Photo by Angel Flores
Access All Areas with Kurious
The new album Majician is now available for pre-order.
In this edition, we break bread with Kurious, whose new album Majician will be out on October 18th via Metalface Records and Rhymesayers. We talk about the meaning behind the album title, his creative energy, and his friendship with the great MF DOOM. Hop in, and let's go!
RSE: Peace! We appreciate you sitting down with us. To kick off, it seems you’ve been very inspired lately. You dropped two albums and a mixtape in a short time period prior to the announcement of your new LP, Majician, on Metalface Records. Can you tell us how you’re feeling creatively right now?
KURIOUS: – I don’t have the luxury to not be inspired. I love this shit, and I got a chip on my shoulder.
RSE: Would you expand on that?
KURIOUS: I feel like back then, I didn’t do Kurious justice. After like ‘95, God stopped me. It was like I had a spiritual awakening. My people could still get verses out of me; that’s when I did “?” with DOOM and the stuff with MF Grimm. But I just got hit with a new reality. Writing was like a kid learning to walk again. I was seeing everything differently, questioning my writing more.
RSE: With this inspiration, how has your creative process been?
KURIOUS: To me, music is not thinking; it’s all feeling and all mystery. You gotta keep that window open for the unknown shit. Sometimes I’m up all night, and it won’t hit me until 4 in the morning, then from 4 to 6, I get that burst I need to get my ideas out.
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Photo by Art Morera
RSE: Where did the title Majician come from, and what does it mean to you?
KURIOUS: I used to just throw the phrase ‘Kurious, the Magician’ in rhymes back in the day, just to bug out. But DOOM loved the name. It was his idea to spell it with a “J” like the joint off my first album. To me, what it means is when you wake up to yourself, and you put that extra effort into your work or your music, and it’s not just you anymore, you are really connected to that thing... When you really put your spirit into it. Majician is meant to capture that moment when something we love takes over us, when we think we’re doing something at a great level.
RSE: On this album you worked exclusively with Mono En Stereo on production. How did that come about?
KURIOUS: I had known about Mono since about 2010, but I didn’t record anything with him until about 2016. I finally recorded a few songs to his beats, then he just started sending me so many. It finally clicked and I felt I had found my home sound. And sonically, it’s similar to what DOOM always did—raw, gritty samples, stripped-down—but with the right switches, it’s just right.
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Photo by Angel Flores
RSE: With Majician coming out on Metalface Records and having MF DOOM listed as executive producer, that speaks a lot on your relationship. Can you give us any more insight into that connection?
KURIOUS: I don’t have another creative partner in life, he’s that for me.. He’d hit me up and be like “What you got?” I would say a rhyme, and he would be like, “That’s crazy.” But I wasn’t confident enough or settled into my reality. Even though I still collabed with him via email, I relinked with him physically in like 2017. I actually went out to see him and we were both happy like in the 90’s and started working like crazy. During those 3-4 years I was working tirelessly with him and traveling back and forth to the UK. I believe working next to arguably the best lyricist, who happens to be my bro, made me hone in making my lyrics more colorful… He’s funny because we teach each other and he’d call me the illest, even though I know he’s really the illest. But hey, he doesn’t lie about music so I couldn’t be that bad… Miss my friend.
Kurious' new album Majician is available for pre-order on vinyl, CD and cassette along with an exclusive apparel capsule.
The first single, "Unknown Species" is out now. Stream the track and watch the video directed by Art Morera at the links below.
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Pre-order Majician now on Vinyl, CD and Limited Cassette + Exclusive Apparel
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Photo by Enkrypt
ICYMI
Ant - Collection of Sounds: Vol. 1 drops September 6th!
Stream the two new singles, "Sun Decides" and "This Happened," at the link below!
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Independent Hip Hop since 1995
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