Interview: Krazy

Bristol rapper, promotor, label executive and entrepreneur Krazy has long solidified his standing as a local icon, beginning from his early days as a champion battle rapper before forming his own label called Wordlife around 2015. Since then there have been few artists Krazy rated that he hasn’t collaborated with, either through events Krazy hosted or on tracks he recorded or featured alongside - including the late DMX, Skinnyman, Havoc of Mobb Deep and countless others. In 2024 Krazy released two acclaimed projects, a collaboration laden album called Lost In Space with guest appearances from Buggsy, King Aggi, Yogi Bear and many more, and also a 5 track EP called Britain Ain’t Great alongside Wordlife founding member Impact Merv and other features. In this interview, Krazy reveals exclusive insight into the creation of these two projects.

The majority of the Lost In Space album was penned and recorded during the initial COVID pandemic, at a studio based in The Galleries shopping mall which Krazy rented over lockdown. He enlisted two managers that were also capable producers, Deaf Frets and Boyce from a group called The Caravan Collective to assist him. Anytime the studio wasn't in use for recording other artists, the pair of producers would use the time to make beats, which meant there was a stockpile of songs produced by the duo which then became used for the Lost In Space album. After coming up with the album theme, Krazy began writing and bringing features through to contribute bars. “Boyce and Deaf Frets started banging together this track which just sounded a bit spacey, a bit kookie,” recalled Krazy. “Then I just came up with the idea of Lost In Space based off of that track, also as it fitted the theme that these were songs that didn't otherwise have a place would have otherwise been lost in space...”

The first track Krazy recorded for the project was called Raw Egg, a standout track as it contained a beat which Krazy used on his cooking shows that he did with Venomous Visuals over lockdown. After playing Boyce a song he had made with Kray Bristol called ‘Get On This’, Boyce became inspired by the track and made a beat. “I literally wrote and recorded the verse and chorus there and then,” continued Krazy. “Then loads of people came in and shelled it and built it into the banger it is now.” The album has many guest features, bringing individual flavour to each track, but the real reason Krazy brought so many people on the project was because he intended to release an album afterwards that focussed more on solo tracks. ”This was basically designed to be a project of everything we accomplished in the studio with me and these producers,” explained Krazy. “Whenever I'm in the studio, there will be a bag of emcees - so that was more just a result of loads of sessions with lots of artists in the studio, I just wanted to have that all on one body of work.”

Whilst some featured artists may be fresh to Krazy’s listeners, Buggsy, King Aggi and Rising Son are instantly recognisable as legendary artists, collaborating for the first time on one of the album’s opening singles called Never Die. Beginning as a single that only featured Aggi and Krazy, Aggi was unfortunately sentenced to imprisonment some time before the track was released. “He is probably going to be away for another 6 years,” sighed Krazy. “I was like, 'I need this track out as it fitted the Lost In Space theme so well, I couldn't wait 6 years to release it.'” With this thought in mind, Krazy began thinking about who might fit the track as potential features, eventually deciding to bring Buggsy and Rising Son through. “That was a combination I put together,” added Krazy. “Aggi is a Bristol legend and also Buggsy is a legend as well, I think having Rising Son because he is a legend in the game as well - he has got a track on Nas's album and stuff like that, so it was good to place the legends together on the same track”

Krazy clearly curated artists he judged to have exceptional quality to this project, each feature brings a high level of lyrical skill. One such artist is Daysa, who contributes a verse on a single called Step Aside. Described by Krazy as ‘a level-headed boxer that I always got on with and has skills on the mic,’ Daysa also featured on Krazy’s 2022 release, The Warpath. “He came to the studio with Eurgh and Boyce the day we recorded Step Aside,” recalled Krazy. “It was just a random one, that song there, I wrote it in about 15 minutes and I literally done it in one take.” Eurgh is a battle rap OG known for running as well as hosting Don’t Flop events since its inception, who Krazy has worked with since becoming the first person to win a battle in the first ever south-west Don’t Flop event many years ago. “Whenever Eurgh does Don't Flop events in Bristol I co-host the event's and battles, he stays in the studio and we end up just making loads of music in that meantime,” stated Krazy. “We have just done our first joint Don't Flop event alongside lyric lounge and will be doing many more in the future, and have an album dropping with Boyce very soon called ‘Third Rail.’"

Each track has a unique theme, some more personal to Krazy than others. Need a Break is a single Krazy wrote during a time where he was losing a lot of people close to him too regularly, leading him to take a holiday to get away from it. “I think I was about to go away with some friends for a weekend then we went to the studio and I think the beat came on and I was like 'Bro, you need a break!'” revealed Krazy. “I had so many friends that just passed away, it just... It hit me I think, you know?” Being renowned mostly for his battle rap style, Need a Break shows Krazy’s more human side. “Sometimes it doesn't matter who you are,” continued Krazy. “You need to just get away from it all and escape the rat race from time to time.” Krazy further explained why this song fit in the middle of the project perfectly, “Because we had more 140BPM kind of songs at the start,” said Krazy. “Then it went into the hard but mellow boom-bap sort of thing, then it kind of goes down a little bit before it comes up again at the end.” The following song is called Round and Round, another relaxed single which features multiple Wordlife affiliates: Guire, Iggz, Origin, Kray Bristol & Kali Mist. “Me and Guire, the singer on that track, have got an EP on the way coming as well called 'Me Against The World’ produced by myself and Kali-Mist who go by the name Dirt sandwich when we make beats together,” revealed Krazy. “I highly recommend checking out his music as well, his solo stuff is brilliant.”

This leads into a big track called From The Streets, which has a sole feature from the infamous Yogi Bear who was notoriously imprisoned in 2015 after being found guilty of shooting a man with a shotgun. Krazy has known Yogi since way before those times, even releasing a music video with Yogi around 2006. “I have got hair in that video and everything,” laughed Krazy. Although Krazy allows a lot of features on the album, he left Yogi alone on this track as he said, “The reality is, who else do I put on a track that is that real who would do it justice?” continued Krazy. “It was the only song on the project that I produced as I wasn't really feeling the original beat.”

One of the most well-received tracks from the album is called Problem featuring Noodlez, which is ironic because Krazy admitted he almost didn’t put it on the album. “I have actually had quite a few people say that Problem was their favourite song from the project and actually I nearly didn't put it on,” laughed Krazy. “It was because the verse is a bit more hardcore, horrorcore... you know what I mean? But literally everybody that heard the album told me 'It's got to go on the project.'” The single is another standout as it goes back to the old school style from his and Noodlez past from collaborating, which according to Krazy was (again) recorded spontaneously and in one take. “Now, me and Noodles had an album out called 'Cold World' before,” explained Krazy. “We have done loads of stuff in the past. So this Problem track goes back to me and Noodles and our sort of episode together, but literally it was another one of those ones where I just got in there, heard the beat, freestyled the chorus, then literally just turned the mic on, it was off the cuff. I think some of the mentality was like that, where you just come out with something that just bangs with the music straight away. Then with that track there, we sat there, got drunk and wrote the rest of the bars in about an hour or two I think.”

“I get called the white DMX so much,” laughed Krazy, when I told him I felt he had a similar vibe to DMX on the Problem single. “People think I would be offended but I can't lie, I think he is one of my favourite rappers whose albums I actually paid money for when buying CD's was still a thing and I think maybe unintentionally he may have rubbed off on me slightly.” Krazy then reminded me that he recently featured on a song with the late DMX, alongside Alonestar after a previous collaboration with DMX that Krazy did was never released after DMX sadly passed away. “So I had Joe Young from Wu Tang Clan in the studio with us when we was doing the Mobb Deep tour,” said Krazy, recalling how the first collaboration happened. “He literally put me on a video call to Dame Grease who produced DMX's album, because I was also in talks about organising a LOX tour at the time. He decided he wanted me to feature on the song he had alongside him and DMX, Joe Young from Wu-Tang has a few DMX tracks with X and is even featured on DMX's album So after hearing me in Jay0117's studio he asked me to get on that song which which hopefully will see the light of day sometime, but knowing the situation Alonestar which is Ed Sheeran's cousin, had a song which featured DMX called Spiritual War that also had Ed Sheeran's niece singing on the hook, and he asked me to feature on it as well which was an offer I couldn't refuse has now been officially released and is out now on all streaming platforms.”

The album finishes with Voltron Posse Cut which has 8 emcees participate to the track: Boyce, Daysa, Deaf Frets, Formi, Zeroni, Riski & Tug MC. Whilst the rest of the Lost In Space album is usually laced with concepts Krazy would give artists to write to, for this one he decided to tell each artist to simply bring their best. “This time there was just so many of us in the studio - it made no sense to try and do the song with a chorus,” explained Krazy. “Because the song would have been 10 minutes long, so I was like write it then jump off, so this was just your best, battle-esque sort of rap bars, trying to out-rap each other sort of thing like that. Everyone kind of kept their 16 a secret until it was time to lay it and we even made a video for it as well, which is up in the hallway next to the studio. So the video literally goes from the bottom of the stairs to the top, it goes up to every artist, that one is already out on the Dhack media youtube channel.”

Another acclaimed project Krazy dropped earlier this year was Britain Ain’t Great, a joint project beside Impact Merv - a founding member of Krazy’s music label, Wordlife which emerged after the closing of Crudely Cut records which Krazy used to co-run beforehand. “I was running a weekly club night called 'Wordlife' so instead of involving him in the politics of Crudely Cut it made more sense to start a new label and release Impact Merv as the first artist on that,” recalled Krazy. “His first project we put out was called Are You Mad? which is out now on all streaming platforms as well as the Don't Sleep On Me EP - he is also a verse or so away from finishing his solo album which we will be releasing on Wordlife records soon.” A 5 track EP, the inspiration for Britain Ain’t Great was to record something that would be relatable and which reflected the sorry state of affairs across the UK at the time. “The concept that 'Britain wasn't as great as it seems’ resonated,” explained Krazy. “We decided that it was more beneficial for us to do something expressing our feelings on the matter and to show how it was all affecting us personally as we know that so many people in the country would see it from the same perspective.”

Boasting a ton of features, when asked how the recording process went down Krazy explained that he’d planned Britain Ain’t Great a lot more than Lost In Space, basing his selection of artists more on whether they suited the track, rather than putting people on simply because they were in the studio at the right time. “Ultimately though me and Merv made the theme for each song beforehand and got other artists to write their bars for the tracks,” continued Krazy. “We wanted the themes to be able to match the idea that Britain isn't all nice like people in other countries might assume.” The video for the EP’s self-titled single, Britain Ain’t Great was filmed by Venomous Visuals, who also films interviews and live performances for the weekly ‘The Wordlife Show’ on Ujima Radio 98FM every Tuesday from 8-10PM. They decided to film this video outside flats where Krazy used to live on Easton Road, as well as a park where a child had recently been murdered in one of many stabbings in the area. “For those who know the area it would resonate deeply with all of the incidents that have happened in the area recently,” explained Krazy. “As for the footage from the news reports etc, that was a long painstaking procedure with me and Venomous Visuals sat looking for news reports that articulated the points that we had raised in the song, that very clearly showed that 'Britain ain't Great' and had footage of all the riots and things you will have seen on the news over the last few years in a post Brexit Britain.” 

Can’t Let It Beat Me is a song which Krazy considers to be special from the project, featuring his childhood friend, Bristol legend Ceaze from Da Label/MTG. After Ceaze was released from prison following 10 years incarceration due to medical reasons, Krazy recorded the song at Ceaze’s bedside whilst he was in extremely ill health, “Hence the positive messages in the song and the theme 'Can't let it beat me' and the theme of getting back up on your feet either figuratively or literally,” explained Krazy. For anyone who hadn’t yet heard the EP, Krazy provided a personal summary of the EP from his own perspective. “The EP is quite political from the offset dealing with a lot of current issues and affairs, breaking away from the usual fun party songs and battle rap-esque type tracks that we usually release with a lot more of a gritty feel,” said Krazy. “All of the backing beats were produced by myself and my long time collaborator Kali-Mist, under the alias 'Dirt Sandwich' which is our producer duo name. We purposely picked quite melancholy eerie boom-bap tracks so it all fitted the theme of the project, with most songs having with me playing the bass melodies and kali-Mist cutting the samples and playing in the drums, all of the features were picked as we thought they needed to be on me an Mervs project based on the personal experience with the artists that are featured and the prior knowledge of what they would bring to the project, but ultimately it is a realistic look at Britain through a non rose-tinted lens and the tragic reality of what is really going on here.”

Krazy, thank you for your time. Any final shout outs?

“Yeah I would like to shout out the whole Wordlife team, Venomous Visuals, Impact Merv, Rising Son, Yung UK, Iggz, Kray, Kali-Mist, Jay Brooks, Eurgh, Boyce, Guire, Hembz, Mr G, Rogan Josh, Miranda and all the Ujima radio management, my mum of course, all of the subscribers on the Wordlife YouTube channel and a massive thanks to Wordplay magazine and you Ethan Evo especially for all of the support and everyone who has supported that I have forgotten.”

Words by Evo.