Five years on from the release of his debut album Deh Pon Road, South London hailing emcee Genesis Elijah spoke to SoulCulture shortly before the recent release of his sophomore album Before I Was Famous - a collaborative project with Krate Krusaders - to talk about the impact of growing up in Brixton, celebrating the musical talents of others, being inspired by Stevie Wonder and his favourite classic UK Hip Hop albums.
After performing at The Roundhouse in London on the 17th of this month, Talib Kweli invited SoulCulture down to the studio the next day, where he was joined by Akon affiliated UK emcee Sway to record a song together.
He later refers to other homegrown talents Kano, Estelle, Ty, Roots Manuva and Blak Twang as some of his favourite local artists, but refers to an overall sense of the UK scene as being "real goonish right now," judging from what he's seen online.
"Goonish rap for the sake of being goonish, it comes off real cartoon-ish..." he states. "I saw some stuff that just came across as, like, 'You don't even have to try that hard, dude'," recalling a time S.A.S "ran up on" him outside the BBC in the past.
In-between recording and shooting a music video in London, Kweli spoke to SoulCulture TV about his displeasure at the gig of the night before, his experiences of the UK's Capital and why he chose to shoot a video here for a song from his new album, Gutter Rainbows.
He also discusses how he perceives his growth across albums and another album he is also working on titled Prisoners Of Conscious, describing the forthcoming Gutter Rainbows project as "like the early outtakes of Prisoners Of Conscious, but embellished upon."
He names some of his favourite self-penned verses as
Five years on from the release of his debut album Deh Pon Road, South London hailing emcee Genesis Elijah spoke to SoulCulture shortly before the recent release of his sophomore album Before I Was Famous - a collaborative project with Krate Krusaders - to talk about the impact of growing up in Brixton, celebrating the musical talents of others, being inspired by Stevie Wonder and his favourite classic UK Hip Hop albums.
After performing at The Roundhouse in London on the 17th of this month, Talib Kweli invited SoulCulture down to the studio the next day, where he was joined by Akon affiliated UK emcee Sway to record a song together.
He later refers to other homegrown talents Kano, Estelle, Ty, Roots Manuva and Blak Twang as some of his favourite local artists, but refers to an overall sense of the UK scene as being "real goonish right now," judging from what he's seen online.
"Goonish rap for the sake of being goonish, it comes off real cartoon-ish..." he states. "I saw some stuff that just came across as, like, 'You don't even have to try that hard, dude'," recalling a time S.A.S "ran up on" him outside the BBC in the past.
In-between recording and shooting a music video in London, Kweli spoke to SoulCulture TV about his displeasure at the gig of the night before, his experiences of the UK's Capital and why he chose to shoot a video here for a song from his new album, Gutter Rainbows.
He also discusses how he perceives his growth across albums and another album he is also working on titled Prisoners Of Conscious, describing the forthcoming Gutter Rainbows project as "like the early outtakes of Prisoners Of Conscious, but embellished upon."
He names some of his favourite self-penned verses as