Senor Kaos: Talent is Everything
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You have to wonder when marketer/promoter/emcee, Senor Kaos sleeps– the dude is everywhere. Over the years, Kaos’ name has practically become synonymous with the Atlanta hip-hop scene—from his marketing/promo work through his company, Vintage Imperial, to his popular blog, thekaoseffect.com, to his party promotion efforts, Kaos is not only known, but respected in virtually every circle.
But what a lot of people still don’t know is that Kaos’ influence extends well beyond the marketing world. He’s been a factor on the underground rap scene for a decade, touring the world and gaining fans all over the globe with his music. His latest mixtape, Swagger Is Nothing, Talent Is Everything, dropped in October, and since has garnered a significant buzz, led by the catchy single, “Girls Rock Too”—a lyrical ode to women.
With an album scheduled to drop in 2009, The Kaos Effect, don’t expect him to be catching up on his sleep any time soon.
Why did you name your mixtape Swagger is Nothing, Talent is Everything?
The title came about because me and [DJ] Mars wanted to collab on a shirt. We were just talking in general convo and we were talking about how many songs that are out now that have swagger in the title, or the song is about swagger. The funny thing is, like nowadays swagger is 90 percent of what an emcee is to the general population. For myself as well as Mars and Frolab.com, we grew up in an era where yeah, you had to have swagger, but you also had to have content and you had to stand behind what you talked about in your music. You couldn’t say one thing in your music and then do another in public. People are so swaggered out that it’s not even about talent any more, it’s about an image, it’s about a presentation. It’s about I gotta fit into this image for people to feel my music and it’s just really wack. I think it’s at an all time high right now. So I wanted to do a shirt that said “fuck your swagger.” That was gonna be the shirt. Like, I wanted to make a statement with it. So we talked about it and they were like, nah, we can’t do the “fuck your swagger,” that’s a little too [much]. I can’t wear that in the grocery store around kids. So we came through a couple of titles and that’s where “swagger is nothing, talent is everything”came from. People are gonna feel how they feel about it, but we always say, clothes don’t make you an emcee, flows make you an emcee.
People know you as a marketer and promoter but tell people about your musical history.
I started putting out music at like 15. Originally it was a group effort, it was myself and SL 1 and we created Vintage Imperial. Around 15, 16 we were doing a lot of shows in Atlanta, this is back in an era where you had the Point in Little 5 Points, and you had Dotties and you had Yin Yang before it was Apache Café, Somber Reptile which is now Utopia. By the time I was 19 we can out with our first actual record, like 12 inch because back then if you didn’t have a record, nobody was talking you seriously. It picked up here first on college radio and we ended up getting it distributed through TRC, which is a company in San Francisco. Now the whole time, I’ve always been independent for everything. All of my orders went to Australia, Japan, London and Denmark. Nobody else really picked up the record, but it kept selling out overseas. So that enabled me to travel the world, I went to Japan and did shows, went to Australia and did shows, went to Copenhagen and did shows and that built up a buzz for the music overseas. A few years after that, I dropped an album called Synergy which a lot of people still like and listen to today, that was in 2001 going into 2002. After the Synergy project came out in 2002, I had a graffiti background and I got into promoting doing that. I knew someone who was the Loud rep and the same aesthetic that you have in graffiti is trying to get your name in as many visual places at one time, and it’s the same thing with street promo. So that’s how I got into street promo, so by the time I turned 21, I had officially started the company on the marketing end and I was working for Interscope, Capitol, Reebok, Violator at 21—so I was one of the youngest cats that had major accounts. I’m 25 now, for the record, and that led into more corporate work. You don’t meet too many people that do that and make music.
It seems like a lot to handle. Why do you do both marketing and music?
You know how people say, this album is for everybody. My music isn’t like that. It’s not for everybody. IF you like to go to the strip club and pop bottles, this album probably not gonna be for you. So knowing that I know that I’m not necessarily gonna make a million dollars rapping. I just make good songs that I like and hope that other people that are like minded can say ‘oh, I like that that too.’
So tell me about your single “Girls Rock Too.”
I put together an event and the event was called Girls Rock Too in 2006, when I was working for Kool. We had Janelle Monae, Cha Cha Jones, Ms. Dia hosted. Came up with the event title first. At the same time, like the song popped in my head and Johnny Euphonic played some beats for me and it just kinda came out. Originally the song was a promo for the event and if you came to the event you got a copy of the song. Gave out the cds and a lot of people like the song so I felt like okay, maybe I should try to push it and that’s when the video was created. I feel like there has to be some kind of visual, I don’t think I would’ve gotten the same effect if I would’ve just blasted the song out. Being an independent artist, it’s hard to make videos, because of budget restraints. But it’s been getting a great response. At the end of the day, I want the song to spark some type of discussion. That’s what the song is for. It’s been doing a pretty good job at that.
To download Swagger is Nothing, Talent is Everything and watch “Girls Rock Too” click here
PHOTO CREDIT: Arnold Barr Of Fotobarr
