Born in Ghana and growing up in Australia’s capital of Canberra, Kojo Ansah, or Citizen Kay as you know him, is a fresh new artist who is establishing renown within the hip-hop scene internationally and at home. Supporting Illy alongside Dylan Joel for the ‘Swear Jar’ tour around Australia until the middle of March 2016, this is not the first time the budding virtuoso has rubbed shoulders with prominent artists within his genre. Supporting the likes of Public Enemy, Seth Sentry, Whiz Khalifa and Ice Cube, (just to name a few), Citizen Kay confirmed with us here at FIB that fans should prepare to see him headlining his own shows before the end of 2016. In an exclusive interview, we talked debut EP ‘Demokracy’ and album ‘With the People’, what it’s been like on this latest tour, his recent performance on Triple J radio and what he will be up to for the rest of the year…
So you’ve just done Like A Version for Triple J. It must feel pretty good getting big coverage on such a popular radio station. What was that like?
It was absolutely incredible. Albeit a pretty stressful week coming up to it, I was pretty nervous! The response that I got afterwards sort of put everything into context. It’s been amazing to get such good reception from it. Things could have gone wrong, but I’m glad we sort of pulled together as a band. It was incredible; everything just came along really well.
How did you choose such an ambitious mash-up?
Well it actually started with wanting to do Kendrick’s ‘King Kunta’, but I found out the Rubens had just locked in to do it, they got to it first. I thought Oh crap, what am I gonna do? I raided my itunes library and that’s when I came across the Commodores ‘Brick House’. I was jamming to it and thought I’ve gotta do something to this. I’ve always been a huge Kanye lover and I kind of just spontaneously started spitting the versus to ‘Gold Digger’. My manager suggested I do ‘Uptown Funk’ as the main song. It was a bit of a rush job, but it all came together and that’s how it all sort of went down.
How did you find the female vocalist Sarsha Simone? What’s your connection to her?
A couple of years ago I met her through the Horne Guys. I was blown away by her vocals and made a mental note to do something with her. I contacted her a year later for one of the tracks on my album. Before I really knew what I was going to do for the Like A Version I knew I had to have Sarsha involved somehow. She’s got an incredible voice. It was really good balance because I’m not really a singer, so it was a bit nerve-racking to tackle a song that’s all melody and singing. She kind of took the pressure off me a bit.
You’ve been touring with Illy and Dylan Joel. What’s that been like? How much interaction have you had with the artists?
Oh heaps! This whole crew has been so open and so cool. On this tour I’ve probably interacted with them more than with anyone else on any other tour. Everyone is so friendly. I’ve met Dylan and the boys before, so we’re kind of like old acquaintances. It’s a super fun and super relaxed environment. Illy’s just down for a chat whenever, and I forget sometimes that artists are just regular people. This tour has put that back into perspective a little bit. These artists are just people doing what they love and the vibes have been so, so fantastic.
So that calms the nerves a little bit for you before the shows?
Oh definitely. For me, the more relaxed I am before I go on, the better I perform. So being in that kind of environment where people are just relaxed and no one’s tense or stressing out, especially before you perform, changes everything.
Would you consider these to be the biggest shows that you’ve played?
Getting there. I did the Seth Sentry tour, and Ice Cube, which was huge. And Public Enemy. So they were all pretty big. This is definitely up there, maybe not quite the biggest. Seth just sold out everything and that tour was insane!
It seems like you’ve been non-stop composing and touring since the release of Demokracy. What do you do on your down time, do you ever stop? Or are you always working?
I mix and produce for other artists as well when I’m not doing my own stuff. Like right now I’m in the studio trying to produce something for someone else. Basically everything I do is somewhat related to music, so I don’t really stop. But obviously I love it so much, so there’s nothing else I’d really rather be doing.
You’ve got a show coming up on Friday in your hometown Canberra. Will you be making time to catch up with friends, or is it all just work?
I come back [to Canberra] during the week and make sure I make time for friends. You can’t sort of box yourself in and become too overwhelmed and too into just work. I’m hanging out with friends and being a normal person during weekdays. I try to keep my schedule pretty balanced between working and having a life basically.
So it’s Kojo through the week and Citizen Kay on the weekends then?
Yeah, exactly!
Once this tour is over, what have you got planned? Is there anything in the mix for the future?
Yeah, just working on more music, surprise surprise! I’m working on this collaboration EP idea that we’ve been throwing around. We’re trying to kind of hook up with producers around the world a bit. I’ve also got another project going with my little brother called the Ansah Brothers, so I’m trying to produce that at the moment too. For that we’ll have a debut album hopefully this year or next year. So working on that as well as helping him record and produce his own EP. Pretty much as soon as this tour’s over I’ll be really concentrating on those. And trying to build on my production game and just grow as an artist.
Have you been happy with the response to your latest album?
I’m such a baby to it all still, so considering that, the best part about the response was that the songs that are the most meaningful on the album are the ones that people seem to be connecting with. For example, a song called ‘Let You Go,’ (that I almost didn’t put on the album) saw a lot of people contacting me and telling me about their own experiences. For me, that’s the best part; when people can connect to it, find layers and be on that same sort of level of understanding of what I’m writing about. For me that’s why I fell in love with music, when you’re listening to a song and you feel like it’s been written about you or for you, and to hear that people are having that same feeling toward my music has just been totally worth it for me.
How do you think living in Australia and growing up in Canberra has impacted your music career?
I think it’s been amazing. I was just talking to Dad about it and I said if we had never moved here, if we were still in Ghana, I don’t know if I’d be doing music. But at the same time growing up here and having those roots has definitely played the biggest part in who I am today and how I think. Just having that background and that culture mixed with growing up here in this culture, I’m seeing myself in this weird grey area where I’m stepping into both sides whenever I like. I’m being able to incorporate things from Ghana and my roots with modern Australian culture and Australian life. I really appreciate having grown up in that kind of a circumstance.
You address issues of racism in some of your music. Do you consider Australia to be a racist nation?
Well, the song ‘Life Gives You Lemons’ is all about that. It kind of goes over people’s heads a bit. For me, it was about seeing racism going on, but a kind of a casual racism; like I don’t think people act like that here to hurt others. It seems more like a way to connect than a way to hurt. For example, my whole squad are white Australian’s and our dynamic is just giving each other crap all the time. So, growing up here I understood that as just a way of being friendly. But also, people who haven’t grown up here would see that same thing and take offense to it. So ‘Lemon’s’ was seeing the racist part of it, but getting that most people were generally trying to be funny whilst being unaware of the racism. It’s mostly about stepping into someone else’s shoes and figuring out why you could have offended them when you don’t think you’re being offensive. People just seem to disregard that. It gets brushed off. At the same time they have to understand that for the people who haven’t grown up here or don’t understand the culture here, it’s a hard thing to deal with.
Do you feel like you have a responsibility as an artist to address these issues in your music, or is it just something that you enjoy doing?
It’s a bit of both. I write depending on what’s around me at the time and what I experience, so I feel like it’s important for people to hear about these things and it helps me to have meaningful content in my songs rather than just gimmicks. I connect with music that says something underneath it all. I like to do it, but I also feel like it’s important to do it.
What other artists do you feel you connect with the most and who are your biggest influences?
Definitely Kendrick Lamar. At the moment he’s a person I’m looking at who I think is really pushing things. He has that incredible balance between being political and also being able to sell records. He has a good balance between being fun and serious. It’s admirable. Also I’ve always loved Kanye and his whole attitude of doing whatever he wants to do. Obviously that comes off pretty “how ya going” every once in a while. Just that ability to do exactly what he feels he needs to be doing without fear of consequence is something I really admire. Also Remi and L-FRESH The LION, I absolutely love them. I always try to keep up with them and the music that they’re producing. They’re other artists that I feel are kind of on the same path that I’m on, being from a minority but growing up here. I really admire them.
When do you thinking you’ll begin tackling your own shows?
Well thanks to this nice bit of exposure that we’ve gotten over the last week or so, we might jump in for a couple of headline shows in the months after Illy.
So we can expect to be seeing big things this year then?
Yeah, definitely this year. Definitely.
The rapidly rising profile of Citizen Kay means that he is definitely one to keep an eye on. There’s no doubt that he will be gracing major stages and topping charts around the world before you can say ‘Who is Citizen Kay?’
Check out what he has already accomplished and get excited for what he says he will be bringing to the table in the very-near future.
