“Every time I hit that stage I feel like I’m 21 again.” The West Coast rap legend Kurupt is discussing his recently joining up with Slum Village for a surprise performance at the Blue Note Los Angeles. “The stage is my home,” he continues. Even though his eyes are hidden behind luxury sunglasses, the way Kurupt passionately taps his chest while speaking suggests this sentiment is coming directly from the heart. He goes on: “That stage is the one place where age is irrelevant, and time is your best friend.”
Perhaps the primary reason Kurupt is so keen to savor this moment is because it almost never happened at all. At the top of the year, the 53-year-old, born Ricardo Emmanuel Brown, was put into a medically induced coma for three weeks following a bout of near-fatal seizures. He ultimately pulled through, crediting rap peer Eminem generously paying for alcoholism rehab treatment with getting him back-on-track.
And, throughout our warm and rare interview, it’s clear this is a man who feels creatively revived. “I want to make music until I’m 100 years old!” Kurupt beams from a smoky midnight blue recording studio. “Every new year I just want to keep on elevating and pushing my career forward.”
Since emerging in the early 1990s on Dr. Dre’s “Stranded on Death Row,” with a firecracker of a guest verse that urged enemies to duck down or risk receiving a Jean-Claude Van Damme-level ass whooping, Kurupt has maintained an astonishing level of consistency. Besides several classic albums, including Dogg Food and That Streetz Iz A Mutha], as both a soloist and group member, one thing I’ve always admired about the one they call Young Gotti [an enemy-of-the-state nickname given to Kurupt by former labelmate 2Pac during an honorary initiation to the Outlaw Immortalz] is the way his flow utilizes quick-fire, alliteration-heavy heteronyms.
