With our debut Singapore interview behind us we charged our batteries with an amazing 2 hours of sleep and headed to Singapore's Boat Quay for our next challenge and hooked up with DJ KoFlow aka The Singapore DMC Champion from 2003, Shimmy an upcoming turntablist (and the latest addition to the Culture Universal crew) and Garuda who is one of the leading rap talents in Singapore at the moment.

Culture Universal Worldwide Introduction Interview Vol. 2 - DJ KoFlow (Singapore)

Questions & Interview by : Jesse & Shimmy
Photographer : Helen
© Culture Universal



From Left to Right: Garuda / KoFlow / Shimmy / Jesse


Jesse : Let's kick this show off with the introductions, who wants to go first?

Shimmy : I’m Shimmy, a turntablist.

KoFlow : DJ KoFlow representing Fader Masters.

Garuda : Garuda, representing myself (laughter)


Jesse : How did you first get in touch with hip-hop... What's some of the earliest memories that come into mind... When did you start doing what you're doing now?

KoFlow : When did I start doing and when did I start learning about hip-hop I think its all at a different age.. like when I started listening to hip-hop I was probably… I don’t know 12 years old? You know just here and there from the radio and stuff like that and then after when I was about 15 I started skateboarding and that’s the era when you know skateboarding is mainly hip-hop dominant so its like every skate video is just hip-hop and so when I watched videos its always like quality hip-hop so at that time I started learning like hey, what’s this, what’s that, what’s scratching, what’s graffiti, what’s b-boying, what’s mc’ing, it just started when I was skateboarding that’s where I started really getting interested in it and learning the culture and stuff. When did I start DJ’ing, that’s about like 4 and a half years ago. I just pretty much worked in my mum’s club learning how to do the CDJ and stuff till the point I’m like fuck it, I don’t want to learn CDJ you know… I don’t just want to learn how to push buttons... I thought of evolving myself so I got myself a pair of turntables and started scratching from there.


Jesse : Who did you look up to the most when you first started, who gave you inspiration to become the artist you are today?

KoFlow : When I started, people who influenced me, basically every local DJ out here. I pulled off my energy from them, I learnt from them, people like Plus One, Chris, Shortkut, the old ISP, Beat Junkies, all these guys play a major part in who I am now. Learnt how to rock a party, learnt how to treat a mix you know…learnt how to scratch, its all through the videos that I’ve seen and all the pioneers and the legends that I’ve seen before.

Shimmy : You mentioned the locals here, who are some of those local DJs that inspired you?

KoFlow : At that time we had DJ Ralph, DJ Reeds, Rattle, Andrew Chow, Nervous, J-Style, these are a few of the key people that actually inspired me to do what I do right now.


Jesse : Next would be something i'm always wondering about when i'm doing interviews, what was the first hip-hop album that you ever bought or some of the first ones ?

KoFlow : My first album would be…Master P. And I also got Wu-Tang, Gangstarr... that’s who I listened to back in the days and stuff like Beatnuts, Living Legends, Anticon, that’s the kind of stuff I listened to until now.

Jesse : Do any of you have any stories to why you picked your artist name?

KoFlow : To me, KoFlow basically means Corporated Flow. You watch every band, every individual artist has to collaborate and corporate with everyone to have the right timing, to have the right flow so basically that’s how I came up with it.

Garuda : My name is derived from an iconic hindu god…


Jesse : Like an eagle looking thing?

Garuda : Yea its one of the gods whose name is Garuda.

Shimmy : My name basically is from a song, Shimmy Shimmy Ya by Ol' Dirty Bastard from the Wu-Tang Clan.

Jesse : What are some of the things about hip-hop that you would like to share with the masses out there ? Give some advice to all the listeners out there.

KoFlow : I guess everyone has an opinion on what hip-hop is, because hip-hop is so widespread now. You have people from everywhere, you have the Chinese, you have the Filipinos, the Koreans, the Japanese, you have the black guys and the white dudes doing it everywhere in the world... everyone is doing it… Everyone in the world comes from a different angle and they look at hip-hop from a different angle. So we can’t really explain to them like "hey you have to listen to this" because… people from L.A. they don’t really do gangster stuff, they rap according to what their life is…its like different angle you know like some people live through a really rough life and they grew up in the ghetto so they rap about the ghetto. They rap about their tough life and some people are like us, hey we never went through the ghetto, we’re from Asia …it’s like something we can relate to, that’s what the people should rap about. We can’t really tell anyone "hey you have to listen to this you have to listen to that", because at the end of the day, be it commercial hip-hop or underground hip-hop, its still hip-hop. To me now if you ask me this, like who’s real and who’s not real I don’t know either. Because it has all gone through a trend, and it has gone through the cultural days, its gone through a lot, hip-hop has gone through a lot in the different angles so who’s real or not, man if you’re real to yourself with what you rap about, that’s real. I can’t tell you like 50 cent is not real or Ja Rule is not real, or whoever is not real because at the end of the day I don’t know what they’ve been through in their lives, you get what I’m saying.

Jesse : It’s all down to good music and bad music.

KoFlow : Yea because music is subjective man…you can’t tell people that this is bad or not. Music is music. You can say 50 cent is crap, you can say Ja Rule is crap, like some of the thugs out there or the gangstas out there are fake and stuff… you can say all that but at the end of the day, man really, who can test them and who can talk about them, only they know what's true and what's not… its all music.


Shimmy : Let's go back to DJ KoFlow, how would you describe your own style of music or your own style of DJ'ing ?

KoFlow : My music style is just hip-hop… I do a lot of different styles of hip-hop like when I do club sets but right now I tend to do more clubby stuff like more commercial artists because this is South East Asia, its not in our culture yet. People don’t understand music. They go clubbing, yes they are there for hip-hop, but they don’t know their music. It’s not like in the States where I can play whatever track that I feel like and they know the track you know and they know the classic tracks and they know their music. So where we come from, we can take all the different angles, be versatile and play whatever we want. In the club I play all the cheesy stuff, I play commercial stuff but when it comes down to battling and it comes down to my own band (Ko-Lab), it’s all our own music. But my personal taste like what kind of hip-hop I like... its still the funk ones, the 1, 2 beats, you know like 90s hip-hop and stuff. That’s the kind of stuff I like and down-tempo, and abstract hip-hop…like DJ Shadow, Cut Chemist, that kind of stuff.


Jesse : What’s the state of things here in Singapore right now, how do you feel about the local scene ?

KoFlow : It’s slowly changing…there’s a lot of us pushing the boundaries, in a way we’re force feeding the crowd. But I can see people getting into it nowadays, people getting into hip-hop…before they were like clubbers, like "hey hip-hop is ‘in’ now and that’s why I go clubbing and I want to listen to hip-hop music". Before that’s the case but I would say that at least 30% of those people have moved on to a stage where there are like "hey man, I think this is not just what I want to hear". They start digging up the older stuff, they start digging out underground stuff to listen to. Slowly we are opening up the doors, getting more exposure for hip-hop so that people can appreciate both, the underground artists and the commercial artists which is in a good way.

Jesse : What are some of the positive and negative aspects of being an artist who wants to push hip-hop culture to the future heads out there ?

KoFlow : The positive thing is that hip-hop is big, its global, its really big but the negative thing what I feel is that although its so big, people that are really into it, they don’t understand or know where hip-hop comes from. Their knowledge is still very shallow, its like "hey, hip-hop is black music", that’s all they know. Black people, they know it's their culture. When they see a Chinese doing it, they’re like "hey man, you’re promoting my culture, I give you my love"…you get what I mean? So in a way…I don’t know man this is a question where it can go a lot of ways, positive and negative but negatively what I feel is that people are just not getting deep into it, they’re not into the culture, they’re just into the music.

Jesse : What would you like to happen in the Singaporean scene in the next 5 years before 2010 ?

KoFlow : In 5 years…I hope I can do a full underground gig and there’s like thousands of people. (laughter)


Jesse : Do you think that people in S.E. Asia and other parts of the world are being a bit close minded when it comes to hip-hop from different cultures ? Do you think it’s a problem that some people still look up to America as the only standard for hip-hop, that something new or whatever can only come from America ?

KoFlow : Hmm... Majority yea. Sad to say, majority yea. But there are a minority of people that dig out Japanese hip-hop, Spanish hip-hop, whatever culture it is. They want to listen to something fresh, that’s the people that are open minded. There’s only a small handful though.

Jesse : What would be that number one reason why the younger scenes in Asia are still heavily stuck in the copycat material instead of trying to find their own identity ?

Garuda : Because of the media.

KoFlow : Yea I think the media plays a very big role.


Jesse : Do you think that people are scared that they won’t be accepted if they try to sound local by rapping in their own language or accent ?

KoFlow : In Singapore this is the issue that we face, a lot of people rap with their Malay accent or Chinese accent and people don’t dig it. it’s just Singapore itself…Malaysia has their own hip-hop, the Thais have their own hip-hop, but Singapore we don’t have a native tongue which makes it harder for people to relate to. When you speak English and when you rap in English with a Malay accent, people diss you for that which is not supportive enough but hey man, look at it, this is the only form of hip-hop that can come really close to us, you get what I mean? People don’t dig it but one thing that is really sad about the whole mc’ing scene here is that first of all, there’s not enough support and second of all the command of English is not strong enough. That’s really the main point, when the command of English is not strong, you cannot bring out whatever you want to really say or what you really feel, you get what I mean? So when you’re rapping, people can’t understand you, people can’t relate to you, they feel that you’re shit…it’s the reality but even with enough support, how far can a fake american accent bring us. Can it bring us abroad? That’s another thing…that’s another issue…because at the end of the day ok man look at that, Spanish have their own slang of English, I’m sure if they sell a hip-hop album with a Spanish English accent, its not gonna work. It has to be Spanish you get what I mean? It’s like a Japanese dude rapping in English which is something you probably won’t understand.

Jesse : I think that in all these countries that have been doing it for a long time, the people get dissed a lot if they go with an American accent, the local people are not gonna support it like has happened for an example in Australia and the UK.

KoFlow : But this kind of thing also comes down to the country’s pride, the people’s pride, the Aussies don’t like the English, the English don’t like the Americans, so its still down to that factor too.

Jesse : Do you think that right now there are enough people in S.E. Asia who are brave enough to incorporate their own background and culture to their music?

KoFlow : I think there are a lot of people doing it man…but it just doesn’t sell. What’s the factor? I don’t really know. A lot of people have a lot of ideas, a lot of different perspectives…I want to put Chinese opera into hip-hop, I want to add the Indian sitar over hip-hop, I want to add theMalay tong into hip-hop, but the thing is like…you haven’t paid your dues. You haven’t learnt the culture and then you start doing something fresh. To people it’s a brand new thing, to yourself it’s also a brand new thing and that moves on to a level where you cannot go anywhere because you haven’t paid your dues, you don’t understand what hip-hop is before you try something new. So when you go in, you hit the market like that, people don’t know you, they won’t buy your shit. It’s just the reality that we have to face. You have to make it somewhere before you can feed someone your music. In Asia at least that’s the case.


Jesse : Time for the shameless advertising and all that jazz, please share your future plans with all the readers out there.

KoFlow : Right now I have a couple of projects in hand, my album with Ko-Lab which consists of 2 DJs, an mc and a beatboxer. And I got another mixtape project with Tessament Clothings which is like gonna be a collaboration to promote underground hip-hop. And I have another side project for myself, which will incorporate commercial artists to sell my stuff basically so I can make the money, the dough from the commercial side to do my underground stuff.

Garuda : I got a compilation project going on with Shimmy, which will feature artists from the S.E. Asian hip-hop scenes. We are trying to put the whole concept of the compilation as a product of immigrants in Singapore. And I have a clothing brand going on, I’m doing distribution for 96 anti-clockwise in Singapore and Malaysia and I’m currently working on my debut which is about 1 quarter done, we’re still on the recording process. So that’s all of the things going on right now…and all these are from my own imprint Golden Triangle and Shimmy’s imprint Uni-ki.


Jesse : Any more details to share with us about the compilation album for an example the people who will be featured on it ?

Garuda : We have different races and most of the artists…they have been around from back in the days but they weren’t commercially big back then so it’s like on the skill level they’re there but no one has heard of them really so what I’m trying to do is to bring all these guys out back again for what they haven’t achieved yet and a couple of new kids who are really good on that level and nobody has spotted them yet so yea a bunch of new kids a bunch of old kids , bunch of different races, languages all in this compilation which is why we say its an immigrant’s album.

Jesse : How's the release history in Singapore so far, has there been any album or single releases that have been backed up by local labels ?

Garuda : There is a lot.

KoFlow : Quite a bit…Triple Noize…

Jesse : When did the first records come out?

KoFlow : No records, jus CDs.

Garuda : But the first hip-hop album I think should be Construction Site…Sheikh Haikal

Jesse : What would you say is the biggest strength in the singaporean hip-hop culture right now, what will set Singapore aside from the rest in the future years to come ?

Garuda : It’s our generation

Koflow : Yea it’s our generation right now. To be honest if you really look at it, in Singapore in the aspect of hip-hop only the DJ'ing element really stands out. The DJ's really sell their products well and the DJs are skillful enough to go out to the world and perform anywhere and after that are probably the b-boys, then the MCs and the graffiti artists. It’s not really united, we don’t really get together and do our stuff together and stuff which is one of the sad points also. But in the future what I would like to see is more MCs coming up, I think we will see more b-boys coming up and more DJs… as for graffiti, as you know in Singapore you can’t tag much and you know there’s only a limited area that you can really use to create your art so it’s gonna be a struggle for them in the next few years before they can really hit it off.

Shimmy : Are there many underground DJs who play all that good underground music ?

KoFlow : For sure, everywhere.

Shimmy : Any clubs that you can recommend for that ?

KoFlow : I think Coco Latte... Coco Latte and the rest of the underground gigs are all just side events we do…just pretty much like a one off gigs so its not like regular or anything right now which is a shame.


Shimmy : What do you think of the local crowds, the audience here in Singapore ?

KoFlow : The audience, first of all, they don’t know their music. Second of all, they don’t know what the DJ is doing and they don’t give props to what the DJs are doing. Because man really, just for an example at a b-boy gig, at a b-boy battle, when you play for b-boys as a DJ you have to know when to cut it off and when to cut off the break and you know keep it going. Just simple shit like that. And you gotta do a 1, 2 to repeat the pattern, that’s all part of it, it’s all part of the culture. DJs cutting up, b-boys breaking at the same time. But then, when you do that, the b-boys in Singapore don’t understand the culture. They’ll come up to you and tell you "hey can you stop juggling, can you stop scratching, I can’t break to it", I can’t break to you because the rhythm is broken up’ and shit like that. Man, this is not what it is, that’s what I’m saying, people don’t understand the culture. Even people who are doing hip-hop don’t understand the culture. How do the people, commercially, understand what the DJ are doing and what the MC's are doing…they don’t understand the slang, that’s another issue, you get what I mean? And the funniest thing, the president of Singapore urged people to use hip-hop to as a tool to teach people better english!


Jesse : Yea I saw that on a website too earlier.

KoFlow : So man I’m jus gonna tell everyone, hey bitches, eh you my ho, I’m the pimp and shit like that. (laughter) So is that what all these kids, 12 year old kids are gonna learn? They gonna grow up in the wrong way man. It’s as simple as that. Right now it’s already going in the wrong direction, the people don’t understand it. In the future, hey man, when is the first time you heard someone say fuck? That’s probably like when you were 6 years old, and you were like "hey this is really cool man! I love this word!" you know? (laughter) So if we gonna continue this, then at the end of the day you’re gonna have 6 year old kids calling you a ho, calling you a bitch, calling you a bastard, and its gonna be even more haywire.

Shimmy : Do you wish to use your music in the future to educate the younger generation here about "the hip-hop" that you want to spread?

KoFlow : I think I wouldn't use the word educate, I’ll use the word share. I’ll share with people and whoever is willing to listen, the people who love it… you know I play underground music in my club sets too. I play a little bit of underground, a bit of commercial, just to break the flow up and let people understand like "hey, maybe I like this track more than that other one."

Jesse : Yea maybe some of them will start to think of more options in the progress.

KoFlow : It’s all part of sharing with people rather than educating them because when you educate, you’re kind of force feeding them. People don’t like to be forced man, now if I force someone to listen to underground music, they’re gonna tell me underground music sucks…you get what I mean?

Shimmy : Talking about the Singaporean DJ scene and the American DJ scene, what would you say are some of the major differences between the two at the moment skill-wise and cultural-wise ?

KoFlow : In the States there’s a lot of DJs, there’s mix show DJs, mixtape DJs, club DJs, scratch DJs and they’re all approaching hip-hop from a different angle and a different direction. For me in the other hand although I’ve been doing hip-hop for quite a while, I don’t fully know all the classic tracks from the States yet to be perfectly honest. I won’t ever say I know all of them, you get what I mean? So people in the States when the DJ's play, even without skills when they throw classic tracks, they know their music. But people in South East Asia, we have no chance to do that. Because people don’t understand the tracks. All we can do is show our skills in what we’re doing. So this is the average Asian DJ's mentality. Like a lot of Asian turntablists, I do some commercial stuff but I use my skills to do it. Whereas in the States, you can play without any skills but if you just play the classic stuff people will dig you no matter what.

Jesse : How would you describe the quality of hip-hop music coming out from Singapore right now ? Are there any characteristics in the music itself ?

Garuda : It’s not on par with Asian hip-hop from Japan for an example, but we still have our own identity in some ways. In South East Asia we probably got more real life issues. Though the other parts of the world don’t know where South East Asia is yet, usually when you talk about Asia it's either Japan, China, India …

Jesse : Or South Korea...

Garuda : Yea, South East Asia is still like, somewhere on the map…


Jesse : Somewhere out there (laughter). Well let’s think of the day when Singapore lands on the universal hip-hop map so to speak, are there any people that you would like to collaborate with in other countries? Is there any dream project that you would like to be involved in?

Garuda : I would probably collaborate with those ethnic musicians. Music that people have never thought to be so nice. For an example, Kitaro…you know? That kind of musicians.

KoFlow : Dream project… I think Maxim, I don't know if you know Maxim, the Swedish piano player. Yea scratch with him. And uh…that’s not my dream though. (laughter) My dream, a project with Shadow would be cool. Shadow and Cut Chemist.

Jesse : Who are some of the artists throughout the world that you're feeling at the moment and could recommend to all the people out there ?

KoFlow : You mean like rap groups?


Jesse : Yea or DJs or…

KoFlow : There’s a lot like uh… Thailand they have Gango club, Thaitanium Crew, all like rappers and DJs at the same time…there’s like DJ Spider Monkey…Malaysia they have Too Phat, they have DJ Goldfish, they have T-Bone, Indonesia…I have yet to really see anything from there, Indonesia is probably one of the youngest scenes in hip-hop in S.E. Asia from what I can see because when I went over there man…it was like hell of a struggle. I had to play Chingy, had to play Nelly and shit like that...even M.O.P. man they don’t listen to that kind of stuff. Australia there’s a lot, Obese Records. New Zealand they have P-Money, Deform. I think that’s about it man. The only few people really worth mentioning from South East Asia out of all the rapper groups is Too Phat. Because Too Phat did it with Warren G and now got a project with Talib Kweli coming up.

Shimmy : Too Phat though do you think they give a bad image of South East Asian hip-hop to other parts of the world since they concentrate on making the bounce hip-hop with american accents and slang ?

KoFlow : As I said before, be it underground hip-hop or commercial hip-hop, it’s still hip-hop. People come from different backgrounds, they listen to different kind of hip-hop. I mean what kind of hip-hop you listen to back in the days?

Garuda : MC Hammer, Vanilla Ice (laughter)

Jesse : First american stuff i heard was probably N.W.A.'s Straight Outta Compton.

KoFlow : You started off with the gangster stuff whereas Too Phat they started off listening to the ballers stuff. So everybody comes from a different background, different influences, I mean hip-hop is so widespread you get what I mean? I’m sure man right now there’s going to be some kid who listens to Black Eyed Peas and think that hey that’s hip-hop and then in the future they’re gonna do what Black Eyed Peas do. It’s still gonna be hip-hop at the end of the day.

Garuda : Because in South East Asia it was quite slow when it came to getting all these records. Probably the late 90s is when we got Kris Kross, Death Row and all that. Plus most of the time we have to order the good stuff from the internet or something because they don't sell it at the local HMV or Tower Records.

Jesse : What do you think about the worldwide phenomenom of the so called rapping boybands that get recruited from the streets by the major labels and then fed to the fans as the next big thing in hip-hop ?

KoFlow : It’s everywhere in the world man. This shit is selling red hot now so record labels are like…it’s the same as boy bands, there are certain hip-hop bands that are totally like boy bands but instead of singing they rap. Check out Pussycat Dolls what the fuck is that? (laughter) You know they’re selling with sex and not their talent, however at the end of the day you have to respect that everyone has to make the dough and some people just want to make money out of it, they want to do shit that sells, which is cool. Whether it’s real or not, they gotta pay their bills too, you get what I mean? So at the end of the day, as what DJ Premiere said, If you’re not real to yourself, people don’t ask you, people don’t question you, but God will question you some day. So it’s just you yourself, whether you want to keep it real about who you are or if you just want to sell your shit. But if you want to live hip-hop, if you want to do hip-hop, if you want to die hip-hop in Asia , you gotta do a little bit of everything, you have to do the commercial stuff, you have to do the underground stuff jus to have a different market from every area to balance out your paycheck.

Jesse : KoFlow you had the chance to take part in the London DMC World Championships a couple of years ago, how was the whole experience like? Any plans for future collaborations with any of the people you met there ?

KoFlow : I’ve been travelling around elsewhere as well but just to do shows, not really to collaborate with anyone. I’ve been to Myanmar, I’ve been to Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Australia, San Francisco, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, it’s just like… about DMC what I felt back in the days, it was a really energetic movement. It was towards the artform solely you know just DJ'ing but right now it’s kind of like dying off you know people are like forgetting about the DJ's because to most people MC's are more important nowadays, nobody thinks of DJ's being the backbone for hip-hop music anymore. "Man I don’t need a DJ I got a producer, I got a drum machine ‘pop’ I can do a show", you get what I mean? So as far as DMC goes it helps me to market myself further but it’s really sad to watch the skill level nowadays because a lot of people are just doing what people already did in the past now so there's not many people that are trying to evolve and trying to push some boundaries and do like crazy shit on the turntables anymore you know. It has turned into the direction where it’s more musical thing rather than being about the techniques and all that you know but to me like both are equally important but when you’re in the battle, come on man, you have to show your skill, you have to kill your opponent. It’s all about how technical you are.


Jesse : What would be some of the key-elements that people should focus on in Singapore to build their own roots in hip-hop ? In other words what would be your advice to all the future DJ's and MC's out there ?

KoFlow : My advice to the local mcs is just to be real to yourself you know nobody is gonna laugh at you if you rap about yourself going to Geylang to hook up with a prostitute or any shit like that (laughter) That’s all the shit that will sell, that’s our local stuff, that’s our local flavour which you cannot deny. But to be honest, it’s a very wrong direction. People emerging from the local scene for them its like, I have to act gangster…when I rap, I have to be gangster, I have to be tougher than anyone. So when they rap, they rap about guns, they rap about how much chicks they get in a club, man dude really, you rap about that? When I look at you, you come to a club…

Garuda : You’re not even spending.

KoFlow : You’re not even spending any money! Nobody knows you, you have to ask me to be on the guest list, and shit like that, man it’s not about that gangsta shit or whatever you guys think it's about. Face the reality, and rap the reality, and you can go somewhere from there, you get what I mean? It’s just true, how many times have you hold a gun in your life? I held a gun for like two days in my whole life, which is in the National Service (army) so hey you can rap about that, that’s cool but don’t rap about hey I have a fucking 9 millimetre in my bag you know imma pull it out I’m gonna shoot this cop I’m gonna shoot that president and shit like that because it’s not gonna happen man just rap about reality.


Helen : How about advice for the DJ's?

KoFlow : DJ's…I think DJ's play the most important part in hip-hop because day in day out you do club sets and where I come from right here in Singapore there’s more people listening to me than listening to a local MC so my advice is that you have to know your music. The more you learn the better you will be. Slowly when you play club sets, my advice is, throw out all kinds of stuff at the crowd, the underground stuff you have that you think will work in the club, that you think people will give a chance to. And the most important thing is that, for local DJs, everyone has to start from somewhere, everyone has to watch the videos, listen to whoever big DJ's, do their tricks, their sets and whatever you know. My advice is if you’ve seen a big DJ using that beat, say a definition beat, like from Blackstar or whatever, if he has done that juggle, don’t do that juggle in the DMC anymore because that dude has already killed everything with it and now if you come up with the same you're just gonna be labelled as a biter.

Jesse : It's often said that people nowadays think that hip-hop and rap music is the same thing and most people tend to be either lazy or unwilling to learn about the culture, but why do you think the situation is like that nowadays ?

Garuda : That’s like the mass consumer. But its ok man, because it takes time to understand hip-hop. Cannot push people to learning it really but maybe if they buy one good record then they get another one then another one... it's all part of the learning process.

KoFlow : Yea it's kind of like people listen to hip-hop without learning what it is and around the world there’s a lot of ignorant people. I’m sure in your country there’s a lot of people who do that too. They buy it but they don't want to be involved in it. It’s all good though because you need people like that and you need some people who do get involved. Basically you need a promoter and you need a crowd, those ignorant people can still be a crowd which makes them all part of the bigger picture.

Jesse : What would you like to achieve in your career before that one depressing day when you won't be able to make music anymore ?

KoFlow : What I really like to achieve is…I don’t know actually. Just continue what I’m doing right now and continue the rate that I’m going right now. I think that’s a bigger achievement than just doing something big and dying the next day. (laughter)

Jesse : Tell us about your involvement in the E-Tracx project…

KoFlow : Yea I teach there.

Jesse : Please share with us what the name E-Tracx means to all the turntablists out here in Singapore ?

KoFlow : In the meantime E-Tracx is under renevation for a bigger place so we will have additional studios but basically whoever is interested in turntablism you can come in and learn. At the same time you not only learn DJ'ing itself but you also learn the culture and my experience so whatever I experienced as a club DJ or as a turntablist or as a musician, Im gonna share with you guys, that’s how much you can learn there. At the end of the day, I’m not a grandmaster, so there's a limit to what I can teach you guys but if you really want to be good in your art you should do your own research and ask around too.


Shimmy : What do you think of your own role in the Singaporean hip-hop scene right now?

KoFlow : My role? I’m probably one of the few faces for hip-hop in Singapore but I don’t know what role I have. As far as what I’m doing, my religion is not hip-hop, you get what I mean? Like that’s how much I can do you know, but as far as I’m concerned and all my kids that have seen me throughout these years is that I brought turntablism to the commercial level where you know like back in the days it was still underground, people maybe knew what is scratching but they didn't really know how someone does it but I guess I’m the one that brought it to that commercial level. When I did my radio show on 98.7 national radio, I did like underground sets, I played KRS One, I played DITC and stuff like that, just to share my music with people but I don’t know how people look at me, in what way they look at me, so…I don’t know. Basically what i've brought to the scene is like what I’ve learnt throughout these years being a DJ and by going to the states and coming back here and do whatever I’ve learnt and people who appreciate me benefit from there. They benefit from what I’ve learnt. And people who don’t really give a shit then they simply don’t give a shit.

Shimmy : Do you see it as one of your goals or missions so to speak to spread hip-hop culture in Singapore and make it better ?

KoFlow : It’s not going to be me alone, it has to be a whole team of people working on it. Because there’s only 1 KoFlow, there’s only 1 mouth, it’s hard for me…I’m not a president, I can’t hold a speech and have the whole community listening to me (laughter) It takes a whole team to do it. So I would say, whoever reads this interview from Singapore, be it a clubber, be it a hip-hopper, be it that you do hip-hop for a living, or just be it that you listen to hip-hop, you guys all play a major role in spreading the culture. So…I don’t know that’s all I can say really. When I do hip-hop I don’t have a mission to go out there and be like… "hey man you have to listen to this and you have to learn this". No, it’s not like that for me you know, I’m doing it because I love this. I go out and do it you know just go out and do what I can do, I don’t use the word mission. I don’t go all out to like influence people. How I influence people is through my passion, through my love of what I do, that’s where I really influence people into giving me a chance, to listen to what I have. And they think, "hey man, this guy has what it takes, and so I want to listen to what he listens to and"…that’s the case. Man really, if you go out all out mission style, in these 4 years, if I had an all out mission to educate people what hip-hop is about, I think by the second year I would have committed suicide (laughter) which is the truth.

Jesse : What are your views concerning the infamous sentence "is America ever truly going to accept hip-hop artists from other countries".

KoFlow : I’m sure they’re gonna be accepted, I played there and I’m so accepted. As I said man, I went there, I met a lot of big DJs, they gave me props for what I do, they gave me props for my skill, and the black people in America, they just tapped my shoulder and pulled my collar and were just like, we appreciate you, we respect you, we give you our love, because you’re spreading our culture to a different part of the world. And I’m sure we will be accepted, people in the States are really skillful. I mean like even if you don’t win the DMC and you're just in the finals, you're still probably as good as the DMC champ in South East Asia. So it’s kinda harder for us to break in but if you do really break in people appreciate you, they won’t throw you down and just say like hey you’re a Chinese DJ, fuck that, this is States, it’s not like that. In the States people appreciate you. It’s a very positive vibe. When you go over, people want to see what you have, they wanna see what Asia has, so you know like when I jam with them, they are kinda surprised where our standard and our level is. The skill level is pretty much on par with the Americans, not the top DJ's, but all the regular DJ's out there who are trying to make it, we are on that level. We can’t compare to the old schoolers, we can’t compare to the big DJ's, of course because they have really been through what a DJ has been through, throughout the era. I mean like back in the day, Cash Money, Jazzy Jeff, they didn't have good mixers.

Like ISP and Shortkut they didn’t have Vextex mixers, all they had was a small wooden Gemini mixer and if you wanted to scratch, you didn’t even scratch with a fader you only scratched with a transform switch, that’s how much they practised. If anyone knows how to DJ, if anyone knows what a transform switch is, man it's that hard, its so hard to click man, I’m telling you. When I jammed with Shortkut, when I watched him, I really know where my standard is because like, those guys are from back in the days where they are used to clicking transform switch. They have so much power in their fingers, when they click on the faders its like…clicking on a tissue paper man (laughter) you get what I mean? That much of a level, it’s the era issue, it’s not the issue if the DJ's are talented or not nowadays. They’ve been through that, they’ve gone through all the hardship, they paid their dues really hard. Whereas us, the new generation DJ's, the pathway has already been laid down for us to walk, you know which is really fortunate for us in a way. That’s all we can do, you know you have to respect the older generation because that’s the real deal. Us, we’re not even that real man really, man when I was in Shortkut’s house, that was the first time I really encountered with that infamous mixer I’ve heard about, you know, so its like Shortkut was telling me to try clicking it and I’m like dude, come on (laughter).


Jesse : Last but not least, do you have any shoutouts? Do you have something you want to say to the readers out there and people supporting hip-hop globally?

KoFlow : Definitely a shoutout to all the people who are listening and doing it globally, shoutout to my crew Fader Masters in San Francisco, Ko-Lab, my boys here in Singapore, E-Tracx, all the guys from E-Tracx, Triple Triad DJ's, and everyone that I met throughout these few years of travelling, no matter what kind of DJ you are that I met, be it House, Drum n Bass, or whoever, I send you guys my love, I send you guys my respect.

The End

Next up on our worldwide introduction interviews we talk more with MC Garuda to find out about his views and plans concerning the local hip-hop scene before moving on with our tour that took us from Singapore to Tokyo, Japan after our 1 month stay to uncover all the mysteries and secrets of all your favorite artists. But until then keep up the support and we'll be back soon with more interviews and other cool stuff from our tour.