YRB Magazine

It’s taken three albums, but rap duo Kidz in the Hall are starting to grow up. Having joined forces almost a decade ago after meeting at a talent show, Chicago-based emcee Naledge and NJ-bred producer Double-O have spent the last five years making an indelible splash on the indie hip-hop scene. With their 2006 Rawkus Records debut School Was My Hustle, the pair proved that it didn’t take age or experience to make rap music with heart and soul, following up their well-received debut with the fleshier The In Crowd in 2008 on Duck Down Records. Building on its predecessor, The In Crowd conveyed the duo’s growth and on-wax synergy, but instead of throwing listeners for a curve, Kidz in the Hall merely beefed up their sound rather than overhauling it.

But with their third album Land of Make Believe (in stores tomorrow), the Kidz tried something a bit different. Double-O, who had mastered the art of soul sampling on previous releases, went into recording the album without using a single sample. And instead of focusing strictly on partying and reflecting on hip-hop culture, Naledge decided to lyrically open up and turn the focus on himself. What the two have created is an album far more organic than anything they’ve previously done, and while they still love life in hip-hop’s fast lane, they’re beginning to challenge musically themselves and take their sound to the next level.

YRB checked in with the duo while they were on their way D.C., the next stop on their current Crowd Control Tour with 88-Keys, Izza Kizza and Donnis. Speaking on their new album, Double-O and Naledge discussed their unique approach to press for the album, how they used the internet to record the bulk of the album, why this album is much more vulnerable than previous releases, how their goals have changed since they first linked up and how far they’ve come in recording Almost Home, the follow-up to the newly released Land of Make Believe.

YRB: You had a really unique way of playing your album for press, driving around town and having people sit in the back of your Jeep. How'd that idea come to fruition?

Double-O: Actually, I have to give credit to [CEO of Duck Down Records] Dru Ha. Dru Ha was the mastermind behind that. The idea being that that's the best way to really listen to hip-hop for the past 20-some-odd years, 30 years I guess now. So why not, rather than do a weird club or do some sort of studio, just really give them that vibe in the car. It's definitely something to ride to.

YRB: Being that you live in different cities, much of the album must have been recorded over the internet. Did that mean it took more time to record the album than it would have if you were located in the same city, or did it speed up the process?

Naledge: I don't think it took that long, I don't think it extended the process. I think it was just a matter of when we are in the same room, the edits are quicker because sometimes, certain things need for us to be together if the idea is put out there. Him not being there when I lay a verse or a hook, his opinion isn't going to come in until after it's set, so in terms of the length of a studio session might be extended a little longer, but not really. Because with technology these days, it's not really earth changing. It's not like I have to wait for the Pony Express to deliver a song.

Double-O: What people fail to realize is this is 10 years in the making. So still, even the little edits that Naledge is talking about are minute things. It might be like, “Oh, I wish you would have done this.” And then it gets done. Everything was pretty much done in its entirety verse-wise in the first take, and then from that point, we built out the records with hooks and things like that. It only took as long as we wanted it to take. We spent time really finding these records this time around.

YRB: Being that you've been partners for longer than a decade, how do you think this album conveys the growth in your musical relationship?

Double-O: When we first met, it was very much artist and manager slash producer. So that's really kind of how it started off. So we existed like that for a long time, and it was one of those things where music was the start of our friendship, but really being able to be on the road and be in the middle of nowhere together and be stuck in crazy places, we experienced a lot of this musical journey together and it helped us in terms of chemistry. Because he might say a story that I know the background on, and I know what to pull out of it because the feelings I felt at the same time, I can inject into the music and vice versa. So you know, it's just one of those things that the longer you spend that practicing and doing that stuff, you just get better, and I think it's made the chemistry better, obviously.

Naledge: I think you force each other to elevate your craft. We got into this when we first started out pretty young, and now, I'm a grown ass man. But when we first started, the ability to look in the mirror and see yourself, really know yourself, it's one thing to do that in conversation, it's another thing to be really able to convey that on record. And the difference between this record and all the records we've done is that now, I'm comfortable with everything. I'm very comfortable with who I am. A lot of the times, you have conversations with people that you don't know and you only let them see the good or you let them in on some of your issues, but you don't let them in on everything. And I think this is one of the few times where we've been really able to just sit down and put a thorough effort together and give it a most complete thought of everything that's been going on in our lives and make it a real, real definitive statement.

YRB: Does that make you more vulnerable, more so than with previous albums, to expose yourself like that?

Naledge: I mean, I'm a PK, I'm a psychologist's kid. [Laughs] That's the other kind of PK. When I grew up, that's how things go. My parents never really were for spankings and stuff like that, everything was talking out your problems and issues, so it's something that I do in my everyday life. I just had to figure out how to put it on record and still make the record sound fun and still make the record be interesting. Like, you can't just prattle on about your life and think that's all that's necessary to make a really good song. You still have to have elements there to make a good song and that the hook and lyrics have to still be right and potent, so it's an interesting combination. I think it's just a coming of age where the stars align and things make sense. My comfort level with myself is just at an all-time high, and I think the sound, sonically, that Double-O's presented, is one that doesn't sound like anything else that's out right now. A lot of artists say that, but we went through a phase of experiment and I think with trial and error, we found our own sound. One that doesn't really sound like anybody else's.

YRB: This album takes it to areas that you may not have touched on previously. Did you map this out beforehand? How were the songs constructed, since the mood of the music matches the tone and substance of the lyrics?

Double-O: This took about a year to make. A little under a year. But we started probably right after our tour with Murs in December 2008. We started getting demos done, and a lot of this was done in January or February. And then it sat for a second to start picking out the pieces. The way things with us usually go is that we'll record a lot of demos that might be crazy eclectic all over the place records. And so it could be anything. We just tried to experiment and see where we could go. And what happened was things started to stick and things started to come to the surface that we realized were dope, and not only were dope, but made sense together. There may be songs that content-wise match the songs. Beat-wise, they don't, so then I'll go back and toy with the beat to get it to sound a certain way and sound like the rest of the record. And then the other way around. A beat might make sense, but the content might not completely match where we were going, so we go back and forth until we get things right. Try a bunch of different hooks, do different things until stuff makes sense. And luckily, we have the downtime to really do it this time around. And so really, it all comes together by feel and by vibe, more than it being just a pre-production process. Like I don't make 15 beats, send him 15 beats and then he raps on them and we're done. There's a lot of trial and error and getting things to kind of fit what we want to create. And then the loose concept comes together, and we take the loose concept and expand it and tighten it up.

YRB: Now that the third album is out, have you noticed that your goals as a group have changed since you started?

Naledge: I mean, for me, money is a necessary evil, but it's not how I judge the barometer of my success necessarily because I think that just as a man and an artist, art imitates life for me, so it's like I do this for me. I do this because it's therapeutic. I do this because it's something I love. I saw an interview with Bode Miller where he was like sometimes, he has runs on the slopes where he crashes, but it's because he tries some amazing outlandish trick that only a real athlete would know, so I think a lot of times, I'm just trying to elevate the art. And I see that I'm getting to the point where I'm mentally free and just really in a state of peace, and that's the place I want to be. And money helps that and to be able to tour, really, that's what I like to do. I just like to be able to tour and reach people. That's how I judge the barometer of what I'm doing, is to how many people it's reaching and how people feel when they hear music and am I affecting people's lives. That's kind of what I got. I originally wanted to be a writer and I always felt like music was a medium that spoke to people harder than just written words, so for me, if I can tour and see the venues get bigger and I see the dates pick up and stay busy, to me, that's a barometer of my success and just being in a place where I want to be, creatively.

Double-O: The byproduct of all of those things is the success as the way that the outside world sees it, but it's always been for us our point to reach as many people as we can, because we felt we had a certain brand of music that could be seen on a large scale and connect with a lot of people. And people end up being the fuel for the fire, and every new place that you go to, every new person that you meet is your next song. So it's definitely a symbiotic relationship.

Naledge: Like I don't think you're ever going to shun a hit record if it comes along, but I don't think I ever made that a prime goal when I head into the studio. Like, I don't think that's ever been my flat-out goal. I think it's to make the best and most complete record that you can make, and make sure it can reach the most amount of people possible. I kind of live in an organic way, so I think I went from wanting to be a part of the picture to wanting to paint a masterpiece. I just wanted to be on a tour. I just wanted to have a record deal at first. I just wanted to be able to have something in stores. Now, it's bigger than that. Now, I want my shit to be everywhere. It's just a different state of mind. You start realizing that it's not that I'm just in the room with Just Blaze anymore. Like, we should make one of the greatest records of all time. That's what should happen. It shouldn't just be “I'm just happy to be here.” So that happens over time, the whole idea of this Hollywood thing and being around stars and fame and fortune and women and drugs. All that stuff is always going to be there, but you still have to have in mind that you have a goal to be greater than just average. We've been given a chance to be something greater than most of the people we've grown up with or people that we come in contact with. And we've been able to reach a lot of people, but there's so much more to it, and the more you see the light at the end of that tunnel, the more you want to run for it.

YRB: From what I understand, you've already started working on the fourth album. How does it build musically and lyrically on Land of Make Believe?

Double-O: Indications of our next album are usually always at the end of the last album. What the Land of Make Believe was going to be, a lot of it came from “Inner Me” the last album. And even what a lot of The In Crowd was was what “Day By Day” was on the first album [School Was My Hustle]. So if you end, we ended it with “Rise and Shine” on this one, so that'll give you a little bit of an indication of where we are mentally for the new album. I think that a lot of the frustrations we had to deal with, we purged on this album and now it's looking towards a new day. So it's just really making sure that we get there. A lot of the new content that I know has been done will be more of realizing the dream. Like, right now, the demo title for the title is Almost Home. Because that's how we feel. We're almost where we should be and almost there. So it's a little more like it's right down the street, as opposed to being in the fog.