Interview Time: Killa Kella
Killa Kela What is behind the name Killa Kela?
Killa Kela….its kinda two things, I used to be called Kela, I took letters of names from other different sources like graffiti writers where I lived. At the time it was a little feminine but it kinda stuck with me and I started writing it, I was really young. But then I started doing illustrations and drawings and then when I started beat-boxing I just went out with Kela and then my first tour with ‘The Rock Steady Crew’ their from Vancouver, a wicked rap act. They saw me doing my thing at the show so they were like ‘you killed the show so we’re gonna call you Killa Kela’. So that’s how it came about.
Growing up in West Sussex, how did you become aware of the Hip Hop scene?
Hip Hop in general wasn’t popular in them times but like, it wasn’t even called beat-boxing when I started. I was six or seven years old and was just like making sounds making music. My dad got me into music he was like a drummer for a local band and that’s where my upbringing came from musically, from pubs and bands, rock and indie and a lot of raves, techno raves a lot of illegal raves where I lived and stuff so it really wasn’t hip hop. I got inspired through my dad playing the drums, my mum listens to Motown music and stuff, and that’s how it all came about that’s how I got into hip hop.
What can we expect from the new album?
For years people have kinda seen me doing the Killa Kela thing beat-box wise and doing jump-up shows you know, forty-five minute showcase of just like hard beat-boxing. Over the like four, five months I’ve kinda steered to what actually is the album, it’s a merge of beat-boxing meets other vocalists. I mean on the album I sing and I add the beat-boxing to that so I’ll scratch the words, I’ll do the sound effects of the words or I’ll do the beats at the same time. All of this is laid out over the top of, what I consider a landscape of strings, piano and backing vocals, which you know, also adds to the additional threads to the album, I chose those instruments because I won’t be able to do them with the mouth. I’ve worked with other co-producers on it but most of the album is written by myself, I think it’s a sound that hasn’t been done before which still tries to keep in tune with what people know me as and seen me as.
In your words, what is ‘Elocution’?
Not just a lesson in beat-boxing or a lesson in music, I mean, it’s just like, get to know me. Elocution is a word which means, to understand a language, or to lean a type of action or a way of speaking and that’s the concept. How do I talk to you in my language I wanna show you how its done in my language, I wanna show you another dimension to hip hop and another dimension of black music. And Elocution is a way for people to learn about me, they don’t even know I can sing they don’t know me as a voice they just know me as hundred and one different things so it’s like, let’s try and switch it up.
Having worked with Pharrell and various other artists, who have you most enjoyed working with?
I loved working with Pharrell, its like when you go away you just absorb so much, its an opportunity that shouldn’t be taken lightly so I definitely went in there with the view, right I’m gonna learn a shit load of things and I wanna make sure I absorb it all.
I think you know, in my career I’ve taken a lot of things for granted I’m always looking about further and where I need to go so that was a moment I sat down and thought right, so I took a lot away from that.
Touring with DJ Vadim he was what I considered a more truer artist in this competitive age, and I really learned a lot musically at a time where I was getting offers doing stuff with ‘Blue Peter’ things like that and I really seemed like a gimmick to people, so Vadim and the rest of the Scratch Perverts they kinda nurtured me and taught me music.
How does it feel to have completed your very first album on a major scale?
It’s wicked. It’s a mixture of everything, whereas before I was putting stuff out independently we do you know, ten, twelve thousand, you would have to do but now you have a label to do it your like (gasps), that’s the kinda anxiety I’m talking about.
What do you think of the Hip Hop scene here in the UK?
I think it’s healthy, its one of the healthiest underground scenes outside of Japan. Japan’s got like a major underground hip hop scene. And one of the things I love the most is the grime scene its raw its real there’s no written book and its not come from any musical source it sets the standard in music in general, telling people right, these kids made this on play station it’s a new era and your gonna have to play catch up and do something pretty half decent for people to acknowledge you and compete with these kids who in hindsight don’t give a shit. All they care about is getting their voices out and that’s the same mentality that came from hip hop in the late ‘70s. They have over come obstacles you know, socially and I love that shit.
Do you think beat-boxing is a dying trend?
The amount of hits I get on my website, I dunno. If I was to listen to beat-boxing in the ‘80s like kids used to do, I probably wouldn’t be into beat-boxing. I respect the pioneers don’t get me wrong and even now I draw on that as inspiration but I dunno it still a bit too human a little bit too cheese on toast sometimes very hip hop. But I think beat-boxing has evolved big over the last three or four years with Pharrell and Timberland and Justin Timberlake all these different artists using beat-box as a thread in their production. You’ve got old skool pioneers like Rahzel, theirs a whole new fleet of up and coming beat-boxers from UK, Europe, Eastern Europe, America, everywhere, and my intention is getting in public I wouldn’t say I hold the best beat-box album of all time it’s a Killa Kela album but what I think is it highlights and puts beat-boxing at the forefront.
What are your future goals?
I wanna tour a lot; I wanna get the album out there to people who aren’t just interested in hip hop. I wanna hit the globe and I wanna hit different genres and do things that no one else has done. I wanna see a second album a third album coming together with a whole heap of different things … yea I just wanna tour.