K-OS is cool. For starters, he’s currently on his Karma Tour, where advance tickets aren’t being sold because you’re to simply show up, enjoy the show, and then donate what you think the show was worth on your way out. Talk about taking a huge risk. Secondly, he held and online contest where people could remix 11 tracks from his latest album, YES! At the end of it all, 11 people won $1000 and their remixes will be part of an album coming out spring 2009 called Yes It’s Yours (Fan Remix Album). Thirdly, K-OS chatted with us a few days ago and let us pick his brain.

Killahbeez: So are you all ready and pumped for your YES! tour?

K-OS: Hype, hype, super excited.

Killahbeez: Right now you’re touring for your latest album YES! What can people expect?

K-OS: This tour is about….I’ll just say it like this…an interesting prop we’re working with is a stoplight that we’re going to have on stage. The stoplight is interesting because all of my records from the green, the amber, now we’re at the red, and then Atlantis kind of interjecting between that with the blue.

The key of this hour and a half show is to take the best from all the albums and make them seamlessly just fit. It’s about weaving through the catalogue of the records in a way that makes it seem like all of the songs are married to each other especially when there have been so many differences. The interesting thing to find out was that after we rehearsed, it really wasn’t that hard. There’s been a theme with all the music so you’re basically allowed to go anywhere because there is no real limit to what the records or music have to sound like.

We got a new bass player who’s playing keyboard bass which I’ve never had so the sonics are different. Super excited to take this crew of dudes out and handle business. It’s going to be fun.

Nothing should sound forced or awkward and I think that’s why we rehearsed for a month, to work out the kinks. You can write a set list down on a piece of paper but then when you try to play it that way it just doesn’t feel right. We did that, it happened many times. I’m glad we had the time to rehearse and figure it out.

Killahbeez: What’s the whole battle of the sexes thing about?

K-OS: That was earlier on. That battle is over, how about that?

The battle of the sexes started with me and my mother. She tried to tell me what I could do and couldn’t do and I’m a boy, my father wasn’t around for a couple years of my life, part of my formative years, and here was this woman trying to tell me what to do. As a young boy that was a very hard thing to handle, but she did rule with an iron fist and she did prevail. I think some of my best qualities, she’s an artist and a singer, come from her.

If it starts there, all my life there’s always been this thing where, how do you relate to people who come into your life of the opposite sex who are also musicians or who are artists? The battle starts there with other people who do what I do and trying to find a way to come together or not even sometimes, you compete with each other and I think that’s what that “4 3 2 1″ song is basically talking about. You always hear that term we can make love or make war, it’s a very true thing.

For me when I say it’s over it’s because being asked the question so many times I kind of figured out that it’s really a battle within my own self. I think hip hop represents the masculine capacities of my identity and singing, which I get from my mother, represents the feminine aspects of my persona. Those two aspects are always trying to punch each other out. Hip Hop is always like, you’re singing too much, just chill, just rap over a beat, you don’t need to sing. And singing is like, you know what, singing is an older art, we’ll take it from here. And then all that comes into music.

All battles start from within and I’m dealing with it through my music.

Killahbeez: You’ve been through multiple eras of hip hop, from your early years with “Musical Essence” to your latest album YES!, from Maestro Fresh West to the Northern Touch era with Rascalz, Kardinal, Threat, and Choclair. How have you managed to evolve and stay relevant in an industry that seems to give artists a certain shelf life? How do you define yourself?

K-OS: Because I love other types of music outside of hip hop. Busta Rhymes said something like hip hop never comes from hip hop. For a time it was coming from soul music: Wu Tang and those guys. Then Pete Rock and A Tribe Called Quest sampled jazz. Then dudes were sampling classical and then Spanish music.

What is hip hop? It’s a music that takes a turn table and takes other music. What started to happen right after the Golden Age around ‘96, ‘97, ‘98, when Puffy and these guys came out making dance music for clubs, weekend music for people who worked hard all weekend and wanted to dance in the clubs on the weekend, hip hop started to take from itself because someone saw someone making money so someone samples the same thing and then people started to mimic each other. Instead of trying to find that original breaking sample that would blow people’s minds, people started to sample a sample or make a beat like the next guy, and so hip hop ate itself.

Kanye West basically, no matter what anyone says, when he did Through the Wire, it was a sample. He brought it back to sampling and that’s when things started to change again. He started sampling in an original way, he didn’t do it because Through the Wire was a hit, he did it because he wanted to bring that music into hip hop.

For me it’s different because I have a live band so it’s not really about sampling but it’s about maybe playing something from Iggy Pop or maybe listening to a band like Mars Volta or something that has nothing to do with hip hop at all and then trying to rap onto it. All my records and going into the next era starts with me looping something that I’m not supposed to rap on. At my house, I’ll put on headphones and rap over it for twenty minutes just to see how it feels. All of a sudden you’ve brought that thing into the hip hop universe.

I think that’s how I’ve been able to continue: I love hip hop. Hip Hop to me is a mystery, it’s like the Riddler, it has a question mark, it is whatever you want it to be as oppose to me looking at hip hop like, I gotta’ wear these clothes man, I gotta’ wear that hat, I can only wear these colours, and I can only use these slang words. I never look at hip hop like that. To me it’s very much more mystical than that.

Killahbeez: Speaking of incorporating other music styles into your own, you just recently worked with Emily Haines from Metric, and Metric is just blowing up right now, they’re huge. How was it working with her?

K-OS: Emily is a friend and we’ve been trying to work together for a long time. It was something that was in the works for a long time. I’ve spent time in the studio with her before. It’s hard to perceive it like that, yeah it’s like everything’s sort of happening at the same time, and it’s good, I’m glad she’s on my record, and Murray Lightburn is also on that track, from the Dears, not to be overshadowed because he helped write the track, but all those things come from friendships based on hanging out. Also too just wanting to work together and being fans of each other. Sometimes in a way that outweighs the friendship where a guy might be more excited to get on a track with you as an artist instead wanting to be your friend. It’s those two factors dancing with each other that make it an interesting dynamic.

Killahbeez: Any future collaborations in mind or are you just busy with YES! for now?

K-OS: All the artists I know are so finicky and snooty that we can’t plan anything [laughs]. You can say it’s going to go down but if it’s not the right day, climate, or the space to do it, it’s not going to happen. I just let it go and keep it as spontaneous as possible.

Killahbeez: So I’m not sure if my next question is relevant or not but do you notice a big difference between the Canadian and American music scenes and audiences?

K-OS: I can’t pontificate on the American scene because I’ve only toured America once with the Gym Class Heroes and I was the opening band. The people I got to see were through them and I did get to see the country because it was an extensive tour. I learnt that America shouldn’t be as pigeonholed as the world makes it, it’s a beautiful place.

As far as the music scenes go, I was reading Rolling Stone yesterday and thought, how many years have I been reading this magazine and America is just a place in a book to me. I’ve never spent time there. I’ve hung out in L.A., Chicago, New York, but I’ve never fully committed. I’m kind of like somebody who goes into the front seat of a car and always has his hand on the door handle, like I’m ready to jump out, as soon as the car slows down and there’s a corner, I’m out.

What I’ve heard from other people is that America is different [from Canada] in the way they see celebrities and how they see the star-machine. I know for sure that Canadians are super nonchalant just from friends who are musicians, artists, or celebrities, who say, no one bugs me in Canada, I could be somewhere and people recognize me but they just walk by me. Whereas in America its stop, stop, stop, picture, picture, picture. I think Canada has a little less tenacity when it comes to trying to jump on celebrities or something that’s popular. Canada seems a little more if-y in that way. Maybe that makes us a little uptight sometimes but I think it makes us a little bit cooler as well.

Killahbeez: On Killahbeez we have a fashion/style section. I’ve noticed that you hide behind shades here and there. Can you describe the evolution of your style? Is it whatever, I don’t care, this is what I’m going to wear today!

K-OS: I’m starting to care less about what those conventions are supposed to mean. The sunglasses do come out still but that’s boring too now. I’ll be honest: most of the things I do is just because I’m bored. Even when I started wearing sunglasses, I just wanted to see what it would be like; people treat you differently. They can’t see what you’re thinking through so you get different responses. It’s a good social science experiment. Much of what I do with fashion and style have nothing to do with fashion and style, they’re just experiments. What if I press this button right….here! [laughs]

I think to the person who’s observing, it might be like wow, this guy’s original or whatever they want to call it. Most times I’m operating from a sense of social scientist just trying to get a reaction mostly for myself because I get bored. You walk around society and you get the same responses all the times and questions, you might want to do something to your physical or wear something that invokes a different response.

Killahbeez: So when you are relaxing at home tonight, what are you going to listen to? What are your musical inspirations?

K-OS: Two things as of late. Chamber/classical music calms me down and reminds me of my father. He would come home and throw on classical music, he didn’t want to talk, and you couldn’t say anything for the first hour or two that he was home, he would just chill out.

Also, Zen music. Some weird, eastern, Asian music.

Mostly when I want to chill I just like music with no vocals; not invaded by personality at all. Just music, just tones, I have a lot to learn in that aspect as well so by listening to a lot of instrumental music I learn a lot about music.

Killahbeez: So I have one last request and you might totally shut me down. Can you rap something for Killahbeez?

K-OS: You want me to rap something right now? I don’t know about that. For that to really work, I really have to just do it when I feel it.

Send me your email, if I’m vibing around I’ll send you something!

Killahbeez: Thanks so much for the interview. It’s been one of my best.

K-OS: I do a lot of these, I love it. Talking about yourself for hours upon end teaches you so much about yourself. I appreciate the questions. Thank-you!