“Every time someone asks how the release is going, it’s a bit overwhelming; everything’s crazy and shit’s hectic as but I reckon when we look back in a week we’ll be really happy with everything,” DJ Strickinine says. “Pre-orders have been goin’ crazy, we’ve had to do another run ‘cause people’ve been going nuts if they can’t find it at a certain store and MGM have been working off the charts with this.”
So why the nearly four year delay?
“I think that ‘cause we’ve done a lot of live gigs over the years that has really helped us a lot and taken up time,” MC Dontez says. “We weren’t releasing but we were very strong with the live shows and I think that’s created a fair bit of hype. Even though we haven’t just put out any old release and we’ve kept a bit of time in between, I think people have hung on. We’ve recorded a lot of tracks and we’ve spent a lot of time in the studio but for us, a track has to be really up to standard and so there are a lot of tracks that don’t see the light of day because of that.”
“There’s be close to 50 tracks recorded that won’t be released,” Stricknine adds. “I always say that there’s enough there to release a whole other album that I think’d blow people’s minds but all it takes is one person in the crew to say no and that’s it, we scrap it.”
With the crew growing a lot from the early days of Dontez, MC Culprit and the Playstation, the guys have handled change as best they can while staying true to their vision. “I think we had a strong blueprint in our mind but we’ve always been open to new ideas whether it comes from a friend or someone we’re doing business with,” MC Culprit says, joining the conversation. “We wanna take it in and take it on board but we’re still pretty strict about remembering the original plan … We’ve done feature tracks with other people that we’ve scrapped too. It’s hard when you have to scrap it but you’d rather piss off a couple people than piss of yourself and all your fans.”
They’ve never shied away from expression their dislike for hip hop artists that slide in under the label with music that barely resembles the genre. In the past it’s been a real source of frustration but with age comes the knowledge that you can’t fight every fight. When the topic comes up, all three still have something to say. “We back it up with what we listen to; if some gets in my car and puts something on I’m not feeling it won’t get a play,” Stricknine says before Culprit joins in. “One thing we do is to make people aware that we’re just making hip hop, not under the ‘style’ of hip hop. There are so many but each to their own.”
“In our younger days we probably got a lot more defensive about it,” Dontez adds, “But people are free to do their own thing. I guess our only problem is that it gets labeled as hip hop and a lot of times it doesn’t even come close to the genre.”
With The Campaign barely having time to cool on the sill, Kings Konekted can’t help but be excited about the forthcoming LP. “It’s finished basically,” Stricknine says. “It’s about 20 tracks deep and we’re just down to the final few. Even tracks that aren’t done are ready in our minds. There are a lot of songs recorded that we’ve gotta look at; when you put together an album you want the songs to fit. Some of the songs on the EP maybe woulda worked on the album and there are some too that might be up to standard but yet not quite feel right on the album. I guess as well for the people that got our mix tape in 2009 and were waiting for the album, we wanted to give them a little taster with this EP.”
BY KRISSI WEISS
