Krept & Konan otherwise known as ‘Play Dirty’ are the UK’s hottest rap stars. Following the success of their last mixtape ‘Tsunami’ which reached no.2 in the iTunes hip hop chart, the pair are back and set to release a new mixtape ‘Young Kingz’ on September 2nd. It features a lot of UK heavyweights including Tinie Tempah, G Frsh, Chip, Giggs, Yungen and Fekky. The first track off the forthcoming mixtape, ‘My Story’ a heartfelt account into Konan’s life, is already getting rave reviews and has been viewed an astonishing 500,000 times on YouTube. We sat down and chatted with the rap duo to discuss the emotional ‘My Story’, their upcoming mixtape ‘Young Kingz’ and the new viral video ‘Don’t Waste My Time’.
You recently released the track ‘My Story’, it’s been getting good reviews, how does that feel?
Krept: It’s good to see that. We’re giving people a real side of us and to know that it’s not just the glitz and glamour. People are appreciating that fact were giving them an insight into our lives and a different side of us. It’s good to see people showing love to something that is real and authentic. It means a lot especially for the hardship we were going through at that stage, we were thinking of leaving music.
Konan: But we’re showing people that you can do it if you put your head down and get it done. It would probably be the worst thing to ever happen if they didn’t show us love but everyone loves it.
The video had 500,000 views in less than 24hrs on YouTube.
Konan: It’s good, the most likes we’ve ever got from a video. It’s a good look. We’ve been getting so much love. I even went Nando’s yesterday and the girl behind the counter said yeah I’ve watched ‘My Story’. Lots of different people are watching it, it’s good. The more people are watching it the more and more it’s gonna get to other people and hopefully we inspire them.
How did ‘My Story’ originally come about?
Konan: We did a Radio One show called Fire In The Booth with Charlie Sloth that he does. That beginning freestyle on that show was the first verse on ‘My Story’. The beat was kind of similar to the one we did the track on. But then we locked off the track because the court case was pending. ‘My Story’ was a witness account and after a while we made a whole song. Shot the video and went from there.
The track is very deep it talks about the murder of your stepfather, why was it important to share this story with fans?
Konan: Because the court case was still pending, the situation only just came to an end after the video. So going through all of that at the same time as well as doing music it was just on my chest so getting it off was like therapy. I didn’t really talk to anyone about it and when you saw me I was just normal but it was inside me. I think it was the right time to do it because it was in court and it was nearly over we thought we might as well put it out now. The person that did it got 35 years.
You mentioned earlier that you considered quitting music at the time, what made you change your minds?
Konan: I don’t know in life you get big decisions and the decision was on my head either were gonna go do it or were not. But we were talking for about two hours. We were parked up on the side road and we were just talking about what were gonna do, where are we gonna go from here. So I’m just sitting there trying to weigh up my options. I’m not gonna go do something negative, it’s only gonna breed other negative stuff. You know what let’s just go with the positive.
Skepta is also mentioned in the song, is he someone you go to for advice?
Krept: Working with Skepta he’s not someone we go to for advice it’s just that were around him a lot and he’s been in the industry so he’ll always give us advice. He’ll say yo I think you should do this and that or I think this will work. But what we said in the track it was the kind of stage where we needed a distraction and he came and put us on tour and put us in the deep end. He showed us a different side to life and it made us more hungry.
Konan: Skepta didn’t even know the situation and he just thought I’d holla at these man I like their music. But that’s why in the track we say big up Skepta because he didn’t really know what he did. Putting us on tour was an eye opener for us not to go back down the wrong path and make us want to work even harder to get to where we want to get to.
‘My story’ is quite a personal song, is there any topic that is off limits in your music?
Krept: Music is a form of expression so I feel like whatever you’re feeling you have to express it in your music. That is the whole point of what music is. Unless you’re telling everyone a bunch of lies and your fan base doesn’t care about anything real then that’s different. But were coming from an authentic place and background. It’s only right that we make real music and tell people the situation.
Konan: The bigger you get, the more famous you get so there is no point hiding anything because it will backfire on you. If people are buying into you then I feel like if a situation is happening then you should put it out there. I wasn’t trying to hide it. At the start I didn’t really want to talk about it but after a while, it was like two years so it was the right time to talk about it.
So you have a new mix-tape ‘Young Kingz’ out September 2nd, what can we expect from it?
Krept: Everything, the journey. The story of our last two years. Not like a story like ‘My Story’ but different experiences…whether that is girls or having fun partying. It expresses how we were feeling at different stages of the last two years.
Konan: People think that it will be like ‘My Story’ sad and emotional. But it is not, it’s a mixture of feelings and emotions. It depends on the beat. Whatever the beat tells us to do, we’ll do. If the beats hyped then were hyped! Obviously the mixtape will refer to our lives and it will touch on a lot of different feels and vibes. We just tried to get a mixture of everything and make something for everyone.
It has some big name features on it – Tinie Tempah, Chip and Giggs. What was it like working with those guys?
Krept: Different experiences with each artist. Giggs we’ve worked with him before. We worked with Chip before. We didn’t work with Tinie but we sent the track to him. But working with Giggs this time round we were more comfortable with each other. We were catching jokes in the studio and vibing. With Chip we did ‘Go Down South’ so this time we were just vibing in studio. There’s also G Frsh on the mixtape, we’ve always worked with G Frsh. He was on our old mixtape and we worked on his mixtape so it’s only right we had him on this mixtape. Obviously there is also Yungen he is a part of the crew so its only right. George The Poet too…its different. We thought how are we gonna incorporate poetry on the mixtape but we made him do the intro’s and outro’s. It turned out good and sounds together. We also have Yana Toma, Fekky and Ari..have I missed anyone (looks at Konan)
Konan: Nah I think that’s everyone.
We interviewed Yungen before and he said you’re his favourite artists to work with.
Konan: Is it…You see because it’s natural, because were actually friends. When you’re in the studio with other artists you might not feel comfortable 100%, obviously everyone is cool but because it’s not your peoples Yungen is, so we just vibe and do whatever we want in the studio.
Krept: Big up Yungen!
Do you ever get competitive over your bars, say if you hear the other person’s verse and then rework yours because they went harder?
Konan: Krept does it a lot. It depends on who’s done the first verse because it sets the tone for the tune. So it’s like cool I was gonna go lighter let me go in, go harder. Or even when we do our features, like when we did the song with Tinie…we sent him our verses and we were waiting for the verse, waiting and we get the verse back, listen to it and we were like he went in! He tried to put us under pressure a bit (laughs). Say even with Giggs, he’ll listen to our verse and he’ll be like you guys tried to style it up he’ll be like okay and do his. But it’s friendly competition, keeps everyone on their toes.
Now you’ve done remixes of American tracks, ‘Otis’ being your most notable one, would you ever like to break America?
Konan: 100%. America is like the centre of Hip-hop. I feel like once you’ve broken America, you’ve broken the world Hip-hop wise. But we want conquer our own country first but it is on the list.
The MTV Video Music Awards’s aired recently, what did you think of the show?
Konan: I wasn’t really rating it (laughs)
Krept: I rated JT (Justin Timberlake’s) performance he killed it. Kanye smashed it!
Konan: Drake was disappointing, I’m not gonna lie.
Krept: You know what is Drake tried to sing live and he’s not the best vocalist. Obviously live it will be harder.
Konan: I feel like his performance was a bit plain..Katy Perry was outside, JT brought out N*Sync and Kanye’s was creative. Drake was just running around on the stage, he could have gone harder.
Krept: But Drake still smashes it. Big up Drizzy!
What were your thoughts on Miley Cyrus’s performance?
Krept: I don’t know what she was trying to shake…her spine.
Konan: It was a bit mental. She looked uncomfortable like she was trying to act. I didn’t really believe it, the tongue out every minute. It looked crazy.
Moving back to you, what is next for Krept & Konan? I understand you have the new song ‘Don’t Waste My Time’ dropping online?
Konan: We have the mixtape out September 2nd and yeah we have a net video ‘Don’t Waste My Time’ which is coming out online. It is a complete different feel to ‘My Story’ it’s more street. It should be a street banger. We got our whole area out for the video. Big up our area! We got 30 super bikes, all the little kids, friends, girls..we just went around the area. Police tried to stop the video but we just got them in the video (laughs).
How are the police in the video?
Konan: Like their just in it.
Krept: Their acting as well (laughs)
Konan: Two different scenes they tried to stop, one scene in the centre of my area and one where we went to Croydon. They tried to shut it down because of the people but they ended up being in it and giving us extra light as well. So big up them! Hopefully the song in the clubs soon.
We are also working on an EP at the moment so while were doing the interviews and videos were still going to the studio and making music.
Finally anything you like to tell the Flavourmag readers?
Krept: Go support and go get the mixtape. Support UK music. We have put a lot of time and effort and money into this so it’s only £8 init (Konan laughs). But we’ve put like grand’s and grand’s into our music so especially if you like us and you want for us to continue doing this, we can put the money back into our music and make more stuff.
Konan: Also follow us on Twitter @konanplaydirty @kreptplaydirty. Find us on Youtube at Youtube.com/playdirtymusic, on Soundcloud and Facebook to keep up to date with us.
You can also get T-shirts on iplaydirty.co.uk, were updating the designs so look out for that soon.
Krept: And big up Flavourmag!
