SHOPPIN' WITH KINGPIN

Rip It Up, Issue 167, 1 June 1991, Page 20

SHOPPIN' WITH KINGPIN

The wacky world of rap music is a great starmaker, it can take a teenager like Redhead Kingpin and hurl him straight into the

charts and hearts of the masses, as anear riot in an Auckland record store illustrated. Redhead seems to have avoided the usual burnout associated with this kind of stardom as well. Instead of

vanishing up his own ego he’s actually made another album and its pretty good in a funky-ass pop kind of way.

The album is called The Album With No Name and its first single ‘Plan B’, which is one of those “mature” works about safe sex, is doing pretty well on the US rap charts. So what does Redhead think about stardom?

“I'm not tryin’ fo be a star, I'm tryin’ to make good music.” As it had taken a while to get hold of Redhead because he was always not where he was meant to be, this wasn't going o do as an answer. Anyone who spends more time in a limo than his office has got fo be doing something right. “Well, | guess it's just what the crowd wants, you know? I'm just here to make good music and some money. If 'm going to be asstar if's an added bonus, an attribute.” Well, that'll do, | guess. So what's been happening since you were in New Zealand blocking main roads? “Yeah, that was cool — we didn't

know what those people were doing there, that was real cool. Since then we've been working on the new album and going through some legalities with G.R. Productions. Mainly we've been

sorfing that out and I've been getting ready to do some more of my own acts, like producing for my friends and stuff, | been keeping busy.” Right, on this new album you dropped Teddy Riley and produced it yourself didn't you? “Yeah, | produced my own album myself on this go around, and if anything we really dug it. | mean, if it does good we get the pat on the back and if it flops we take the heat. It's our own work regardless, not anyone else’s, so we could just do what we felt." ; Shouldn’t be too much of a problem with a flop here, the sound is still that funky Redhead deal, heavy on the swingbeat with fast punchy raps and a serious good time feel. There seems to have beena little more thought put into The

Album With No Name, both lyrically and musically. Not a bad effort for a teenager who's talking on a cell phone from a'music store ‘cause he forgot about an interview. “It's not really an R'n’B album, it's not a pop album, it's not even a rap album, it's a menagerie of everything. That's why we called it The Album With No Name, 'cause it just didn’t have a name — it's just us.” KIRK GEE