When To Walk Away Pt. II
Preview to The Long Goodbye
For a very long time my identity and self perspective was shaped
by being a member of a family that made music. Had our parents been born in the
Carribean in the 60′s and repatriated to the UK, we probably would have been
Cymande. Had it been London in the late 40′s we might have been Pink Floyd. I
have heard arguments that place us around the world and at different movements.
As it shaped out, we were birthed into the 70′s and grew up in the 80′s in the
east bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. In particular, we all cut our
teeth in the “small island in the sea of night” known as Berkeley. In 1995
we started our collective and independent label we called Kemetic Suns Massive.
There was a time to that time in particular that I would be hard pressed to try to recreate with words. As much as I pride myself on my ability to write into existence, I don’t think I could accurately give the feeling or emotional connection we had to what we were doing. There was different a zeitgeist of sorts as it was the mid-1990s and hip hop was becoming a billion dollar way of telling young people what to do. Perhaps it was the influence of Apple vs Wintel happening in our backyard of Silicon Valley. Maybe there was a factor around welfare reform, new banking models and a sense that another gold rush had come to San Francisco. It could be the influence of self determined cultural giants such as MC Hammer, Too Short, E-40 and Mac Dre who were uncompromising in their independence and standards.
I don’t have the bandwidth or desire to try to explain what brought us to the music or together. Many of these thoughts have laid hidden from me for decades by my own doing. I think my brother does a much better job of describing us here:
Then there was also the concept of newly emerging technologies such as samplers, sequencers and non-lineal audio recording. That and the fact that as teenager I stumbled into being an active member of something that would later become called the Internet as well as progenitor of social media. Do not take my word for anything. There are far better curators involved:
In terms of a business model we were decidedly clear that we would do everything in house. EVERY THING. Tapes, cds, vinyl, t-shirts. Production, engineering, management, promotion. Our greatest asset was each other. I treated the collective like my martial arts gym (which I mistakenly left in pursuit of a full time music career) in that training each other on every aspect made us well rounded, disciplined and allowed us to bring in new skills. The majority of the good work is based on our willingness to skip past barriers in terms of booking, promotion and retail:
From 1995 to 1998 we made 15 different projects ranging from EP to LPs to even putting out one of the first audio books for spoken word and poetry. I can’t speak for anyone else but I actually thought we were going to change the world. Given that our model was more of a social enterprise than a record label or entertainment company. Many of our members were previously homeless, from foster homes and/or faced with tons of barriers toward economic independence. My father, who was and will always be the bare minimum of excellence I strive for, ran a non profit that provided legal services to the poor who couldn’t afford to fight unlawful evictions, custody battles and discrimination. Without explicitly knowing we were into job training, Koncepts and I were adamant that these roles at House Kemetic Suns become employment.
In 1997, Kirby got an opportunity to study abroad in DC at Howard. He would ride the train to Harlem and record with Koncepts, which later became Konceptual Dominance.
During that time, myself, Hypnotic and Per Aa were doing shows all over northern and central California. Literally from as far as Humbolt to San Luis Obisbo. Initially I only had the Fundamentals material I could perform and Hypnotic had his guest appearances as as he worked on his album. When all of the Suns met up in winter 1997, Koncepts played us Flawless Execution.
As soon as I heard it I knew what it was: Konceptual Dominance. In a time when we could hear everyone else punching in every bar, these two were going for 16 bars with flurries full of flow, punchline, presence and brilliant topics. I knew this was going to be a game changer. To be fair all we did was game changers, whether or not it was quality. Innovation and newness led the day. In response, Hypnotic pulled out the dusty tape of 8-track mix downs of the routines he and I were doing when we ran out of material on stage. I had slices of dub tracks and science fiction movie soundtracks as the thumbnails of beats we were rapping over. The crew loved it and named us Ka Auditron Ba. We were given the mandate to finish our project to release it after Konceptual Dominance and set up for the Kemetic Suns album. Ka Auditron Ba worked for the next year to finish our project called The Final Conflict. 3 label deals, 4 tours, 21 tracks and it was never released as promised. Somewhere in there I just walked away.
For the few souls who are clever enough to see me on the street and figure out who I am, the question is always the same:
1) Why was the Auditrons never released?
2) What happened to the Kemetic Suns?
As 2017 is here and I do away with old things, avoiding answering these questions is one of those things I will let go. The answers in part III
