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Exploring a New State of 'Yes!' Karma with k-os
By Reg Seeton
(Interview by Reg Seeton and Troy Rogers)
 What you hear and see of k-os from his music is your own perception. Some people look at the sky and see it for what it is, a blue sky. Others, however, will look at that blue sky and say it's green. Others would argue there is no sky at all. That's just the way life rolls. People are weird, and life is strange. Is k-os simply hip-hop, or is he strictly rap? If the sky doesn't exist, why does it matter?
Now on his experimental pay-by-donation Karma tour to promote his recently released album, Yes!, the first k-os studio album since the 2006 release of Atlantis: Hymns for Disco, the Toronto raised k-os has reached a significant fork at the road of his career as a passionate, outspoken, mature and evolving artist. Much in the same philosophical way that Marvin Gaye freed himself of certain restrictive boundaries in 1971 to chart a new course in his career to explore his soul, with the release of his fourth album, Yes!, k-os has shaken the constrictive forces of the media and the stereotypical sins of perception that have nailed many an artist to a musical cross.
After watching k-os perform a potent two-hour, 23 song set at The Commodore Ballroom on April 30, free to fans by way of pay-by-donation and his new touring belief in good Karma, it was clear that k-os is more at ease with his music and himself. In fact, at this stage of his career, k-os is a wiser, creatively free force of hip-hop, rap, rebellious acoustic reggae, rock and electronic synth, with slight shades of punk, all within a goldmine of soul. On stage, the 2009 k-os of Yes! is even more experimental in his artistic expression than in live years since his breakout 2002 debut, Exit, blending not only rap, hip-hop, and soul with old school samples and rhymes but also various cultural percussions, beats and strings that reflect a more diverse and mature evolution that pushes the boundaries of categorization, as you can hear in the Yes! tracks, "Astronaut" and “Mr. Telephone Man,” which, for those old schoolers who may be wondering about the title, isn’t a cover of New Edition. Interestingly, at the very end of the track is where you’ll find a sincere and candid k-os who briefly bears his acoustic soul.
 However, as k-os raps in the simmering lyrical shadows of “Zambony,” a more thought stirring track on Yes!, "I am not indie rock, I was indie hip-hop, with many styles," he's written lines that reinforce his efforts to avoid being pegged as a one-dimensional artist. If there's one thing that we discovered after watching k-os on stage at The Commodore, k-os is anything but one-dimensional. Although the road was paved by such fearless experimental legends as George Clinton and Afrika Bambaataa, it's not often today that you hear an original style within a musical collage of soul, rap, punk, folk and rock, all enhanced by slight genre flavors that span decades of music, including certain tones similar to the '60s surf scene.
When TheDeadbolt “get fresh crew” of Reg Seeton and Troy Rogers sat down with k-os the following day in Vancouver for an intimate chat during his second show sound-check across town at a different venue, it soon became evident that the transition from Atlantis to Yes! Also involved an inner clash between an artist who wanted his music to be perceived as intended and what certain critics were hearing and writing.
After locking horns with critics in 2006 over individual perceptions of Atlantis, k-os came of out of the studio on Yes! a changed man, free of the heavy glare of critical pressure that he once carried on his shoulders. Does he feel Yes! is better than Atlantis from a critical standpoint? "I feel like it is," k-os admits, "and I feel like it’s up to you as a human being to put that on you. It’s more important for you to put that upon yourself than for someone to put that fire into you."
 But in leaving his new music with the 2009 masses, as k-os explains, the journey to Yes! was also about being critical with himself on his own learning curve to musical happiness. "That’s what I learned after this record, ‘Wow, I feel these are songs I really like and it all transpired and really stepped up.’ How that’s received now is going to be up to people. But I can go to bed knowing I put my best effort out there."
Now almost five years removed from the success of his second album, Joyful Rebellion, which spawned the hits "B-Boy Stance," "Crabbuckit," "Man I Used to Be," and "Love Song," and over two years departed from Atlantis and the hit "Sunday Morning," how does k-os view his image in relation to the music and a defiant change within himself? "I’m pretty sure my music is the thing that’s directing people to me,” says the Trinidadian born, Toronto bred talent now settled in Vancouver, “because that was my whole rebellion on the last record, like smashing guitars and fighting critics. It’s like; let’s just see if these people love my music and not me. [Laughs] I don’t want them to love me; I want them to love my music. They can hate me, but if they love my music, cool. So when I saw that they did, or some people did and some people didn’t, it was a cleansing process for me, because up to that point, being a conscious rapper, positive man, I couldn’t do certain things or say certain things. And much like a teenager, I had to rebel against that just so I was allowed to be who I wanted to be. And now that that’s done, I can move on to the next thing."
 But it was the rebellious spirit within k-os from 2006 to 2009 that led to not only greater self awareness with Yes! but also an unapologetic approach to tapping into the music he loved from his youth that shaped k-os as a musical man, from his Karma tour intro of Rush's "Tom Sawyer" and the harmonica style of Neil Young during his live show at The Commodore to the Slick Rick vocal style and the Cypress Hill and Beastie Boys beats in the newly released single, "4, 3, 2, 1". Album wise, the Yes! tracks reveal that k-os is indeed a man heavily influenced by his generation, which also includes shades of Wyclef, N.E.R.D., A Tribe Called Quest, Mos Def, even going to alternative territory to explore instrumental layers of the innovative Seattle sound of the ‘90s.
So what was the motivation behind the some of the older influences in his latest music?
Exploring a New State of 'Yes!' Karma with k-os Page 2
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