Genius Reborn

Genius Reborn, 15.8.05

Reinvention in the music biz is a wonderful thing. When it works,the artist concerned can expect to reap the spoils.

Kwame, better known as the polka-dot MC, knows this well – he started out as a 15-year-old rap jester and is now flying high as one of the most sought-after producers around.

Thanks to the success of Lloyd Banks’ 2004 single On Fire, Kwame Holland (pictured), has had the likes of Toni Braxton, T.I and Janet Jackson requesting his services. He never could have guessed that a simple beat for a G-Unit soldier would propel him to the top.

‘I remember playing the track for hundreds of people and them turning me down,’ he says. ‘So it really bugs me out to see how that record actually did well’.

When he established his name in 1989 with the singles The Man We All Know and Love, and albums The Boy Genius and A Day in the Life: A Polkadelic Adventure, Kwame was loved for the intelligent, good- natured humour he injected into hip hop.

However, after releasing two ill-received albums, Nastee (1992) and Incognito (1994), it was clear his rap career wouldn’t last as long as he had hoped. Since then it’s been hustle all the way.

‘Being an artist, you’re providing a service, telling your own story and you’re doing what you have to do,’ he says. ‘But, it’s a disposable service. Artists are a dime a dozen. ‘Music was something I wanted to do all my life and I wanted to have a life-long career. But what could I do outside telling my own story? The obvious thing was producing. ’

But even this proved to be difficult. Though Kwame had produced the majority of his own records under the tutelage of Hurby ‘Luv Bug’ Azor (Salt ‘N’ Pepa), label bosses couldn’t look past his former image.

‘,When I would go in and play my music for labels, it was a situation where they were looking at me like an old-school artist,’ he explains. ‘They didn’t take me seriously, so I had to go through different channels just to get my music played.’

He got help from esteemed Bad Boy producer Ron ‘Amen-Ra’ Lawrence, who brought him into his company and worked as his manager. Soon Kwame was selling joints under the pseudonym K1 Million.

‘Tracks were getting sold to LL Cool J, Mary J Blige… people I used to tour with,’ he says. ‘So when they’d see me in the studio, they’d be like, “What are you doing here?” I’d say, “I just did your record!” Then word got out that I was doing these records and, after a while, I didn’t have to use K-1 Million anymore.’

This year alone, he’s scored hits with Will Smith’s Switch and Tweet’s Turn the Lights Off with his super-charged sound, which distinguishes him from the rest of pack. ‘I try not to go along the same grain as everybody else. If it sounds like Pharrell did it before, then I’m not gonna do it. If Timbaland or Kanye did it before, I’m not gonna do it. But I’m still trying to keep it in the vein of what’s going on today.’

Unlike those producers, Kwame likes to stick to r&b. ‘Hip hop is just out of control right now,’ he says. ‘It’s saying whatever, it’s doing whatever, and its consciousness needs to come back.’

Kwame plans to build up his own roster of artists that will offer the integrity he strives to represent. But although he’s just cut a record for Janet Jackson and created a label, he is unlikely to return to mic. ‘If I do a record it’d definitely have to be as a producer, like how Quincy Jones would do a record featuring the artists he works with.’

So are we ever going to see the polka-dot haute couture again? ‘I don’t know if I could ever bring myself to wearing a polka-dot shirt again! It’s like, would you put on your old high-school gym shorts? I have several polka-dotted ties that I wear, but I think that would be the extent of it.’