I just want to burn the whole system down
Kemastry (Kema) makes up one third of UK rap group CMPND, but has since taken a solo detour down a more vulnerable lane. We discuss the importance of creativity in our society and the perils of its absence; in a world of blinker-wearers and ear-coverers, it was restorative to hear someone talk openly about the state of affairs we have become embarrassingly blind to on our little, not-so-rebellious, rock.
Your latest single is the introspective ‘Infinite Playlist’; how does it feel now that it’s dropped, and what else is in the works?
It’s nice the single has dropped cause I’ve been sitting on so much music for a long time, as you know, and so it feels like I’ve just busted a massive musical nut. I’ve been working to get stuff finished, and now it’s almost across the finish line; I got a project with Jazz T called ‘The Delusional Guide to the Disillusioned’, which should be dropping in the new year. I’ve got a solo passion project from all the music I made in Brighton's 'Directors Notes Say Smile, Eyes Say Different’ coming at some point. Then I’ve got one I made in Oxford during lockdown and lost all the stems to, so that’ll probably drop on Bandcamp: 'No Ships Stopped' it's a sadboy breakup project produced by my boy Gaijin and plus got a more political EP called ‘Revolutionary’ with King Boyden.
What has triggered you to put this music out now and has anything changed since you started writing?
What’s changed personally is that I’m less of a fucking wreck head, aha, which helps a lot cause I never took music seriously. We (CMPND) missed a few opportunities from being dickheads so we thought we’d take it a bit more seriously. I’ve always wanted to put my solo stuff out, but then Yogocop folded, which was a massive blow. Now, as an artist, like there are still labels doing bits, but with all the algorithms and TikTok and social media, it’s different man; when I used to put stuff out, I’d just pop it on SoundCloud or YouTube, like an unreleased track, and it’d do alright. It might be because I’m older, and when you’re younger, you’re way more tapped in and supported by those around you. Like now people have got kids and responsibilities, and I’ll drop a tape, and they’re like, oh, that’s nice man; you’re still rapping then?
How have you found this changing landscape?
I fucking hate it, man. People don’t like listening to albums now, really, and I like making albums, projects, and pieces of art. All of us, myself included, have our attention spans hacked, so it doesn’t work in the same way. So I try on social media to be myself and put stuff out that isn’t super polished but still has an effort and will make people want to engage, but I’m not doing anything that sacrifices myself. Through my work I meet a lot of talented artists trying to put music out. It’s (the internet) is a great thing in a way cause music is less exclusive and anyone can put music out, but it does mean the market is oversaturated.
I know people who have big deals and stuff lined up and must have a certain TikTok presence to get the deal- I refuse to get it. From what I want from music I don’t get it; I just want to make pieces of art and for someone to listen to it and think that is a piece of art, you get me, that’s always been the process.
I was chatting to someone about it the other day, like that Doja Cat track ‘Paint It Red’, like we all know it, but I think looking back, it won’t have a particular time or place in our lives, whereas I know so many albums which bring me back somewhere, to a feeling- that is what I miss the most. There’s music that I might not like or even understand the genre, but it elicits a feeling in me, and that’s what I want to create. I don’t want to be stuck as a UK rapper. That’s something that’s important to me.
Are there enough spaces to pursue this independently?
There are few that have managed to navigate it independently. In terms of having a healthy underground scene, when you look at it now compared to 2010, when the UK labels were flourishing, it’s not really there. It’s also not a popular genre; you go to a UK Hip Hop event and everyone there either makes, or is directly involved in, UK Hip Hop. How do we pull in new fans? I think cause the scene has been so insular and gate-keepy for so long, it’s hard. Even with CMPND, we were well received, but like we were signed to High Focus we were in that UK Hip Hop bracket, which can be limiting.
I’m lucky I’ve got people around me who are very talented, and we share music, and sometimes I’m like, ‘fuck you,’ you know, haha, because it’s so good. They’ll send me a project to put together, and I’m like, ‘fuck you, man,’ but in a good way cause I fuck with it.
Talk to us a bit about the charity work you do and what it teaches.
So I work for a charity called Peer Power. It’s an empathy-led, social justice charity where we go into prisons and do lyric writing workshops, which are like individual-led change. Then, we take the information from there and pass it on to the people who can try to make systemic change through reports.
Then today, I worked in Oxford for a charity called Inspire Sounds, where we help kids at risk of exploitation or criminality, and all the buzzwords people like to use. We do recording sessions, and I love that cause I was a sad and angry kid who used music as a way to understand themselves, and so that’s what we try and do- give a voice to those who feel underpowered in a society where we feel increasingly voiceless.
Like, I just want to burn the whole system down, and it can be frustrating cause people aren’t there yet, but I’ve learnt to let go of that and fight my own fight. The revolution is a spiritual thing, an internal thing, and until we all learn to fight for one another, there’s no point trying to rush in and burn it all down.
That’s the whole point of music. It’s a universal language. Why do you think they shut down all the independent music venues? Why do you think they cut all the funding for the arts and music that isn’t classical? It’s all part of the way to authoritarianism; you cut off the creatives and the ways to express yourself outside of the little robot-filled boxes. Everyone should have a creative outlet. It’s literally taught out of us not to be creative unless our creativity is commodifiable or commercially viable, then stops being creative. They want us to stop dreaming. If you let your subconscious go on an adventure, who knows what you might dream of? Whereas if you don’t, and you work a 9-5 and zombify in front of the TV and numb your brain, how will you dream of anything better?
Like I’ll have a monthly cycle where if I don’t create something, I write every day, but if I don’t create something that I’m happy with, I start wigging out. I start to think maybe I should just become an accountant and live in the basement and eventually lose my mind and blow up Parliament or some shit.
How do current affairs reflect through to your music, and would you like to use your position to address some societal injustices?
That is the origin of hip hop, and so I think that’s definitely always been there; all three of us CMPND boys are quite politically tapped in, but maybe mine is more apparent cause of the stuff I do on social media. Defranchised voices and being able to speak to that, or for that, is very important, even if you’re making party music that’s important. There are lots of people in the scene
that don’t do that at all. It doesn’t mean you have to make really preachy, conscious music; there’s a place for that, but I don’t like it being rammed down my throat. That’s why when I became more politically active, I didn’t make tracks about that cause I’d rather go speak at rallies, workshops, stuff like that; sometimes music restricts it cause you’re tryna make something that is musically valuable.
You still have artists making gully fucking music, but it’s more social commentary and taken from people they’ve spoken to or interacted with- it just depends on how you interpret it. Within Britain, there isn’t much of a unified, rebellious movement, so you don’t get people preaching from the same side; it’s more everyone trying to fight everything from all angles. People obviously focus on what’s close to them.
Kema started swatting off imaginary enemies in a sort of Peter Crouch robot fashion… or maybe it was just the camera quality doing his defensive dance an injustice.
How is putting out music solo compared to with CMPND?
It’s a bit longer cause I’m doing it all myself. The process is scarier, cause before there was three of us and people liked different things from each of us so we could kinda do that. I think getting signed to High Focus made me slack; there was a six-month period where I didn’t write out of protest to being told what to do. I wrote loads of poetry, because I’m on a Hip Hop label now I want to write poetry aha. It was useful, though, cause it taught me how to put things out, like a lot of the projects coming will be independently released just because I wanna have full control. Integrity is one of the key words for an artist, any art, even footballers. These are the artists and art I want to support.
It’s more like people hearing the stuff I got coming are like ‘what Kema raps like this’ cause they only know the CMPND rapper and not my more sensitive, vulnerable, poetic side. I do think that is on display in CMPND but maybe you have to dig a bit deeper. People just don’t listen to lyrics, like unless you’re an artist, or really like lyrical content, it’s true that people just don’t listen to lyrics aha.
Is this more sensitive side more true to you as an artist?
Yeah, I’d say so. I can’t hop on a track if Vits (Vitamin G) is in a good mood or if they’ve just robbed something from the shop, and I want to do a track about arguing with my misses. I get to write what I wanna write. The CMPND energy is still there, but that’s more how I was at the time and I’ve matured now. We’ve spoken about it, though, and we’re tryna find new ways of tapping back in but also giving space for each of our personalities in a way that isn’t a shared madness- which is the basis of what CMPND was and is.
Who has influenced you, both sound-wise and artistically?
I was talking about this the other night and said Jay Electronica influenced me the most. So when I was 18, I was at Outlook, not really taking music seriously, doing the odd gig here and there, but he got me on stage to do a 32, and I crowd surfed and was like, nah, this is mad. I saw him do a talk at a uni in Oxford and we rekindled. His just nonconformity and refusal to bow to anyone, and of course he makes dope music, like soul music man. This is the kind of stuff I grew up listening to, like Bob Marley and Michael Jackson, on a wider scale, but then lots of R&B and Reggae. I just like weird beats and I remember Burial being a staple from my childhood cause they made different music that made you feel something.
Anything coming up this week in the diary?
One of my mates is getting married, so yeah, I will be at his wedding; big group of mates who all grew up together. I’m one of the Best Men for this wedding, so hopefully, the speeches make him cry, like they go in, and I can like bang his aunt or mum or some shit aha.
A prophecy to underline the honesty. Kema raises good points around the culling of creativity; with a curriculum that pushes science and math-heavy subjects, funding cuts for creative spaces and monopolies in the creative industries, it is more valuable than ever to express yourself through art forms... before they take it all away and cram us into the best fitting box of commonality.