>>PREVIEW
K-OS
Monday, November 13
MacEwan Hall (U of C)
This is Kevin Brereton stripped of his iconography. A cough, followed by a voice suited for brief salutations in elevators and cafés . The beard and dreads look merely anonymous without the sunglasses and drawn hoodie, an image most Canadians identify as K-OS.
From the kid breaking on cardboard mats to the mother humming "Crabbuckit" in the dairy aisle, he has come to represent urban music for the Canadian masses as he transforms gats and hoes into cosmic introspection. His last album reached more than double platinum levels. Media saturation has begun with the latest album, Atlantis: Hymns for Disco, a continuation of the work K-OS started on Joyful Rebellion. Interview after interview, the man is restless, shifting personalities and attitudes on a seeming whim. Some days he’s the philosopher, on others he’s the jester and sometimes he tells a writer from NOW magazine to "Eat a dick." Fast Forward sits down with K-OS to talk about dealing with fame and his recent spat with the media.
Fast Forward: How do you plan to deal with these new levels of fame?
K-OS: Even now I don’t know how my record is doing. I don’t have a TV and I don’t listen to the radio. I knew how Joyful Rebellion was doing, because back then, a high school friend would call me and be like, ‘Oh my God, your song is on the radio.’ I love that I can grow into this and not get queasy and bratty. I’m in a lot happier place. I still need to get upset and angry every once in awhile just to feel my own emotions inside of me."
FFWD: You’ve talked about the importance of recognizing your own flaws? What are they?
K-OS: The current ones I’m fixating on – over-analyzing everything, attention seeking, being overly competitive. The basic human struggles. I read somewhere each human being is made up of thousands of years of human nature. My flaws are the flaws of the world, transmuted down to me from past generations. Everyone is dealing with them in their own way. That’s the weird thing about humans, we all know what it’s like to suffer from the same kind of psychological conditions.
FFWD: There’s been quite a bit of ruckus concerning your comments about a certain review you received in NOW Magazine.
K-OS: I care what people say about me. It’s a very human thing, but at the end of the day I care more about how I feel about myself. It’s also boredom. I call it the treadmill theory. Someone can’t go outside so they get a treadmill. It’s not really running, but it stimulates the body like it is. I think when artists become popular, they don’t run as hard, because they’re selling records or everyone likes them. So I create my own artificial conflicts and speak my mind.
FFWD: You don’t feel you remain sensitive despite the level of success you’ve had?
K-OS: I’ve said a lot of things in the media that people agree with. It’s OK if I say something that doesn’t come from the most intelligent of places. I don’t want to be pigeon-holed into saying, ‘Observe the polarity inside your brain to transcend human reality.’ You can only say that for so long before you get bored of it yourself. There are definite personality lines between Kevin Brereton who grew up outside of Toronto and K-OS, a character I’m learning about as much as everybody else. I don’t wake up with the glasses and hoodie on thinking, ‘this is who I am.’ |
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