KONCEPTUAL
DOMINANCE—STRICTLY SAVAGE
"With this
album, we wanted to offend people,"
says Koncepts Unlimited, one half
of Konceptual Dominance, about their
album, Savage Intelligence. "And
that's not to say we always try to
offend people or that we're offensive
people. It's just what Hip Hop needs
right now."
Koncepts is not
talking about offending people in
the boring-ass Andrew Dice Clay way
(lots of four-letter words and no
real substance), Konceptual Dominance
is lyrically checking chins by spreading
knowledge. With their debut album,
Koncepts and Kirby Dominant are taking
all of Western Civilization to task.
As Koncepts explains,
the album is about "things felt
sincerely from a dominant perspective.
We got real over the top with it."
Savage Intelligence
is based around Koncepts and Kirby's
observation of the evil that men do.
Dominant explains how they came up
with the album's, um, dominant subject
matter.
"We were just
talkin' on it, like how man is hella
evil, hella savage!" Kirby says.
"But we're intelligent though,
because we make cell phones, pagers,
and the Internet. But we do the savage
shit with it."
Koncepts adds, "In
this society what's considered intelligence
is savage, and what's savage is considered
intelligent. People are confused in
that respect."
"Motherf--kers
are going about it the wrong way!"
Kirby adds. You don’t think
you are savage but you are savage.
'Cause that ain't our nature, that’s
human nature. Intelligent species,
we are supposed to be rulers of this
Earth, but animals take care of their
young more than we do."
The circumstances
and environment under which Savage
Intelligence was recorded also shaped
the finished product. Both members
of Konceptual Dominance were born
and raised in Northern California,
but the album was recorded in the
Bronx. This was due to education situations;
Koncepts was attending NYU, and Kirby
was at Howard University on a one-year
exchange program with UC Berkeley.
Trying to record an album in the midst
of crippling urban blight certainly
influenced both member's mindsets.
As Kirby observes, racism is much
more pronounced on the East Coast,
and the despair is much more palpable.
Furthermore, Howard
is located in the nation's capitol
and Washington DC is notorious for
having extreme wealth (the center
of this country's government) next
to extreme poverty and crime. Human
misery sits side by side with politics
and corruption. All the contradictions
and misery inspired Kirby and Koncepts
to create the album.
"We just wanted
to talk about the crazy shit that's
going on," Kirby says. "Just
wake minds up. In that vein of Brand
Nubian and old KRS-One, bring it back
to the people."
Very few artists
have traveled the same ground that
Brand Nubian and KRS-One did back
in the early nineties, and Koncepts
says it's time for a change. "There
isn't the level of consciousness that
there used to be," Koncepts says.
"Not a lot of artists are expressing
consciousness." He notes Dead
Prez and The Coup as notable exceptions
but still feels that not enough groups
are coming hard with knowledge. Which
is exactly what Savage Intelligence
does.
Songs like the title
track, "Vivid," and "Black
Anger" are unflinching attacks
on Western Society and value systems.
It's a kick in the ass that this country
could use.
Education is a cornerstone
of Konceptual Dominance. Koncepts
just received his BS in Education
from NYU; Kirby has a BA in American
Studies (focus in Urban Economic Development)
from UC Berkeley. Koncepts currently
teaches ninth grade history in the
NYC public school system and Kirby
has extensive experience teaching
in various Bay Area schools. Hence,
they understand how they use their
music to, as Grand Puba said a decade
ago, "civilize the uncivilized."
Konceptual Dominance
is a component of Kemetic Suns, comprised
of Koncepts, Kirby, KiloJule, and
Hypnotic. So far, members of the crew
will focus on recording their own
projects and with groups within the
crew (besides Konceptual Dominance,
Hypnotic and KiloJule make up The
Auditrons), before they finally record
a Kemetic Suns album.
Kirby, for one,
is pretty damn busy. He's running
Rapitalism Records, which put out
Savage Intelligence. He recorded an
album with Canadian MC Moka Only,
called The Dominant Mammals (Moka's
alias is the durable mammal), and
he's recording his second solo album,
The Dominator.
"I love this
shit," Kirby states. "I
dream about it. I think it all the
time. I ain't had any women around
because I'm just with my [real] woman,
my music. And nothing comes before
it.
"That's what
motherf--kers need to be dropping,
that new way of thinking, something
different," he concludes. "That's
what we need as humans …I think
it's what needs to be done. [This
album] reminds you of something that
was lost."
—Jesse
Drucker
This article
originally appeared in RapSheet
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