To The Future

Keith Matthew Thornton takes on many weird and wonderful incarnations. One of the most creative and innovative rappers of all time is returning to Australia armed with a collection of new tunes. This time Mr Thornton will pass through customs as Kool Keith.

At first glance, renegade rappers like Black Elvis, Dr Octagon and Willie Biggs have nothing in common. Dig a little deeper and you’ll find all three share the same unmistakable lyrical delivery that has breathed life into classic albums like ‘Critical Beatdown’, ‘Funk Your Head Up’ and ‘Sex Style’. Whether it’s Elvis, Octagon or Biggs, Kool Keith is a force like no other.

The founding member of legendary New York crew Ultramagnetic MCs has worked alongside The Prodigy, Tom Waits and everyone in between. Forget pushing the envelope, this guy tears it to shreds.

“I think I write more outspoken than the average rapper,” Keith says. “I think a lot of kids that are into hip hop are not knowing that hip hop has got to move on. Leave the 70s and the 80s alone. And the 90s.

“All the singers are singing ‘I wanna take you to the Bahamas and drink pina coladas’. I be saying stuff that's kind of more real. I never got into that era of the urban soul stuff. I think I write more exotic records. I’ve seen rap come from a street pole and lamps in the street.”

The voice behind The Prodigy’s ‘Smack My Bitch Up’ has been accused of promoting violence against women. While feminists say his so-called “porncore” lyrics are degrading, supporters says Keith is literally standing up for the common man.

“I think people get mad because I make more direct records. I write a lot of songs about my impressions from a man's point of view. I'm not against women. I'm not against men. I just write about me telling my side of how I would say something.

“If you want to say you got to take a woman out to a fancy restaurant, I write songs about ‘hey I'm not taking you to a fancy restaurant, I wanna take you to McDonald's’. You have girls that sing about guys ain't paying their bills and men are this and men are that and I write about women who want to go out for free, they don't want to pay for the dinner, they try to get over, they wanna leave. I think I’m not scared to say anything I want.”

Keith embraced independent distribution in an era when major labels were often the key to major success. He bucked the trend and bucked it good, maintaining his creative freedom and crisscrossing genres at will.

Keith has shared the studio with the likes of DJ Q-Bert, Dan the Automator and DJ Shadow.

He has a huge following online and a discography that is almost impossible to track. His new outing, ‘The Legend Of Tashan Dorrsett’, tells the ongoing story of his latest alter ego.

“Tashan Dorrsett is the reality person from New York City with an image of being real and regular, dealing with daily life situations. The essence of urban living to its all-time fullest, block after block, the brick buildings, the hot sun.

“You can't live it through television, you have to walk out and touch it like I've done for years. To all the areas that many people will not visit, I will constantly. Everybody's slow right now, there's nothing happening musically. Everybody's all on cable television and being manipulated by all the television right now, what's on cable telling people what to listen to and stuff.

“Everybody's still in the 70s and 80s musically, still making remakes. I think a lot of the high technology is distracting. I had been making futuristic records way before a lot of the groups that came out, but now everybody is running to make their albums sound new, but it sounds too made up. I'm not about nostalgia, I'm not about looking back. If I made a hit, I moved on and never looked back. The future is what I should be dwelling on right now.”

Kool Keith headlines a monster night at Step Inn on Tuesday August 10. Other acts performing include Pure Product, School Fight, DJ Katch and DNO.