{"id":694,"date":"2017-04-21T11:05:10","date_gmt":"2017-04-21T09:05:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mvesesani.com\/?p=694"},"modified":"2017-04-21T11:24:18","modified_gmt":"2017-04-21T09:24:18","slug":"the-man-behind-the-killa-beats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mvesesani.com\/2017\/04\/the-man-behind-the-killa-beats\/","title":{"rendered":"The Man Behind The Killa Beats"},"content":{"rendered":"

Top Zambian producer Killa Beats (KB), born Yahya Kaba, has worked with a large number of Zambian artists, established and upcoming, across genres and styles. He\u2019s produced tracks for and with Judy, P Jay, Alpha Romeo, Ma Africa, Urban Hype, Cleo Ice Queen, B flow, Zone Fam, Roberto, T-Sean, Petersen, Izrael (formerly Exile), Jae Cash, JK, Chef 187, Slap Dee, Kantu, Dambisa Moyo and the list goes on. KB is multi-talented and challenges himself by getting involved in different areas of media. He has been a TV co-host (The Breakfast Show on Muvi TV), a judge on MTN Music Scorer, is a currently a radio presenter on Rock FM, a DJ, an MC, and owns his own record label K-Amy. After the success of his album My Diary released in 2015 which featured various artists, his ZMA nomination for Best DJ in 2016 and his recent release of My Diary part 4, his long-time career shows no signs of stopping.<\/p>\n

M:<\/strong> How did you start off as a producer? How old were you and what were you doing at the time?
\nKB:<\/strong> Well, one thing led to another. I started, first of all, as a rapper back in the late 90\u2019s then interest switched when I completed school when I started listening to a lot of radio and then I started to get into radio. And that\u2019s how I went into radio and the interest in music started. I remember I used to visit Digital X studios a lot and I would sit there and see what\u2019s happening and sometimes I was even making my own music. When I asked the producers to make the music that I wanted, I kind of felt that they weren\u2019t really making what I wanted, so in the process you wanna learn \u2018cause you have an idea of what kind of music you wanna make. So that\u2019s that prompted me to start my record label. I remember then I had a gig where I made enough money to buy equipment and that\u2019s how I bought equipment. But I was not producing yet, so I had people who were better at it at the record label until I learned how to do everything and I started making music myself and that\u2019s how everything started.<\/p>\n

M:<\/strong> So if you hadn\u2019t been a music producer or a radio personality or a rapper, what do you think you would you have been by now?
\nKB:<\/strong> I would have been an IT specialist \u2018cause that\u2019s what I wanted to study. See, the funny thing is I never really had the aspirations that a lot people had when they were in school, well apart from rapping, obviously. My goal was just to go to school, complete my Grade 12 then I was go into university – I was gonna study IT. I always thought I was gonna have a white collar job. That\u2019s all I thought about then. Until, you know, reality. Things change when you\u2019re growing up. At nineteen years old interests start to change, certain things start to come in. So yeah, I would have been an IT guy if I wasn\u2019t a producer or anything. I\u2019d be fixing your computers and what not.<\/p>\n

\"\"M:<\/strong> What kind of music do you like to listen to and produce?
\nKB:<\/strong> I\u2019m very diverse. I don\u2019t have a specific kind of music, but I\u2019ll tell you I generalise my music. The music I listen to: I like to listen to sad music, I like to listen to soulful music, I like to listen to music with a lot of melodies. Touchy music, so to say. That\u2019s the kind of music I listen to. And when you listen to my music, it has this soulful element to it. It\u2019s very musical and it\u2019s touching. I don\u2019t just make a sound just like that. I listen to anything, it could be Reggae, but it should be that nice, sweet RnB Reggae. I listen to soul music, I listen to RnB a lot, I listen a specific kind of Hip Hop, a lot of Afro Pop. I listen to, basically, anything good. I don\u2019t have a specific music I listen to, but my favorite genre is RnB.<\/p>\n

M:<\/strong> You\u2019ve worked with almost everybody locally; do you have a dream artist to work with, either international or local?
\nKB:<\/strong> Locally, nah. I think I\u2019ve worked with everybody, you know what I\u2019m saying? \uf04a (I\u2019ve worked) With everybody that I\u2019ve ever wanted to work with. Internationally, I\u2019d love to make a song for Nas. He\u2019s always been my inspiration, always been my favourite rapper. If I could make a song for Nas, mission accomplished. That\u2019s it.<\/p>\n

M:<\/strong> What would you describe, in your opinion, as the \u2018Zambian sound\u2019?
\nKB:<\/strong> Zambia doesn\u2019t have a specific sound right now. There\u2019s what you might call Zam-Reggae, Zam-Hip Hop, Zam-etc. We don\u2019t have a sound that you\u2019d identify us with. Although there was a time when we had that music that the Copperbelt (music) brought by Dandy Crazy, it almost had its identity, but kind of music also kinda phased out. Then the Afro-pop from Nigeria came in and everybody was trying to copy that sound. So we don\u2019t have a sound that will identify us as Zambians, like South Africa has Kwaito, but also they\u2019re moving away from that – they have that Hip Hop that has kinda taken over. It\u2019s just the language that identifies that it\u2019s Zambian music, but to say we have a specific sound like Rhumba? No, we don\u2019t have a specific sound.<\/p>\n

M:<\/strong> What\u2019s the most popular genre of music in Zambia right now?
\nKB:<\/strong> Hip-Hop. Hip-Hop is the biggest genre of music right now. You look at the charts and it\u2019s just Hip Hop, even world-wide.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

M:<\/strong> What are your comments on the Zambian music industry, in terms of quality of music, artist representation and where is it headed?
\nKB:<\/strong> Quality of music has really improved. Personally, the only thing I feel that\u2019s pushing us back is that we\u2019re not getting the biggest representation on big channels like MTV Base. We\u2019re now starting to get there slowly, you know, I\u2019m happy one of my videos featuring Cleo Ice Queen has been playing on Trace Africa and we even have the likes of Jay Rox, but we don\u2019t have the biggest representation. But we need to get the recognition where we get daily spins so that our musicians are known Africa-wise. That would be very good for us. The music is very good. They don\u2019t know us. It just ends right here. We\u2019ve got good quality work and very skillful, talented artists, but it just remains here. The biggest problem is that we don\u2019t have people who are willing to spend money on the music business. Clearly you can see that our music industry has been forsaken, people aren\u2019t really paying attention to it. If you go to other countries, music is actually one of the biggest incomes for GDPs. For us it\u2019s a totally different story. If the government or just other stakeholders and big sponsors could pay attention to the music industry and invest appropriately into award shows, branding artists, I think it can really improve \u2018cause there\u2019s potential in music. Even in the last elections were purely driven by music. You can\u2019t run away from the fact that music is very, very vital.<\/p>\n

M:<\/strong> What are your comments when it comes to copyrights?
\nKB:<\/strong> Like I said, our industry is still relatively young and we\u2019re not really protected like that. There\u2019s still some shady business going on in the back. I\u2019d say maybe 40-50% of people don\u2019t understand the copyright issues in this country, they have absolutely no idea what\u2019s going on. They just make music, do shows and move on. Those kind of people need to be educated and need to know how all these things work – they need lawyers to educate them, they need to understand some of these things. This is what is missing in our industry,. You have music playing outside the country where you are eligible to get some royalties but people don\u2019t even know about it.<\/p>\n

M:<\/strong> What crucial changes are needed?
\nKB:<\/strong> First of all, I\u2019d say we need to have a proper ministry that will look into the music business that will invest heavily. I heard a rumour that in some countries, I won\u2019t mention the name, in a country that the government is giving huge loans to these artists that are doing very expensive videos and it\u2019s reaping back. If we can get to a point where I can make money off one show, why wouldn\u2019t I go and do a high budget video? But if you keep paying artists very small amounts of money, it becomes very difficult for you to budget to do a very good video that\u2019s going to show on these big channels, so it becomes difficult. So it starts from there. We need investment, artists need to be appreciated, endorsement deals are very important and these companies need to realise that it\u2019s a trend worldwide. Artists need endorsement deals that will change people\u2019s lives and make enough to sustain themselves. It\u2019s the only way the industry is going to blossom.<\/p>\n

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Top Zambian producer Killa Beats (KB), born Yahya Kaba, has worked with a large number of Zambian artists, established and upcoming, across genres and styles. He\u2019s produced tracks for and with Judy, P Jay, Alpha Romeo, Ma Africa, Urban Hype, Cleo Ice Queen, B flow, Zone Fam, Roberto, T-Sean, Petersen, Izrael (formerly Exile), Jae Cash, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":701,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,16],"tags":[],"fimg_url":"https:\/\/mvesesani.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/kb-2-e1492764026958-forest.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mvesesani.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mvesesani.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mvesesani.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mvesesani.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mvesesani.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=694"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/mvesesani.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":734,"href":"https:\/\/mvesesani.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694\/revisions\/734"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mvesesani.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mvesesani.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mvesesani.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mvesesani.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}