Grammy Award winner Big Daddy Kane is an inventive New York “Hip-Hop” legend who emerged in the mid 1980s music scene with a raw subculture that cannot be replaced. His trendy and fluent lyrics along with his adroit performances and debonair appearance created a persona that will be etched in music history forever.
Kane’s song “Ain’t No Half Steppin’ was named #25 on the list of The 50 Greatest Hip-Hop Songs of All Time by Rolling Stone Magazine.
With over twenty years vested in the music industry, on top of numerous awards, television and movie appearances along with historic accolades, Big Daddy Kane is efficaciously at it again; this time with a new band called Las Supper. ” Las Supper is a music collaboration with the Legendary Big Daddy Kane, R&B Soul singer Show Tyme, and the Hip-Hop fusion band Lifted Crew.”
Your new song is so jazzy, raw and soulful. We love it. Can you tell us about it?
That is that whole Motown type of feel. Everything on the project has that Motown or Stax Records type of feel. We really tried to capture that vintage sound but we did it in a different way, as if we imagined that Hip Hop existed in the 60’s and 70’s.
You truly infused several different genres of music here:
If you think about it, back in the early stages of Hip Hop, from the late 70’s to the early 90’s, sampling was really the thing when you made a Hip Hop song. The songs that were sampled were old soul songs. It is so easy and common for a rapper to rhyme of an old beat because that is what we did in the origin of Hip Hop. The trick was to make it sound like it was a group effort as opposed to the singer sings two verses, the beat breaks down and the rapper does a verse.
How did you guys meet?
We met by doing a show together at B. B. Kings. I thought they were a great group of young dudes. I enjoyed working with them and we enjoyed doing a project together.
How long have you been in this (new) band? When was it created:
About three years ago. These guys have backed me on a lot of Big Daddy Kane shows that I have done. They played live instruments. I thought it was a unique chemistry. We got the opportunity to revisit the soulful sounds of the past and the eighties, and combine the two together with a “now” feel.
You have a very loyal fan base. How are they taking to this complete turnaround?
With this project, it has not been directed right to a “Kane” audience. It has pretty much been marketed towards an adult contemporary audience and a young college audience. A lot of the Big Daddy Kane fans are not even aware of this project on the DNL, but those who are have written some great revues and given it a lot of props. Some were even at the Album release party at Blue Note and were saying, ” I came to hear a couple of Kane songs but after hearing this… this is something new!”
Is the way you marketed this, the way you wanted it to be? You didn’t want it to be about Big Daddy Kane, but you wanted it to be about the artists themselves?
It’s not about Kane, if you see the whole project, I am not the main element here. We come together collectively and equally.
Tell us about the main singer, Show Tyme:
He is a brother that sings with Pharell March. He does the back ground and vocals. He is a soulful, raised in the church type of voice. But since we were going vintage, we had to work him and bring the Bobby Womack out of him. And with the band, these guys are so used to playing old school hip hop samples from the 60’s and 70’s that artists have used through out the years… having them look at the whole record… we pretty much captured that in this project.
You said that the people you are marketing are younger college kids. Do they know who Big Daddy Kane is?
Some do. There are a lot of older college students that are deep into Hip Hop and that skater boarder type of feel. They go for whatever resembles that of KRS 1, Public Enemy, Eric B and Rakim.
Not only were you a singer, you are a performer. Every one knows you. Who inspired you to dress as well as you did back in the day?
My father; when I was a little kid I used to watch my father do some weird stuff but as I got older I realized how FLY it was. He would lay out about six different pairs of “gators” or snake skin shoes, put a suit on and then stand in front of each shoe to see which pair went best with the suit. I saw him change a flat tire in a two piece suit. I always wanted to be that dude. All the kids on the block would call me by my real name and say, ” Yo Tony, tell the truth, your father is a pimp right?” I always said, “When I get older I got to be FLY!”
You won a Grammy right?
Yes. With Quincy Jones back around 1989 or 1990. Somewhere back then.
What was that like?
To be honest it was two different feelings of mixed emotions. I was so honored to work with Quincy Jones and thanks to working with him I was able to achieve a Grammy. That was monumental. What Quincy put into that project, I thought that it was well worth it. He got into it deep. But on the other side, it was a Grammy for Best Hip Hop Group. This was the same year that Digital Underground had ” Humpty’s Dance” and Public Enemy had ” Fight The Power” and I knew we weren’t better than that. We were people put together by Quincy. I felt they deserved it better as a Hip hop group. But don’t get it twisted…. my Grammy is on the wall.
Are you guys touring?
We start in July.
Do you still hang out with The Juice Crew?
Yeah. Actually I just had a show two weeks ago with Biz Markie and Craig G. and me and Masta Ace just came from touring overseas. So yeah, all the time.
So plug all your sites and where can people purchase your music?
To find out any dates, go to Bigdaddykane.com and Official BDK on Facebook or @Bigdaddykane on Twitter. as far as the Las Supper dates, go to Lassupper.com. The project is We Are The Las Supper and the it is called Back to the Future. It is available now on I tunes.
You can find Big Daddy Kane at the following links:
http://www.officialbigdaddykane.com
https://www.facebook.com/OfficialBigDaddyKane
https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/back-to-the-future/id614095658
https://twitter.com/LasSupper
For the full interview, listen in to this Sound Cloud Clipped segment:
https://soundcloud.com/cmelendez06/the-rendezvous-show-with-13