King Kapisi interview, 1999

Photo by Allan McDonald. Elvis costume from Harlequin Costume Hire.

In the Court of the King

By Jennifer Scott, NZ Musician, Vol. 8, No. 6 December 1999 /January 2000

King Kapisi, aka Bill Urale, has been a hot ticket in New Zealand music throughout 1999, his singles Subcranium Feeling and Reverse Resistance garnering attention and admiration from a wide circle of fans and industry alike. Indeed the second single recently won Bill the prestigious 1999 APRA Silver Scroll Award - the first hip hop artist ever to do so.

The first year of the new millennium looks set to be an even bigger one for 'the King' with the release of his debut album, 'Savage Thoughts' scheduled in March. If he continues to ride the wave of popularity and respect he is currently surfing the album looks set to be received with open arms by audiences well beyond the local hip hop community.

Talking to Bill I quickly get the feeling that he is a man with a mission, and that mission is to get his brand of Samoan hip hop heard. So far he doesn't appear to be having much difficulty. Subcranium Feeling was a Top 20 hit, reaching number 8. The video directed by his older sister Sima also scooped numerous awards and went a long way towards branding a distinctly Polynesian image of King Kapisi into people's minds.

I ask Bill if the support received has come as a surprise.

"Everything surprises me! I'm still surprised that I won the Silver Scroll. I mean I only just found out that it was for Songwriter of the Year! I was like, shit! I thought Silver Scroll was just APRA but I didn't click that it was the songwriter of the year! That's pretty out of it'."

First and foremost a beats man, Bill began his musical career playing the piano and drums, quickly developing a knack for blending melodies with beats.

"I took piano lessons for three years - got forced into it. Mum would be sitting there saying 'Practice!'. I'm so happy she did now because if I make up a tune at least I can lay it down on the piano. All those tracks on Reverse Resistance and the B-side Hip-Hop's Got Me, they're all my melodies, I played everything in."

There have been some indelible and strong influences which have shaped Bill and his music over the years. Most important is his family, the love and respect he has for his parents, Pusi and Fatu Urale, resonating from him.

"They're very musical, my mum and dad. They play guitar and used to sing songs with us, but the main thing they taught us was to love your brother, love your sister and just love your family. The respect that I have for them is upmost. Religion doesn't even come close to the love that I have for my mum and dad, so that's why I feel so strongly about why should people follow religion before the family? How can people give to religion and not give to their family? That's why I put this message into the songs. The whole religion thing, about being an atheist - I don't want to trip out on that sort of buzz, but I'm not all about religion. I'm about family, and family values come first with me."

The Urale family moved to Wellington from Samoa in 1974 and Bill was born in Wellington a month after their arrival.

"Mum was a teacher and my dad had to go work in the factories. They came here for education for the kids. A lot of families I know have not instilled the (Samoan) culture within their children because they believe so strongly that you can only make it through the education system if you only know English, so I'm really lucky that mum and dad still talk to us in Samoan."

Another early musical influence for Bill was his uncle's family band. While he did not play in the band himself, he spent a lot of his days listening to them.

"I was watching the different harmonies, all the different types of feels that they had with the traditional Samoan plus the funk and the old Yandall Sisters type of feel - they sort of crossed everything."

When he turned 13 his interest in music flourished.

"I went to Wellington High School. It was the wickedest school! The teachers treated you like adults,not like kids and that was the difference between that school and other colleges. Music was strong there and if I hadn't gone so hard on the music there, and believed in my music from then, I don't think I'd be doing this. I would still be keen, and have a tootle but it started from there, being able to perform and play the drums."

Bill was the drummer for the school's junior funk band and was in some pretty good company at Wellington High School.

"There was the heavy metal band, and that was Shihad. To see them still rocking the shit and going around the world, I'm so happy for them. Tom (Larkin) and another guy named Stumpy were my first influences in drumming. They taught me things that I didn't learn when I was younger."

After failing School Certificate, Bill moved to another, less liberal school and it was here that he first started speaking his mind, something he continues to do through his lyrics.

"I thought 'Shit, I failed, I better go to another college to make my mum and dad happy' and that was the wrong move! Everyone else was on a 'yes, sir, yes sir,' trip and I came from Wellington High where everyone was equal, you know. After a while they knew who I was because I didn't take any shit. I was a rebel from then."

It was here, at Rongotai College, that he first hooked up with longtime collaborator DJ Raw, the 1998 Australasian International Turntablist Federation champion, who taught him how to scratch during the days they didn't quite make it to class.

Another extra curricular activity at the time was modelling and it was while walking the catwalk for a fashion show that he got his first chance to rhyme in public.

"I did this fashion show with Gerrard Tahu, and he was just making the beats and he asked me, 'Hey bro, you do a bit of rapping, do you want to do the intro' and so I wrote a little rhyme and then I sort of hooked up with Gerard after that. He had another crew going with Ruaumoko and I went up one day and just chilled out with those guys. They had another gig and I wrote another rhyme and it all just started from there."

What had started was the group that first bought Bill to the public attention, Gifted & Brown, Bill donning the moniker Bran Muffin MC.

"Gifted & Brown was me and Gerhard and then Atawhai came along and we were doing our thing. Then I said, 'My sister Maila can sing really wickedly', and so she came along and then finally I said 'I've got this other bro, DJ Raw,' and so we all hooked up and started doing a couple of gigs, and then we did our single So Much Soul."

Released on Tangata Records through BMG, the single featured on the 'Once Were Warriors' soundtrack and it was the royalties which dribbled in from this that made Bill realise he could, one day, make some money from music.

Work with Token Village followed but after "the usual band diasagreements" he decided to go solo, and in 1995 King Kapisi was born. His first solo project was the song Vertikal Sequels which went to radio and was promptly picked up by the b.net.

"I think there should be an award from the b.net to the artist who has been in the Top 10 for the longest because I think I've been there for about a year now!"

The next step was to try and drum up some record company interest so 'King' and his sister Makerita, his manager at the time, hired a music lawyer and accountant and began to shop themselves around.

Their calling card was the underwater video for Subcranium Feeling - made for $7000 but looking more like a $20,000 production. Festival Records liked what they saw and offered a P&D deal for the single. When that promptly went Top 20 he was signed direct to the company, a three album deal with options.

A nomination for most promising male artist at the 1998 New Zealand Music Awards led to another opportune meeting for Bill, this time with one of his musical idols, Neil Finn.

"I still freak out on Neil!"

While talking Bill frequently - and sincerely - names the many people he has "a lot of love for" and cites a long list of Kiwi artists as influences. He is not unwilling to express the admiration he has for them when he meets them. Finn, thus charmed, invited him to record at his home studio, Roundhead.

Reverse Resistance and its B-side Hip Hop's Got Me were recorded at Roundhead with Bill and the Submariner (Andy Morton) producing. The album however will be recorded at Dean (Cuba of Cuba & Gizmo) Godward's home studio with Bill producing and Cuba programming. While admitting he doesn't know which buttons to push in the studio, Bill says he knows what the song should sound like.

"Some people don't have the vision that you have. In some other situations I wasn't really happy with what the final product was so now I'm like, 'There's no difference between the beats that you can make and the beats that I can make so I'm just going hard.' No one knows your feels like you do."

Lyrics are a key element of King Kapisi's music and doubtless the key factor in his winning the Silver Scroll (see page 37 for Reverse Resistance lyrics). Bill says he does not censor himself nor restrain himself when it comes to songwriting.

"I write the lyrics first, I'm a bit backwards in that way but for me there's no rules in hip hop, there's no 'your rhyme's got to be 16 bars'. That's bullshit because when you work like that you put limits on your way of thinking."

Knowing who you are and sifting through the bullshit are two of the main themes of King Kapisi's songs. Reverse Resistance attacks the influence the church has on the Samoan people. This has not gone unnoticed by the Samoan community.

"A lot of people say to me 'Why do you talk about that shit, it's the past and gone' but then I say 'If there's no cats like me telling you what happened in the past everyone's going to forget'.

"I've gotten slack from Samoan radio. They say 'King Kapisi is a good role model for the kids but he's an atheist'. But I don't rap it to be negative. I rap it to empower the people to find their identity. My self belief is because I know where I'm from. I know my mum and dad and I've gone back to Samoa so I know where my roots are. What I try to empower the kids with is that I'm a Polynesian, I'm a Pacific Islander and the songs that I write are for young Pacific Islanders."

One young Pacific Islander he writes for in particular is his four-year-old son, and it was to be near Rakim that Bill moved from Wellington to Auckland.

His less conventional style of hip hop has meant that commercial radio has also until now been reluctant to play his music.

"I've got, 'It's not the Top 40 format. It doesn't go verse, chorus, verse, chorus', but that's pretty ignorant. They can't take it as a song, as a musical piece. It doesn't matter if it's rap or whatever. If you listen to it as a song, it's a dope song. I've proven a point to myself that you can get a Top 20 song without having to do that. I just want to make my own style. I don't want to follow. I want to be able to create my Pacific style, my Samoan hip hop and no matter what I do, it is Samoan hip hop.

"I don't just rhyme. I do everything within my songs. I've got this song called Come Into My Realm and it's like, why I call myself King is that when you listen to my track, I am king of that track and since I made every little bit of it or had a hand in every little bit of it, that's why I'm King. I'm not a bighead. I'm not king of the world or anything but when you listen to that track I'm the king of that track and you're in my realm."

Once he has the words, Bill then finds the right beats.

"It's basically just layering, I make up a tune in my head and loop that and then make up a tune that goes with it and then maybe at the end freq it a little bit and so if you had to put them all into a loop into four bars they all mould as one. Then you just spread them out along the track and then you just freq it at different stages, pull things in and pull things in, pull things out. That's how I do it, it's just a process of elimination."

On stage Bill's a Technics turntable and Vestax mixer man.

"I don't have any equipment myself. I go down and take in my own sounds, take a snare off a record, take a kick off a record and just make up the beat and then play the bass in, play the keyboard in and get my brother Sam Konise (violin) to play."

It is obvious that he gets a kick out of using classical musicians on his recordings, for him it is part of bringing hip hop to the masses. Cellist Ash Brown also plays on Reverse Resistance. Others in the King Kapisi crew include Tha Feelstyle on vocals, Overstayers from Kua, DJ Raw, his partner Teremoana Rapley and his sister Maila.

Eventually Bill would like to take Samoan hip hop to the world but for now his main focus is on completing the album. He says it is always good for hip hop artists to be creatively challenged, which is why he attends events such as the recent International Turntablist Federation World Championships in Hawaii.

"In New Zealand you can lose your way as a hip hop artist because there's no one to battle and you can't better yourself. But when you go to a meeting like that, everyone's into exactly the same thing that you're into and it's like a whole hall full of people and these are like the best people in the world, the best DJs, the pioneer DJs, all my favourite idols were all there. For me to meet my favourite rapper - Jeru the Damaja (New York) was, ohhhh! I gave him a couple of my vinyls and gave all the DJs my vinyls for them to play it and said 'Make sure that whenever you play it and have the chance to say what it is say it's Samoan hip hop.'"

While he may call himself 'King', you'd be hard pushed to find a musician more humble and genuine than Bill Urale. Everything he does is done out of a passion for music, his people, and to make his mum and dad proud of him. I am sure they are.

King Kapisi's Savage Thoughts - track by track (NZM Vol. 9, No. 2 October/November 2000)

King Kapisi released his much anticipated debut album, 'Savage Thoughts' on October 19th. Following his 1999 Silver Scroll win for Reverse Resistance last year, NZ Musician featured King Kapisi, aka Bill Urale, on our Dec 99/Jan 2000 cover. Celebrating the long awaited album release we asked Bill to take us through 'Savage Thoughts' track by track.


Fix Amnesia
1) Basically telling people not to forget their heritage and roots and 2) informing the youth about the injustices done to our peoples. A nation's culture is being lost thru new influences. There needs to be more people that acknowledge our past. Just to be aware that all things have not been hunky dory in the South Pacific. More family values need to be introduced. The answer is not in the church, the answers are inside of yourself. Otherwise you'll be talking to to your invisible friend again. Too many brainwashed people out there. Remember ...


Reverse Resistance
My feelings about the whole missionary beliefs, colonialism and religion's introduction to the world and the Pacific. Fuck them all! Also the government's false promises while these fools have the term in power. Reverse karma and give it back to these bastards. Power to the people!


Saboteur
Had to calm this one down heaps. Rhymes were a bit too harsh, so basically this song is about cats that try to ruin your mission and dreams … our experiences in this bullshit industry … suckers being too jealous of what you achieve. Ruining your shows or trying to find some way to tarnish your name. Too many cats talk shit but don't do shit, just sit on their ass and do jack shit!


Home Invasion
There's no way you can stop my music! Put up your barricades, quota sidestepping, whatever! Through the media, internet, radio, TV, concerts, someday, somehow … I'll find a way to get to you … even if I have to bum-rush your show and beat your DJ and take over the turnies … yeah … places I've been, shows, towns I've rocked … Savage intellect to force you into submission … LISTEN! ha ha! No matter where you are on this earth! I'm coming to get ya! Heh-heh!


Kinetic Souls
No matter what you do in life, there will always be fools around and yes men that smile in your face and then stab you in the back! Two-faced pricks. They probably work in your record company! Ha ha! Probably couldn't sing in tune to save their lives. They always seem to gravitate to you like you're a superstar when all you want to do is make beats, write rhymes, have a back 2 back! That's their perception. Keep these fools a km distance away from your physical and mental. Try your hardest to not come in contact with these fools as much as possible.


Da Ula
My experience with homegrown ingenuity … up north in the bush having a rest after a couple hours digging … have a ula … music portrays how I feel, with my brother Juse giving us his perspective too. Stay Green. Vote the Green Party! Yeah!


Hip-Hop's Got Me
I listen to all music but hip-hop is my passion and preference. "Hip-hop will never perish, the task I pledge my life to!".


Method Of My Madness
The feelings I feel about a certain lady friend who means a lot to me in my life. The only 'lovey dovey' song I've ever written other than for my family and son. A dedication to all people in love … children … parents … family. One love!


Screems From da Old Plantation
Hopefully a song that my aunties and uncles will like. Paying homage to my roots and the Island style of music. Lazy ukelele style of guitar. Rolling rhythms blended with hip-hop beats. A fusion between two styles of music which I love. Taking it back home to the Island style I grew up on.


Shellshocked
To mortally wound and confuse the enemy using straight-to-your-head-style tactics! To let you know diversity is the key. Broadminded to all styles of music from jazz to classical to heavy metal to obviously hip-hop! Bang your head to this!


U-Not-Red-I
Letting you know you must be prepared to battle in the face of any enemy. Uplifting Newtown/Lyall Bay/Welli underground hip-hop to the fullest! Utmost props to my Dee-Jay Rawski, my sensei on the turnies for the last eight years! Challenging any opponent to outright combat! Best believe that my crew comes prepared!


2nd Migration
Me and the Feelstyle's journey from our motherland to Wellington to our 2nd Migration to Auckland. Paying homage to one of Aotearoa's leading Pacific Island groups that influenced me … Herbs … thanks for all the awesome songs brothers! Cher!