Rap Royalty Returns

The stoner inventors of rip-hop, publicly known as the Kottonmouth Kings, will be making what appears to be their annual stop in Fargo this Tuesday on one of the biggest-grossing concert tours of the summer.

“We love coming to North Dakota.” says group founder and frontman, Brad X, “My wife is from North Dakota so we have a lot of family and friends up there.”

Joining their royal highnesses on the Second Annual Strange Noize Tour, conveniently named after their very own record labels, is the Kansas City King, Tech N9ne.

Since performing in Fargo less than three months ago, Tech N9ne’s latest double album, “Killer” has hit stores nationwide. Special guests are Krizz Kaliko, Kutt Calhoun, and Prozak off Tech N9ne’s Strange Music label and (hed)pe, The Dirtball, and Brother J, of X Clan off Kottonmouth King’s Suburban Noize label.

The hip-hop/punk rock hybrid band gained fame in 1998 when they appeared on the movie soundtrack for “Scream 2.” Since then, they have graced the cover of, “High Times Magazine” as band of the year in 2006, have gone on to be two-time guest judges in the coveted, “Cannabis Cup” in Amsterdam, where they played along side Jefferson Starship, and started their own independent record label, Suburban Noize Records, which is home to over twenty other acts including Jada Pinkett Smith’s Wicked Wisdom.

After the debut show of the tour, Brad “Daddy” X, shed some light on the experiences of this seven man crew.

HPR: Will Tech N9ne be appearing in your set?

Brad X: Yeah, we close the entire show with the song called, “City 2 City” which is a song that we did together on the “Cloud 9” record we did a video for. It’s one of the most downloaded videos of the year last year so that’s a big song.

Have you thought about adding a guitar player to your shows?

We do bring a lot of guitar into the studio and we have had a guitar player on stage with us before. We’ve talked about doing a whole live jam band kinda real stoney mellow record this year at some point. Maybe touring with that, with the entire band just to flip the script a little bit and have some fun. We bring a lot of different music stylings in so we have the ability to go in a lot of different directions with it.

Which disc would you recommend to a new listener getting into your style of music?

I think “Cloud 9” is a good reflection of all the different musical stylings that you get from Kottonmouth Kings and then you can go deeper from there. We also have a greatest hits double CD that has three or four tracks from each record. It’s called “Greatest Highs.”

With twelve years in the making, ten albums stashed under your belt, and constant touring, what drives you?

We have our own label, we work at our own pace, we have the ability to make records when and how we want and put them out when and how we want. We just take advantage of that and we feel blessed and lucky to be able to be in a position to do this for a living so we don’t take it for granted. I think that keeps our work ethic. When we go out and play music in front of the people, that ultimately is the motivation and energy that we feed off of and continue going.

What does the future hold?

On October 28 is the release of the green album, the tenth studio full-length. We’ll probably do a winter tour to support that. We have the, “Rip and Terror” record which is like a punk rock record coming out late summer ‘09’.

What guest appearances are on the green album?

The only guest appearance was Brother J of the X Clan doing a song called, “Free World”, Tech N9ne, we did a song called, “Sex Toy” and Dirtball, one of the Suburban Noize artists on this tour, on a song called, “Green Grass.”
You opened for Insane Clown Posse in Fargo in 1998. What changes have you seen in the last ten years?

I’ve seen a drastic change in the fuel prices [laughter]. You know, trying to run these buses and semis out here. It gets super expensive with the strangle-hold they have on us with the oil.

Obviously technology, the internet, and all of that has completely changed the landscape of the music business. That’s why we built a business model around the internet (http://www.kottonmouthkings.com) and merchandising and not just CDs.

We saw the forecast on the horizon and took proper measures to make sure that we were equipped to deal with it as an independent label and as a group. I think at the end of the day without featuring radio play or magazines and TV and all that good kind of stuff we proved that the people ultimately support the music. It’s not the critics, so that’s definitely what it’s about.

If You Go

Who: Kottonmouth Kings w/Tech N9ne
Where: The Venue @ The Hub
When: Tue. August 12, 7:30 pm
How Much: $24, All Ages
Info: 701-232-6767