MS KRIS  (March 2008) | Interview By: Noncentz

      

Please note that this interview was conducted by a Dubcnn Community (Dubcc.com) forum member. He and a team of members have been heavily discussing and promoting the work of the Dangerous Crew as a whole. Thanks go out to; Lamont, Raiders, Akcranker, SJ, GP and EazyE for their help and support in bringing the Dangerous Crew back into relevance. There will be more from the Dangerous Crew on dubcnn over the coming weeks.

..........................................................................................

Interview was done by phone in February 2008

Questions Asked By: Noncentz (Guest Contributor)

Ms Kris Gave Dubcnn.com A Shoutout! Check That Here
 

..........................................................................................
Related Media

Ms Kris - Sicness (Feat. & Produced By Fatha Dom)
Ms Kris - What People Do (Feat. & Produced By Fatha Dom)

..........................................................................................
www.myspace.com/mskrisdatrapchick

www.myspace.com/thedangerouscrew
..........................................................................................

Dubcnn: Why don’t you start us off by giving us a little history on who Ms. Kris is.

Ok. Ms. Kris is a solo, female hip-hop artist. I’ve been rapping for about 10 years. I’m originally from the Bay, but now I reside in the Valley. I’ve done quite a bit of shows from Oakland to Sacramento and the Valley. I’m currently working on my first album, which I hope to have out in 2008!


Dubcnn: What’s the name of your upcoming album and what can we expect?

The name of the album is called “Mood Swings”, and the thought behind that is, and I don’t want to scare the guys off by them saying, “Oh, she’s a moody girl!”, cuz that’s not quite where I’m going with it. I came up with that title because when I listen to the songs that I have completed so far they go from one mood to another. I have quite a few street tracks on there, and then I have quite a few dance tracks. I have a few romantic/sensual/naughty girl tracks *laughs*. Towards the end of the album I get more conscious to where I’m talking more about things that’s happening today in the world, and some things that I’ve been through. So it’s like I go from one mood to another throughout the album, and all the songs kind of mesh into each other.


Dubcnn: Producer-wise, who did you work with on this album

I’m working with 3 producers on this project. The main one is K-Dub, who is from the Valley and he’s produced most of the tracks on my album. I met him while I signed to an independent label in Modesto. He’s an artist as well, in the R&B field. So a lot of his tracks have that R&B feel so he does a lot of the slower, seductive tracks on there. I’m also working with a very seasoned producer named Nocademus. He’s from the bay area, and he’s produced for a lot of big names from the bay like Mistah F.A.B., Sean T, and the list goes on. So he’s got quite a reputation in the bay area. He does more of the ‘get up and get you going’ type of tracks for my album. As far as collabs, I’ve worked with a hardcore artist named V. Jones from Richmond, CA. I’m also trying to get Fatha Dom on here.


Dubcnn: So you’re in contact with Fatha Dom?

Well, I’ve been [having] conversations back and forth with his brother, but I haven’t heard back yet.


Dubcnn: If you had to compare yourself to another female artist that’s out there now or before, whom would that be?

It’s a trip that you say that! I kind of touched on this in a song called “The Game”. What I get from people, and especially those that work with me, they say it’s a cross between Queen La (Latifah) and the Queen B (Lil’ Kim).


Dubcnn: How so?

Well, back in the day when Queen Latifah first came out she was more or less about woman-power, woman-awareness; that conscious/reality-type rapper. And she’s big breasted (laughs!). Then you have Lil’ Kim, where she’s just coming out hardcore and kind of a raunchy, mafia-type rapper. And when they listen to my lyrics and then look at me, they always ask me, “are you going for the Queen Latifah, or are you going for the Lil’ Kim?” So I would say I’m a cross between those two female rappers.


Dubcnn: How did you decide that rap music is what you wanted to do?

I would say mainly through my male cousins. I was the only girl, and I would always hang out with them. That’s all they did was watch videos, listen to CD’s and tapes; and that was their main thing, and that just kind of rubbed off on me. When I was real, real young, I always thought it was males that rapped, and the first female rapper I ever saw on the mic was Roxanne Shante. We kind of did a little remake video of her video -sings tune to “Roxanne, Roxanne…”*, and that’s what got me started. They would write little rhymes for me to say (laughs) from there, and as I grew through high school I eventually started writing my own raps. So, here I am.


Dubcnn: So, you write all your own material, no ghost-writers?

I will admit that I used to have somebody else write for me, even when I worked with Fatha Dom, he wrote a few raps for me. But he was the last person, well him and my cousin, that I really trusted to write for me. Once me and Fatha Dom lost track, I just kept at it and writing on my own. So, on this upcoming album you’ll get 100% Ms. Kris writing her own tracks.


Dubcnn: You mentioned Roxanne, Queen La and Lil’ Kim. Who were your influences, musically, coming up?

The big influence was the rappers from the bay. The rapper that I thought really had it going on, from the bay, was Too $hort (laughs). Everybody always had to have the latest Too $hort album. Every time somebody was riding by, they was bumping something from Too $hort. So I remember just starting out, diving in head-first into a lot of the bay area rap, as well as rappers from Vallejo like E-40 and B-Legit. I used to bump B-Legit so much, that when I would go to Oakland they would say, “Is she from Vallejo?” *laughs*

There was Askari X and just a bunch of people from back in the day that you used to bump from the bay. I was influenced because I would see the reaction people would have from the music. And as I got more and more into it, people like Jay-Z stood out to me; Jadakiss stood out to me, and people that would really take rap and the words to a whole other level. That’s what I respect, and what I strive to achieve. Then you have people who are just straight hustlers, and you have to respect their hustle like 50 Cent. He’s come from a long way. So you got to give him respect.


Dubcnn: What do you like about the rap game, or don’t you like about it from back in the day until now?

I think hip-hop is a good tool for people to use to obtain their goals, whether they’re very lyrical, or they just like it, or they just have a knack for being an entertainer. That’s what I really love about hip-hop. But I think E-40 said it best when he said he doesn’t listen to the radio because it’s watered down and he just listens to the underground. I think that’s a good way to sum it up. Back in the day there was more lyrical content with people like Big daddy Kane, KRS-One, etc., where those people got respect. People listened to what they said, and they had a lot to say. Nowadays, people are more in to the simplified, get up and make you dance type of raps. That’s good, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t think the person that’s lyrical should get put on the back burner. That would be my main concern about hip-hop today.


Dubcnn: As a female artist, and growing up in the bay listening to Too $hort, what’s your perspective of people condemning him as it relates to him using the word bitch and whatnot?

Back in the day, he was a new artist coming up, and he was putting Oakland on the map. Everybody was bumping Too $hort! Everywhere you went, Too $hort was there. And when he first got on the mic and would say biiiiiiiitch, it’s like everybody would fall into a trance *laughs*. We would just say it along with him. I think people were just more interested in having someone represent the bay, and he pretty much made it big. He made it such a phenomenon, that you back in the day you almost had to say that word in your raps to make it big. It’s not like he made up the word. That word’s been around for centuries.

Today, you have people like Russell Simmons and Master P trying to clean some things up, and even trying to have certain words deleted out of the hip-hop vocabulary. Even Chamillionaire is working on a profanity-free album. So today, people are being a bit more conscious with what they say. Me personally, I didn’t have a problem with it cuz that was Too $hort’s signature. A lot of the things he did back in the day are the things people are still doing today. Even that group who came out with the song “my white tee”, I mean if you remember back in the day, that was Too $hort’s uniform: the white tee, Levi’s and a donkey rope! He started that. I give props to Too $hort and the way he gets down.


Dubcnn: You worked with Fatha Dom. Was there any other work done with any of the other members of the Dangerous Crew?

No. I had met Goldy at a Salt-N-Pepa concert. We had a little personal thing going on for a quick minute. I was hoping it would lead to us doing some work together, but it didn’t. I actually went to school with Pee-Wee, and I just caught back up with him. He knew my cousin Nate Fox. I’ve never gotten the opportunity to work with Too $hort, but I’ve seen and met him numerous times, as well as Ant Banks. Most of my encounters with them have been brief.


Dubcnn: How did you and Fatha Dom initially hook up and collab?

I have a cousin who is a producer with a pretty good name in the industry. His name is Nate Fox, and he produced people like Sir Mix-A-Lot, Master P, The Conscious Daughters, as well as Fatha Dom. I used to always go to Nate’s house and bug him about doing a song. One of these particular times I was over there, I saw this guy sitting on the couch. Now, I had definitely heard of Fatha Dom, heard him on the mic, and on Too $hort’s albums. But I didn’t know his face. So come to find out, that guy on the couch was Fatha Dom.

So, he had left the room for a minute, and while he was gone I asked my cousin if he thought it’d be okay if I asked him to do a song with me. He was like go ahead and see. So, he came back in the room, and I just got friendly with him and introduced myself to him, and asked him if he’d collab with me. He was hella cool with it, and asked to hear what I had. Nate hooked me up with a beat, I rapped a few lines, and he was like, “that sounds cool. Just let me know when you want me to come to the studio.”

At that time, a lot of people who recorded for the Dangerous Crew, recorded at a studio called Live Oaks. So me, I had to have the best quality *laughs*, so I sign up with Live Oaks, and my cousin produced a track for me. I’m there, my cousin is there, and Fatha Dom shows up. I thought he was going to already have something written up and ready to go. But he just got on the mic and just kind of went with it. He just kind of freestyled for a bit, and finally on the last one he was like, “we just gonna stick with that one.” I was like, okay, cool *laughs*. He’s seen that I was serious since I was paying for studio time and doing what I needed to do, so he told me he had a studio at his house and that he wanted me to come by and check out a few songs.

I didn’t know that he produced; I just thought he was a rapper. So I walk in to his house, and he has a little setup in the living room, not like Live Oaks mind you, but he pushed a button and this beat just comes out! Not only that, but he already had the song done up, the hook and all. Then he handed me a piece of paper where he had wrote the rap that he wanted me to do. He could just do everything! How could you say no? So we did that song, he gave me a copy, and in the car I listened to it and it sounded as good if not better than if we had done it at Live Oaks. That’s pretty much how we got started.


Dubcnn: Is there somewhere we can find yours and Fatha Dom’s collaborations?

I actually have two songs that we did together. Unfortunately, we lost contact before the relationship could go long-term. I think I worked with him for about 5 or 6 months. We kind of lost contact between him moving and me moving as well. We had planned to do an album. My name had even changed while we were at Live Oaks. The engineer, James, thought that when he asked my name, thought I said Mistress *laughs*. I thought it was kind cool! *laughs*


Dubcnn: Why not stick with that name?

Well, first of all, somebody told me that another lady in L.A. had that name, and then secondly, it seemed like it just kind of put me in a box for my overall image and the songs I would write about. Like, when you think of a Mistress you think of pretty much one thing! (laughs) So I just went back to Ms. Kris!


Dubcnn: So you did you two get to record much?

The songs that we did together, I have them here in my repertoire. I had them on Myspace for a while, and if you’re interested in them I can definitely mp3 them to you. I’m not funny-style like that. I’d rather them be getting out there and getting heard, than just sitting in my collection. Father Dom produced and wrote both of them! He’s well-respected, and a lot of people remember him for his smoothness and cleverness on the mic, so I definitely have no problem letting his legacy live on.


Dubcnn: Well, Ms. Kris I appreciate the time you gave me to do this interview and I wish you much success with the new album!

Not a problem at all and thank you!