We're Talking About Survival: An Interview with Serengeti
Paul Thompson speaks to the legendary Chicago rapper about his new record, KENNYV.
The idea, Serengeti says, was to be normal. The legendary avant-garde rapper from Chicago had been urged by MC Paul Barman to approach producers Messiah Muzik and Steel Tipped Dove about making a record together, and when Geti did so, the intention was maximum legibility. “I was going to just try to do an album with some hooks in it, a regular sort of record with hooks and raps, real clean,” he says. What came out instead was KENNYV, the latest in a series of albums and EPs Geti has made from the perspective of Kenny Dennis, a late-middle aged former white rapper from greater Chicago who’s obsessed with sports, top heavy from a preposterous mustache, and, in recent installments, using streetwear drops and livestreaming as a palliative for his fractured psychological state.
But KENNYV is a departure from other KD installments in many ways, including its process: Geti built most of the songs from their cadences outward, a technique he witnessed during his brief foray into the sync-music world. When he went in to flesh out the lyrics—and realized that Kenny was ranting about old White Sox utilities players in his subconscious—he did so with typically disorienting detail. Trying to bone up on his foreign-film knowledge to impress another character in the universe Geti’s created, Kenny speculates that a staircase on screen might represent fear. “I’m getting cerebral this year,” he says, proudly.
KENNYV comes just weeks after symphony of psalms, a full-length collaboration with Deerhoof’s Greg Saunier, and in the wake of brilliant, barely-promoted albums like last year’s universe, in which two husbands rue the capoeira instructor-slash-spiritual leader, named Universe and voiced by Geti, who lured their wives to a tropical island. We spoke by phone about his new music, his unorthodox approach to recording, and the world of professional arm wrestling.
Earlier this year I was at a ceviche place in L.A. with billy woods and Kenny Segal. Ajai came up, and both those guys were like, “Man, we never know when he’s recording, the process is such a mystery.” And then a day later, we’re on an email chain about the universe album: “Did you even know about this?” I guess my question, before we get to the substance of the music, is: It seems like you’re just rolling these things out with no warning. What’s driving that?
I just like to make stuff. I’ll catch a little buzz of an idea and I can do it pretty quickly. And then I’m like, well, what am I waiting for? Sit on it? I’ll just put it up. I’m not about to hire press people; it just doesn’t seem worth it. It’s so much money, and you might have a press campaign and it still gets [no attention]. It’s not the best idea to do it like this, probably, but this has been par for my whole thing. I was backed up on projects ever since I started, so I just wanted to get it all out.
Even then, the proximity of releases is crazy. You just put out the new Kenny record; I was texting my friend about it, we exchanged three or four messages, and then realized we were talking about different albums. She was still on symphony of psalms. What was the genesis of that record?
Greg had sent me some beats probably—I don’t know—a year ago? And I just would drag ‘em over and record without even hearing them, just drag ‘em in and just go. That’s the way I have fun doing music, to not preview the beats, it’s like a surprise.
Wait, what? You’ll just have Logic open on your computer and drop in a file you’ve never listened to?
Yeah, yeah. That’s how I do it. That’s how Ajai was made. I’d never listened to those Kenny beats. I would drag them up and have fun. It’s super fun. You know what I’m saying? Just to keep going, work for an hour—but it’s a very productive hour. You might get 20 things done and then shut it down, don’t listen to it, and then record again the next day. And after about a week, you see what you got.
Are you writing in the moment, are you freestyling?
OK, so with Ajai, I had written a lot [beforehand]. I was in a fit of fun. It was so much fun to write all that stuff. So I have all these rhymes. Kenny sent me a pack of 20 beats or something, so I just have ‘em up and load it up and record without hearing the beat, but I got all the rhymes. It makes it more fun to adapt to a beat you haven’t heard before.
Would you have written those rhymes to other beats, or do you write acapella?
I never write to beats. I just write.
This latest record sounds a little different in that regard.
Yeah, it started as a freestyle. I didn’t intend to make it a Kenny record. I was shooting for something else. And then when I was trying this different process where I was going to do some topline over some beats—because I’d never really done that before. So I had done a little topline. And then once I went back in to listen to what I did, I had my headphones on and I clicked record, and this Kenny stuff came out. I had no intentions of doing this record, but I was like, “Oh, that’s what it is.”
The topline tracks just being cadences, flows, finding pockets?
Yeah, for sure. I had been with some people doing that while doing that sync world stuff, but I had never done that over my shit, you know what I’m saying? So I was trying something different. And then when I pulled it up, the KD just came out. It was that first song, “STINGER,” and I was like, “Oh, yes, this is it. I figured it out. So much fun.” Then two days later, I pretty much got the thing, man.
What can you tell me about that sync world? I’m so interested in how people make music for that. What was surprising about those sessions to be in?
Well, at first, I had no idea that that world even existed at all. I just met this guy at this bar. He happened to be the main guy, and I got summoned, went over there, did this song, and then it sold, and they’re like, for this much, and I’m like, are you for real? I couldn’t believe it, you know what I’m saying? I wouldn’t do those topline takes [myself] because I’m flying in for these sessions. So I would just have about 30 different verses written, just all ready for any type of situation. Like, yo, this is money. I need to be prepared. So I never had that freedom to just being there just fucking around. A lot of times I would get a brief prior to going to the session.
What was it like to write from a brief like that?
It was great. It changed how I thought of things. The indie world can be sort of snobby and have you thinking, “Oh, people that are going for American Idol-type shit, that’s not real music.” And then you get out there, you work with these people, and you’re so humbled—who am I to say anything about these people who want to write the next Bruno Mars smash hit? You know what I’m saying? It really humbled me. I was like, “Wow, there’s no difference between music people.”
Me writing songs in the past, everything’s sad or something. And then to get these songs where everything’s about the future and don’t stop now, come on, you can do it, and tonight’s the night—happy stuff. And it’s like, yo, that’s the best shit. Who wants to hear something about sadness? It was like, man, this shit is actually good. You can play it for your grandmother. You don’t have to explain anything. Just put it on: nieces, nephews, aunts, come on down, let’s have a good time. It’s super fun.
