolate' Which LP are you most anticipating ? OutKast's album. Where do you see yourself in 5 years? I see myself as an international identity, as somewhat of a household name whether it be for emceeing, performing, producing or a combination of all three. How do you feel about online Hip Hop ? You know, I haven't really dived into it. I've dealt with some online stuff, but I don't really know the full spectrum, it's big though I imagine. Can you give us some information on your forthcoming album ? Well I don't have an album coming out anytime soon, just because I chose to. I wanna make sure that when my next album comes out that it's going to be heavily backed. Monetarily, you know, there's enough force there to make sure that there's proper promotion, marketing, radio push, everything because I want to make big waves, not do small things, so... I'd heard you were releasing an album called 'Caribana' or something... No, nah, nah, nah, no. Nothin' like that. I don't know where that came from but nah. If/when Kardinal Offishall blows up....do you think you'll change much ? I don't think so, I mean in some cases some people would say that I've blown up somewhat, because there's a lot of big things that are going on, you know it's not really my steelo. I don't think anybody intends to change but a change is just going to be for the better anyway. I mean you'd be pretty small minded if huge things go on and you don't change and adapt, I mean you just have to change in the right ways. So, what can we next expect from you ? Music wise. Music wise, there's gonna be a lot of big things that I'm not really gonna say right now. I'm gonna kinda let it happen and let people find out about it as a nice surprise. Things that I'd like to talk about would probably be...Solitaire has got a new single coming out that I'm featured on, I do the hook. I have a new single coming out for the summer, it's gonna be huge, it's called the 'Y2Kardinal' single. Yeah, so we're just gonna be doing a lot, a lot of projects, so...you just gotta keep your ears open, but we've got a lot of good surprises for people.

Beats, Rhymes & Life | Release Dates | New Ish | Moment of Truth | Alternatives
Profiles | Editorials | Our Say | Tha Real MCs | Unsigned MC | Comedy | Contact | Links

© Copyright 1997-2001 Tha-Real.com