Akira the Don and the Year that was.

 

Note : an extract of this interview was recently printed in the rather fine Blowback magazine – here though is the real deal ..

 The last time ireallylovemusic interviewed Adam alphabet aka Akira The Don, he had just announced his departure from Crack Village and was contemplating moving over to the outer regions of France and selling mixtapes via ebay to fund his lifestyle.

 Little did we know what was about to hit, trips to USA, lovely big record labels, supporting GLC, and general madness.

 Tis indeed time to catch up and just see what all the fuss was about ..

12 months is a long time in anyone’s life, but how many years have you experienced in the last year?

 This year zipped by with the speed and ferocity of one of those shiny red Japanese super bikes. Going down a big greasy mountain. In a timewarp. Yet somehow, it also seems to have been so long, I can’t actually remember the beginning of it. I am pretty sure it was a completely different time – like, we had wagons and horses and they would flay thieves on the street and stuff.

Have you started to go grey with the stress, or, is this exactly what you were hoping would happen when the clock ticked into 2004?

 looking back to me aged seven, when I was making Big Plans, everything is right on schedule, actually. I am fully aware that the stress hasn’t even begun – it is the next chapter that will be king hectic. Basking in that knowledge, this all feels like primary school or something – pissing around with finger paints and making collages with pasta and glue.

For the benefit of those who haven’t read the large press presence, give us a snapshot into just how this happened. After all it’s almost become stuff of legend in my house, no-one believes me: from a hairdresser playing an Akira The Don Demo to you being whipped across the big pond and checking out the ultra-large white piano in Interscope’s foyer – it’s a future corny film script isn’t it? A rock-n-beat rags to riches epic.

 It is very silly indeed, I suppose, although it all seemed perfectly natural at the time, and it still kind of does. There were certain people around me while it was all going down who were all pissed off I wasn’t freaking out about it. Perhaps if it had happened fifteen years ago, I would have, but I’ve read a lot of music magazines since then, so I know the drill.

 BUT STILL!

 Anyway, right. What it was, was I had decided in my brain I would go to yank land and reverse that old Strokes formula, where they send a band over here and our press goes, WOW, AMERICAN, and they go home heroes. But I didn’t have any money, and a week prior to leaving I hadn’t been able to convince anybody to lend it me. Something In Construction got quite offended when I asked them, as I recall. HOWEVER! I phoned my bank, and was put through to a lovely young Brummy lady in the lending department, and we had a half hour chat about Birmingham, cos I used to live there, and The Flapper and Firkin and the Bull ring and local bands and stuff, and the music I was doing, and then after a while she was like, so what did you want anyway? And I was like, a grand, and she was like, cool, no problem. And that was that sorted.   

 So I got tickets for me and my DJ Birddogg, and the idea was we’d fly to Miami, where my mates Wade Crescent and Robert The Poet were living. They reckoned they could sort me some gigs. I’d sent them some Ds and mixtapes and stuff. And we’d be there a week, then go and do the same in New York for a week – my mate Spiky was living there, and he said he could sort a few gigs as well – then we’d go home, all heroey.

 As it was, Birddogg realised an hour before we were due to fly that he’d lost his passport. So I went on my own, and arrived in Miami airport with a dollar. 

 ANYWAY! I did a few “shows” in Miami, which basically involved jumping on at clubs and rapping over the top of Billy Idol records with my He-Man sword mike (RIP). Birddogg showed up after a few days and spent a lot of time on a private beach with Ivor Gojohnsten or whatever he’s called, in some nice red shorts, as I recall. And Robert took me to the everglades, where we rode on a big hoverboat, like on Gentle Ben, and saw loads of fucking baby dinosaurs and fluorescent orange locusts and shit. That was awesome.

 And when we got out of the everglades, where there was no reception, Robert had fucking millions of messages on his phone, and it was all Phil and some American dude freaking out and going on about Sony and Interscope and Jimmy Iovine and stuff. And we were like, ha ha! Oh well…

 And next thing I knew I was being flown to New York ahead of schedule, and taken on one of those goddamned whirlwind restaurant tours, meeting publicists and A&Rs and shit and being told I’d “reinvented music.” Me and the dude who is now my A&R bonded one night at Lit in New York, when he, a 6 foot all American man monster, headbutted me, a 9 and a half stone short arsed Limey. And I headbutted him back. And I put hom on the GROUND, son! And so on. I was still sober at that point, and it was the most fun I’d had since I quit drinking.

 Then Jimmy Iovine flew me out to LA to meet him, and was all like, so would you like to work with Dr Dre, and I was like, NO! Ha ha.

 And that was that.

 Well it wasn’t. There was then a month or so of , like, WEIRDNESS… lawyers and Woodstock and hippies and bears and all sorts of weird shit. I think I wrote a lot about it at the time, but there was obviously a lot of stuff that got lost, for various reasons.

What stands out as the highlight of the trip? Will you eventually succumb and live there on a permanent basis as opposed to your previous dream of a plot of land in the middle of France and fund the life by selling mixtapes via ebay?

 The Everglades was amazing. I’d never been anywhere further than Belgium, so to see all that crazy wildlife, all that incredible beauty, kind of blew my face off. And Arriving in Miami, and stepping outside, and it being so HOT… and swimming in the sea at 4am, and it being all lovely and warm and shit…

And getting lost in the woods in Shandaken. That was intense. It was really intense, and really fucking real…

 Ho ho. As for France… I still have that dream – but it is a lot further in the future, for now. As for living in America, I know I shall have to be spending a lot of time there. But I’ll be spending a lot of time everywhere. For a good while.

But life is long, and there is much to do, so it is all good.

Did your trip prove or disprove all your preconceptions re USA?

 Both, in a weird way.

I met the archetypical Republican Dad. He explained to me tat it was “us or them,” as his wife served up cookies with a giant smile. “Do we want them coming over here and enslaving our women?” he demanded, with not a trace of irony.

You seemed to experience some amazing adventures – sometimes life reaffirming, others downright bloody scary (if you haven’t read Adam’s “walk in the wilderness” episode – then please do so, all will become clear) – did you ever wish you were back in Wales getting pissed on a Friday night and working for McJob Inc ?

 You know, that whole Shandaken thing was so like a few episodes in Wales, it was fucking stupid. I remember thinking at the time, goddamn, is this how far I have come? Wandering lost and bloody through woods and falling down holes in the middle of the night? Again? Is it going to be like this for ever?

Following your adventures, and the pursuit of happiness, has been a fascinating past time for us online geeks. Did you ever feel “I should draw the line at this point, they don’t need to know about this side to my experiences?” Or, do you feel that by being so open and honest endears you to your audience and break the mould of hip hop machismo?

 I don’t really think about who’s reading it, to be honest. The only time I draw the line is when it dawns on me that something I write might hurt someone I like. Or love. Although I am prone to being a dullard, and not noticing stuff like that.

 I suspect it will all be hugely embarrassing in a few years, like those old PlayLouder columns, but it is probably for the best. We were none of us perfectly formed from the get go. I just have a big legacy of internet paper to prove my foolishness. 

Tell me how it felt to walk into a record shop and see your cartoon alter-ego glaring out at you? I have never met you in real life, yet I got butterflies in my stomach when I saw the EP. 

 Did you? Me too! I only saw it once – I popped into a Virgin Megastore to buy an iPod – my first financial extravagance, as I recall. It was weird, I had never spent that much money over the counter before.

Anyway, I had a look at the singles section, and it was all racked up on a big display whatsit, next to Morrissey, and it looked amazing. Normally everything with me is like, am, bam, next, next – by the time that had come out my brain was full immersed in the next one. But I did stand back, just for a few seconds, and go, gosh. I did that! That’s me!

From the EP there is some rather controversial aspects to One Bullet – did anyone from Something In Construction/Interscope approve or do they monitor your lyrical direction?

 Nope! Iovine claimed to agree with it entirely. Nobody’s said anything about tat sort of thing. Yet. Still, that tune is some pussy amateur flailing-in-the-dark soft ass bullshit compared to the new stuff. Dang Dang DAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

Regarding the glorious Drinking Song – is this now a major part of your live show – a massive big sing-a-long to leave the homeward bound all warm and rosy? Or has this become your “Creep” yet?

 It has become my Creep! Already!

Ho ho.

Well, what it is with that, is, I know it will be required, and quite necessary in the future. And when I wrote it, I imagined a football stadium singing the chorus. So I’m resting it for a little while, so that I don’t get totally sick of it by the time it is Right.

You seem well chuffed with your new techno-gadgets (some wizbang Technics thingamajig ..) you going to be dropping some big budget production (Dre?) numbers on the album, any names lined up that you can tell us about?

 I am fucking chuffed! And to answer the other questions…

Yes!

And

No!

I need a little mystique.

 Or, are you going to keep this like the EP and on a tight lo-tech budget?

 Ideally, I’d like to release two versions – like, the Fruity (Loops) version, and the $$$ version. I don’t know if the label’ll go for that, so if they don’t, we’ll put out the $$$ one, and I’ll stick the original versions on my website. Or something.

I seem to recall you fell off the wagon at some stage during the year. Is this the beginning of a steady decline back into the ways of Weekender (legendary column Adam wrote for PlayLouder involving lots of stuff they don’t sell over the counter at your local chemist), or have you learnt to limit and handle the bonus’s of rock-n-roll life?

 I am sure I said this before somewhere, so I apologise if you’ve heard this, but Not Drinking is fucking easy. Drinking is Hard. It is a fucking day to day battle, if you’re around the stuff, but I learnt a lot not drinking, and drugging, and the kid I was when I wrote Weekender is long dead, rest his silly soul. I am not about to start blowing heroin up Paris Hilton’s arsehole, I am afraid. There are plenty of bands in this country aiming for that. I am going to make a MUSICAL!

For all the good of 2004 – you had some harsh realities to deal with, namely the untimely death of a personal hero(ODB), and mad election results. Slowly but surely you seem to have become politically energised in these dark days, pointing all and sundry to spots of questionable value on the interweb via your blog. You seem to have given yourself some kind of Michael Moore agenda. Was this always part of the plan?

 Well, I first became politically/socially aware via listening to Billy Bragg records when I was five or something. Then came Carter, and Public Enemy then Dead Prez… music has always been the stuff that’s opened my brain up to the world, the harsh bits and the dope stuff. So I am continuing that, is all. I mean, I can’t hear about some fucked up stuff and not tell people. I can’t expect them to know it already, if I didn’t. And I am not about to not say stuff because some people think it’s not cool, and some others think it’s obvious. Fuck obvious. If you’re in the position to know stuff, when the vast majority of the world is kept in ignorance, chattering amongst your similarly fortunate mates isn’t going to achieve anything. YOU CUNTS!

UK hip hop has definitely turned a corner in the last 12 months with some excellent long players  from Skinnyman, Evil Ed, Tommy Evans, Mystro, all coming out of a strongly UK indie ideology. I read recently that the only good hip hop made is when the artists involved are hungry for the fame and fortune, and that once they achieve these goals that their sounds and product become bloated and lacks interest (hello gangsta hiphop).

 I disagree!

To an extent.

Nas still make awesome records.

The new RZA shit is INCREDIBLE.

Jadakiss’ ‘Why’ was an incredible record. It was number one in the US for a month or something. Dude’s a multi-millionaire, 4 albums deep, his first line goes, “why did Bush knock down the towers?”

That is way more important that Worsworth telling people not to vote.

Hunger is an important ting, but the MC Hammer factor has kept respect an important part of hip-hop, hence a dude like Nas not being able to rest on his proverbial laurels. He tried that in the nineties, and people shat on him. So he had to go back and make incredible music again. Outkast! Those dude’s a rolling about in cash! They have bathfulls of the stuff! And they put out a fuckign gabbatechnodnbopera tune as a single!

do you think that currently UK hip hop is going through a similar golden period a la USA counterparts did in 87-94 which was generated by this quest for a better life?

A lot of people have been saying that. I think UK heads are just starting to find their own voice, is all, they’re stepping out of the shadow of the US giants and doing their own ting, chatting about their own stuff, over their own beats. Which is all that hip-hop ever was. I don’t know why the French cottoned on to this a decade before us, but… actually, I do. It’s that law they have about radio having to be 80% French or whatever. That’s it. MOBOS! Stop licking 50 Cent/Kanye/whoever ass! You are killing your own people!

Do you have a unquenchable thirst for fame and fortune or are you driven by other more virtuous forces?

(Anyone asked you for an autograph yet?)

A mixture of both, tragically. When I was little I thought fame and fortune would sort out all my problems – people would stop battering me every day, girls would like me, I’d be cool and amazing and have loads of CA$H, so I wouldn’t have to do shitty jobs and crime. Then I got a good job, and had a trail run at the famey thing, and pretty soon it became apparent that that shit doesn’t help, it just amplifies.

But it is still there.

But, you know, I am getting into a really good position. I can DO STUFF – for me, for others, and it’s good stuff, not just noises, but the whole shebang  - I can go, look, that shit in the Bible is FUCKED UP and some kid in Kansas who digs my shit will go, Oh YEAH! And he might stop hating women.

And he might not.

Actually, this is the hardest question. I have yet to sort it out in my head properly, but I am getting here, I think.

 How is the sound of Akira’s music different from the standard hip-hop vibes?

 Nobody else seems to have been bought up on Tom Petty and Billy Bragg and Cockney rebel as well as Ice Cube and Snoop and the Wu. As far as I have noticed. I may be wrong. I have a sneaking suspicion there is some goddmaned 14 year old genius out there ready to bust out with some incredible shit that will make my old ass look like Paul McCartney’s or something.

PS, I hate Paul McCartney.

 Will the album feature a cover version of a Carter USM track as a bonus not-so secret track?

 DON’T SPOIL THE SURPRISE!

Will 2005 get a UK hip hop moustachioed (hurray for spell checker!) dude at the top of USA radio play lists?

 YES! Of course. How could it not?

will you keep the beard in 2005?

 The beard comes and goes. It is fulsome this week, but I have promised to shave it once I find a house to live in, which will hopefully be soon. Then it will grow back again. I still haven’t gotten over the novelty of being able to grow one. I still remember being 14 and having a fucking totally vivid dream about having a beard, and how disappointed I was when I woke up.

and finally - whats the deal with blob ?

That blob, was birthed randomly into existence with a pop, and has spent the rest of his existence  in lots of agony.Which is sad.

But such is life.

heh.