Alive.co.uk Interview with Double K

Interview by: Simon Netherwood

Date: November 2000

Heroes of the hip-hop underground, People Under The Stairs have been going for five years. That may be a fairly short life but it has seen the release of two powerful albums. Essentialy comprised of Double K and Thes One, lyricists supreme and serious vinyl junkies. Tricky to pin down, their rhymes cover life in all it's glory, from relationships to humour, records to violence and a bit of the old greenery. I caught up with Double K somewhere deep behind the scenes at Leeds' Majestyk nightclub where they were appearing as part of student-orientated beats night on a Monday. Double K is a very laid-back guy and easy going, despite his the ammount of travel he'd just been covering.

"At the moment we've been here two weeks. We've done some dates in Scotland, Manchester, Derby and we're here in Leeds. We've been all over, man. We've been to Amsterdam, France, Germany . It's the third time we've been over."

One of the bands UK highlights of the year was their appearence of Glastonbury, where they caused quite a storm in the dance tent. The band themselves have quite fond memories of the occasion.

"It was real cool. It's like Woodstock, lots of hippies, lots of drugs, pissing and shitting everywhere. It's a pretty good experience."

Double K was born in Los Angeles, California and definitely proud of it, "LA, born and raised, forever staying. " he states. Asked about growing up there, a nostalgic smile crosses his face.

"It was wild, man, real fun. Just getting into people's shit, growing up and it was real wild 'cause in LA we had the gangs and shit, so that was fun, dodging and being scared. "

A love of music came naturaly. Like any true music obssesive, Double K's passion came from older members of his family.

"Since I was little kid, five years old, there was a lot of records around and music in the house. My Dad's a drummer, my older brother's a DJ, so there's a lot of music influence around. My Dad played with a lot of grooves back in the days, funk, you know. My Dad's out there. He's old now so he's out there. They was worried about me at school, you know? Once I was out of school and making a little money DJ'ing, they still tripped but once I got to going on tour, they supported me as much as they could."

Unfortunately, some of Double K's friends were not as understanding. As is usual for someone motivated enough to get up and do something, he had to take some flak from others who were too busy being envious to get off their own backsides and do it themselves.

"A lot of them hated on me 'cause I was doing something fresh and none of them had no talent. A few in particular, but now they down. My close friends, my peoples, they were all for it. Most of my peoples that I grew up with from very young, they all doing music too or trying. Living Legends, Merce, my boy Scrap Loco, Underdog."

Although inspired by many people, he namechecks Run DMC, Public Enemy, Big Daddy Kane and The Fat Boys. Of course, beyond hip-hop, the record collecting is an important part of both People Under The Stairs life and their sound.

"Since I was little, there's always been records around the house. I still got those records, you know. I've got about twenty crates altogether plus records lying around, hip-hop, jazz, rock, whatever's funky. All the David Axlerod shit, all Parliment, real funky, you know? I like jazz, straight ahead jazz but I like funk, hard drums and basslines. There's a lot out there. The JB's. I got a lot of hidden stuff in there. A lot of stuff I'm still collecting. I'm not going to say my record collection's the shit, I'm still collecting for it."

When asked about how he likes to live his life when he's back home, his reply is short and sweet.

"Just making music and getting high.... That's it."

Fair enough!