Interviews — Kool Keith RSS

It's easy to point to Keith as the godfather for surrealism in rap: The Dali with a doo-rag, “The Persistence of Time” with rhyme. It's true the guy rapped about being an alien years before Lil Wayne would “hover, hover” over hip hop. But that ain't right, and misses some of the crop circles that paved the way in the cornfield for the explicitly strange/strangely explicit rapper we know today. Here's some keys to understanding Keith's crazy stances.

Kool Keith is known as one of the most indefatigable and innovative voices in hip hop. He pushes against the boxed boundaries of the form: rapping without rhyming, engaging in absurd and colorful scheming without apparent reason. At best, he's a stream of psychedelic consciousness, skipping past absurdity and into the sublime.