A lot has changed in the UK Hip-Hop world since Nottingham’s Cappo debuted on wax in the late-90s as an enthusiastic teenager with an obvious gift for next-level wordplay. The former graffiti artist’s potential was fully realised a few years later on his well-received 2003 debut album “Spaz The World” which was produced by Notts heavyweights The P Brothers and released via Brighton’s Zebra Traffic imprint.
A handful of further releases solidified Cappo’s reputation as a gifted microphone fiend, but it wouldn’t be until the release of 2008′s “H-Bomb EP” with fellow Nottingham Hip-Hop junkie Styly Cee behind-the-boards that the talented emcee would recapture the brilliance displayed on his debut album.
Following last year’s self-produced “Genghis” project, Cappo has teamed-up with Styly once again for “The Fallout”, a full-length project bristling with the passion and creativity of two individuals who soaked up all that was good about rap’s golden-age but want to do more than simply recreate past musical memories.
Here, Cappo speaks on his early aspirations as a recording artist, the Nottingham Hip-Hop scene and working with Styly Cee on their new album.
So your new album “The Fallout” is the Son label’s fiftieth release. What does it mean for you to be putting out an album that obviously means so much to the label considering Son released your debut EP “Cap 3000″ in 1999?
“It’s an honour. I mean, me and Alastair Nicholson at Son have had our ups and downs over the years but it’s an honour for him to want to put this album out as the label’s fiftieth release and for him to consider the music as important as me and Styly do. Al’s always supported everything I’ve ever done and he alway tries his best with the product that he puts out so I’ve gotta pay respect to him for what he’s done and continues to do.”
When that first EP came out on Son did you think that over a decade later you’d still be making music?
“When I put that first EP out I thought I’d be on MTV two weeks later (laughs). I spoke to Al on the phone and told him I’d think about signing the contract. I sat there, thought about it, signed the contract and then thought ‘Right! This is it!’. I really did think I was going to be famous within weeks (laughs). But then I met Styly Cee and he taught me about how the game worked and what was going on in the UK rap industry at the time. But things did move quite fast for me at the beginning of my recording career. I seemed to make a lot of headway quite quickly which is something that doesn’t seem to happen often with new underground artists these days. I was lucky enough to be able to go on shows like Tim Westwood on Radio One and get that exposure, whereas nowadays for an underground artist like I was at the time it would be tough to get that type of mainstream support early on. I managed to get fetaures in a lot of magazines at the time as well, a lot of which came down to Alastair working hard at the label. So as far as me expecting to still be making music ten years later, at the time I probably thought I’d be working on an album with Dr. Dre and Nas in 2011 (laughs).”
That’s an interesting point about not being able to get support today from outlets that perhaps a decade ago would’ve been in your corner…
“It’s a different world in the UK now. I recently read Jay-Z’s “Decoded” book and I liked how he broke down how an emcee can be powerful but he respects those emcees who can harness that same power and turn it into commercial success. I can respect it if it’s done well but there are definitely certain ways of going about it. I think some artists really are very transparent in the way that they’re clearly just out for the money rather than trying to be creative. I don’t think it’s possible to do that without really giving away a lot of your soul as an artist.”
Last year you released the “Genghis” album which saw you producing the whole project yourself…
“”Genghis” was me being at a point in my career where I had to prove to myself that I could make another album as good as “Spaz The World”. I definitely had to record that album to prove to myself that I could do that and I had to break that personal barrier in order for me to be able to see music the way that I see it now. I was also recording “The Fallout” at the same time I was making “Genghis” and both of those records were me trying to prove to myself that I could do it. Now that I’ve proven to myself that I can, I’m looking at the situation that I’m in as an artist and am thinking it might be time for me to regroup on this music thing and be smarter in terms of trying to widen my audience. I can’t go and make a commercial record because that’s just not me, but what I can do is get more involved in the business side and think about it in a way that will allow me to widen my market. I was talking to a friend about this recently and it’s not about me selling out or changing my sound, it’s about me listening to what I did with tracks like “Learn To Be Strong” and “Loyalty” and harness what I did on those tracks where the lyrics aren’t quite so coded and are easier to breakdown. But if I did crossover with a track, I’d still want it to be something that could be respected by those people who already know my music. It’s about getting the balance right. I would never want to alienate my core fanbase.”
So would you say you felt a lot of pressure following the release of “Spaz The World” due to how well it was received and the critical acclaim the project received?
“I just remember it being a time of getting a lot of shows and really enjoying the media attention. That album really just seemed to drop at the right time and a lot of people I speak to seem to remember it for all the right reasons. But as an artist you’re never really satisfied, so I also remember at the time thinking that I could have done certains things differently lyrically, but that wasn’t really pressure. So moving on from “Spaz The World” I told myself that it wasn’t an album that could be done again because my mind would never be in the same place it was then, but that I could try and reproduce something similar in terms of the quality and the vibe of it. I can’t say I felt pressure, but it was immediately after “Spaz The World” that I stopped working with the P Brothers for whatever reasons, and it was at that point when I didn’t have that constant back-up around me of my producers and the label that I then realised how much of a mountain I had to climb on my own. Perhaps at the time of “Spaz The World” I was being too naive and was thinking that I did more of it on my own than I actually did, when really I was standing on the shoulders of a lot of other people. That was part of the reason I wanted to do “Genghis” because it haunted me for awhile that perhaps I couldn’t do it on my own.”
You mentioned that you were recording “Genghis” and “The Fallout” at the same time. To me, those two albums are very different from each other – “Genghis” has more of a mellow vibe to it in places whereas “The Fallout” is much more aggressive. Taking that into consideration, was it difficult to juggle recording both simultaneously?
“I had it in my mind that I wanted to produce “Genghis” on my own completely from start to finish whereas Styly produced “The Fallout”. So because the projects were made in such different ways I think “The Fallout” was my release from all the hardwork I was putting into “Genghis”. I was making beats and then listening to them for a long time to decide which ones I wanted to use for ”Genghis” and then writing to them. Sometimes when I make beats and I’ve listened to them over and over they don’t give me the same inspiration because they become old to me very quickly. So “Genghis” was a real uphill struggle because obviously I was doing it all myself and there was a lot of monotonous repition involved in the process of going back over tracks to make sure everything was right. Whereas recording “The Fallout” with Styly, he’d bring an ill beat to the table and I’d just say ‘Yeah! I’m writing to this now!’ and I’d just be able to let go and concentrate on the lyrics. Then after we’d recorded it I’d tell Styly that I didn’t want to hear it again, so some tracks I wouldn’t hear again until months after we’d recorded them. I was working on “Genghis” every day like a job, wheras recording “The Fallout” with Styly was much more of a fun process because I was just able to concentrate on being an emcee.”
You’ve known Styly Cee since the early days of your career so what made you decide to finally record an album together?
“After we released “The H-Bomb EP” we just kept on recording tracks and we were really making music that we wanted to hear and just being really free with it. I mean, if you listen back to “Time Will Tell” off the EP one of the verses on there doesn’t even rhyme. We were just trying to push the boundaries and really drop the craziest verses on the craziest drums we could find. That carried over onto the music we recorded for “The Fallout”. If you listen to a track like “Music Maker’s Revenge” I’m almost barking on the mic. I remember recording that and just zoning out on the beat. I remember feeling my teeth literally snapping together as I was rhyming but I couldn’t really hear what I was saying anymore. There was a part where there was a mistake which meant a slight delay on the drums that created this sort of fading effect but I just kept rhyming. Everytime I hear that part I always think that’s really exactly what we were trying to do with the album – just create absolute musical chaos with crazy multi-syllable rhymes and drums just smashing everywhere.”
“The Fallout” definitely has an old-school feel to itwithout feeling old-school if that makes sense? You can hear the influences of early-80s electro and Zulu Beats radio tapes throughout the album but it doesn’t sound like you and Styly were trying to force the project in that direction…
“I think that’s it in a nutshell. Styly coined the phrase ‘corethentic’ to describe it and I think that really is what it is. There are influences from that old-school age on the album but it could be from any age. We definitely let our influences shine through but we were also very much looking forward at the same time and trying to create something fresh.”
Having interviewed various Nottingham artists there definitely seems to be a real sense of history of both Hip-Hop as a culture and also the local scene that’s been passed down throughout the years. Would you say that’s still the case?
“Something really serious happened in Nottingham in that early-to-mid 80s time when artists from my generation were obviously too young to be involved. But there was a massive belief in Hip-Hop in Notts and the music really was a life-changing thing for a lot of those involved at the time. That meant that there was real competition between artists in Notts because the culture was such an important thing to so many. It’s still that important and the competition is still there. When I was younger I used to get really jealous when I’d hear conversations between older heads about things that happened back in the day at places like Rock City because I always wished I could’ve been there to be involved in that early scene myself. But hearing those conversations really schooled me on the history of Notts and I think a lot of artists from here have gone through that same process. One of my favourite stories is about there once being a signed copy of Ultramagnetic’s “Critical Beatdown” album cover on a wall in a chip shop in Beeston because apparently around 1988 they performed at some youth club in Clifton which is out in the middle of nowhere (laughs). To be honest though, I don’t know if it’s the same for the next generation of emcees in Notts. I might be out of touch with them perhaps, but I’m not sure who the next emcee is from Nottingham who’s carrying that history with them. A lot of the younger emcees today don’t necessarily consider themselves to be Hip-Hop because they have to be so flexible and rhyme on everything from grime to dub-step etc. I don’t know if they have that strong, direct connection to the culture of Hip-Hop and the heritage of the Nottingham scene that those of us who came before had and still do have.”
So what’s next for you as an artist?
“I’m working on a lot of beats at the moment that I’m planning on getting to some Stateside artists without them actually knowing it’s me (laughs). I’m not really the best person at networking though so if that plan doesn’t work then the beats I’ve already done will go towards a new Cappo album. But whatever happens I’m ready to put all my energy into my music so that I can do the best work I can and put out the best product possible.”
Ryan Proctor
“The Fallout” is out now on Son Records.
