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Hult Center Podcast: Kassa Overall

The following text is a transcript from the Kassa Overall episode of the Hult Center Podcast, recorded on January 31, 2022.

 

Rich Hobby: Hey everyone and welcome to the Hult Center Podcast. I’m Rich Hobby, Director of Marketing at the Hult and Thank you for joining us for today’s interview with Kassa Overall, who is our next featured artists in our 10 for 10 series, a series focused on bringing stellar rising talent to our stages, and accessible with all tickets costing just $10. The next show is on February 15 and features Kassa Overall, a jazz artist raised in Seattle now based in New York City, Kassa, welcome to the show.

Kassa Overall: What’s up man, thanks for having me.

Rich Hobby: Please tell us about yourself and how this project came to be?

Kassa Overall: Well, that’s like a, that’s like a three hour long podcast answer. But if I had to distill it into 20 seconds, you know, I grew up as a jazz drummer, I grew up as a drummer. Born in a musical household and, you know, many, many stories later, I ended up as a jazz performance major at Oberlin College. And then a few moons later, I ended up trying to become a jazz drummer in New York, where I played with a lot a ton of people from Geri Allen, Steve Coleman, to Vijay Iyer to Francis in the Lights, Mayer Hawthorne, ton of people, and the whole time I was also making beats and writing raps at the crib. And eventually, I realized that the voice that was my own was a mixture of this virtuosity, jazz drumming approach, with what I was discovering and discovered just growing up, as you know, hip hop head and all of that. And so eventually, I’d say about four years ago, now, I found a way to kind of fuse it all together. And, and that’s now what what I consider, you know, my musical offering my artistic expression. So it’s, it’s a mixture of, you know, the, the vast the vast virtuosity of have studied academic music and, and as well as my own stories, and poetry and beats and things like that. And so yeah, that’s a quick nutshell, right there.

Rich Hobby: I really enjoy how your music fuses elements of jazz and hip hop in a way that feels futuristic and ahead of its time, how do you navigate those influences into your creativity?

Kassa Overall: Well, it’s funny, it’s funny, because, you know, I think my stuff sounds futuristic as well, you know, and when I listen, and, you know, I’m trying to break down any walls and just kind of make what feels like, I should be making you know what I mean? But when it came, when it comes to playing the drums, and in that whole thing, I’m really like an old school type of cat, you know what I mean? Like, I came into this, thinking about the symbol beat, you know, and I saw Elvin Jones nine times. And I studied with Billy Higgins for a few weeks, and I studied with Billy Hart. And so I’m really more like coming from the tradition, so to speak, you know, and what I tried to do is I try to take all those principles that I learned from the tradition and and apply it to different settings, you know, so I tried to find different ways to apply the concepts of poly rhythm and the concepts of call and response and the concepts of sensitivity as a drummer. You know what I mean? I think that all translates over to the laptop and to beat machines into when you start putting sounds together. So, you know, there’s this, it sounds kind of funny, but there’s this term called Sankofa right, where you you move forward but while always looking to the past, you know, and I think that if you really want to make something futuristic, you got to, the further far, the farther back you can go in terms of what you’re pulling from maybe the the further in the future you could push it as well. I guess it’s kind of like a theory.

Rich Hobby: I like that. Well, we have to touch on the phenomenal album you released in 2020 and titled “I Think I’m Good.” Please tell us about the album and what it took to create and get it out there.

Kassa Overall: Well, that the album is, that’s the second album, utilizing this kind of concept that I was fortunate enough to kind of stumbled on creativity creatively, you know, where I’m mixing, mixing genres in ways that are, you know, maybe not not so researched already, you know. And so I put out “Go Get Ice Cream and Listen to Jazz” in 2019. And then I put out “I Think I’m Good” in 2020. And “I Think I’m Good” is more like, I’ve established the concept, like the production idea and kind of the genre mixing concept already. But then “I Think I’m Good,” I really started to dive deep into my own personal stories and things like that. So you know, I dealt with depression and mental illness and things throughout my life. And that album was actually almost like a love story to that whole experience, you know what I mean? And I started making songs that were kind of bringing to light, some of the things I might not know how to really just deal with in my day to day life, and using music and the pen and the pad as a way to kind of like, process some of these things. And so in a sense, it’s a, it’s a therapy album. And it’s funny that it came out. I don’t know if it’s funny, but it came out right before the pandemic hit. And it really felt like almost a soundtrack to the pandemic, you know, in the process of making the album, I almost felt like it was a little too much of an isolated, alone sounding album, you know, and then the album comes out and the whole world has to kind of deal with the same questions you know, so that’s a little bit about that album.

Rich Hobby: Is there a song on the album that has connected with people more than others? What was the song and what about it was connecting with people

Kassa Overall: It’s the song would be ‘Darkness in Mind.’ That song features Sullivan Fortner on piano he’s, he’s my favorite live in pianists. He’s, you know, he’s extreme virtuoso. And I’ve worked with him since college. And that song actually takes a it’s the whole song is built around a Chopin piece. ‘Prelude 4 in E minor,’ I believe. But basically, that song kind of encapsulates what I was talking about the whole thing of dealing with your inner shadow and stuff. And that song, we perform that song for a few years before it came out on the album. And after every show. Someone would always come up to me say, Hey, man, what was that song? I need to hear that, like, I need to listen to that song for the rest of my life. Like, and I say it’s not out yet. You know, it’s a, I got a, you know, properly prepare, putting that song out. And I would also say that the album “I Think I’m Good,” not too many people know this, but it’s almost like a bed for that song. Like I had that song. And I needed to make an album that could, you know, hold that song. You know, that’s how that’s how important that song is for me.

Rich Hobby: That’s amazing. Now you released the album in the start of 2020. And there were a number of big cultural shifts that happened that year. Your album seemed to touch on a number of big topics like especially with the song show me a prison. What was it like seeing these huge issues become front and center that year?

Kassa Overall: Well, I think that uh, I think that the art is the ignition. You know, I think that art stimulates something, you know what we, if we’re lucky enough, we get an inspiration and we make something that kind of nods that was coming, you know. And so I think that, um, when I made those songs, even the album before I had a song called ‘Prison and Pharmaceuticals,’ right? And that I made that song right when Trump got in office, and basically the song was inspired by a very small news clip, which was that the stocks that skyrocketed as he came into office. We’re, we’re prison stocks, right there literally stocks that you can buy that are, you know, stocks and shares of private prisons, right. And then pharmaceutical companies, and me being somebody that took medication in the past, spent, you know, 10 days in a mental hospital, twice, and took years trying to get off of medication that didn’t feel right. I understand that, that the pharmaceutical industry as an industry and the prison industry as an industry of commerce, and to see that, to see that like the stock market is excited about these stocks because of this changing of the guard. It kind of made me think it made me think about all of us, not just not just you know, whatever made those stocks go up, but it makes me think about our whole collective part in this machine, you know.

Rich Hobby: Another topic I wanted to touch on was awareness of mental health issues and how that has also come front and center recently. What’s it been like seeing that topic discuss more openly?

Kassa Overall: Well, I think that just from talking to people around me and talking to even people I don’t know so well. But it’s, it’s now it’s just the norm. You know, I don’t, if you don’t have something really serious that you’re dealing with as far as like, how do I relate in today’s world? If you don’t have that going on? I would say that’s weird. You know what I mean? Like, and I actually like, I like, because I’m already kind of outspoken about it. I’m like, man, I’ve already been, I’ve been feeling weird about this for years, you know? So when I talk to people, and they’re like, and I kind of lay it out there open, I think it makes everybody feel a little more relaxed, like, okay, you know, if if I can explain to you what it feels like to have a manic episode, and you can explain to me what it feels like, on a Monday. And you realize that this is all, you know, just different extremes of something that’s a natural part of the human condition. You know, and I don’t know, I don’t have the answer. But I do know that. For me, I think connecting back to nature is huge, you know, because we’re so technological now. And we’re so excited about you know, we’re excited about the metaverse and all this stuff and it’s kind of just this big it’s this big idea of like, technological evolution and stuff but at the end of the day we’ve had we’ve we’ve we’re not as a whole we’re not as connected to nature as we once were. And I think that’s a huge key you know, in the Northwest knows about that.

Rich Hobby: I was about to say your Seattle side is showing.

Kassa Overall: Yeah man, I’m, I’m by the way, I’m about to double down and pretty soon I’m gonna be like, I’m gonna be living on the beach like we’re talking about.

Rich Hobby: Awesome now I have to ask, what is the live experience of seeing cast overall in person? What can people expect?

Kassa Overall: Well, I think you can expect a whole other experience from the album, differently different from the album, you know, a lot of artists will show up and they’ll just play the album. And you you know if they’re a huge artist, you know, maybe all the crowd knows the songs and they hear the songs performed and it’s It is what it is. But like I said, I came up playing in the jazz world, you know, I came up improvising. And so everything we’re doing, we’re taking some of the material that I did in the record, but we’re deconstructing everything and figuring out ways to improvise within those, you know, in within those architectural forms. And the other side of that is my, my musical process for making music is also improvisational. So, part of the reason we improvise is that that’s part of the texture of the feeling of the music. Now the band, I’m going to have four virtuosos up there with me so I’m going to be on drums and vocals, a little electronics Tomoki Sanders is playing saxophone and you know DJ electronics, Ian Fink is playing, Tomoki Sanders is from Japan and the offspring of Pharoah Sanders, by the way, and Ian Fink is from Detroit. Studied with Geri Allen. He’s on keys. And then Bendji Allonce is on percussion, and he’s a Haitian American percussionist. And so, yeah, man, we’re just gonna, we’re just gonna give an experience you know, like we do some of the album’s stuff, but then we also like to journey and adventure in every performance and it’s nothing is, nothing’s the same.

Rich Hobby: One question I like to ask every artist is an old and a new. Could you tell us about an older album that had a big impact on you as an artist, and then also tell us about a recent release that it also has had a big impact on you.

Kassa Overall: Okay, so the young musician one is easy. I’m gonna go with ‘Crescent’ by the John Coltrane quartet, particularly track two wise one which for if there’s any actual like super jazz heads listening I recently I’ve been doing research and it turns out that that song was also written for Naima, his first wife. As far as new music man, I’m always so hesitant the past year… I’m gonna say you got to listen to ‘Shades of Flu 2’ by Kassa Overall on Bandcamp I’m not gonna front man. ‘Shades of Flu 2’ slaps and cats are really like I need to step it up. So until then, I’m gonna have to say you got to listen to my own stuff.

Rich Hobby: Amen. You got to be your own promoter sometimes.

Kassa Overall: Hey, man. Bandcamp dot com. Kassa Overall!

Rich Hobby: We’re really excited to have you here on February 15. Kassa, where can people go to find your music?

Kassa Overall: You can type Kassa over K-A-S-S-A O-V-E-R-A-L-L you can type it into Google and find your way you know, whatever streaming platform you listen to, I’m on there. I will say I have two mixtapes that are only on Bandcamp. And those are also my newest things, but they’re kind of more for the for the heads. And then if you go to YouTube, I also have quite a few music videos I’ve done in the past few years. They’re only on YouTube. So besides that, you know, Spotify, Apple music everywhere, we got vinyl and lots of stores. I got merchant vinyl on my Instagram. So you know it’s everywhere nowadays, just typing into a search engine. And I’ll come up.

Rich Hobby: And I know we’ve talked a lot about Seattle, but as a local have to know what was it like to do an in studio performance at KEXP?

Kassa Overall: Man, that was amazing. Like if you can, like that opens up a whole nother can of worms. But um, if you can imagine February 17. I’m at Blue Note Tokyo. And then I come back open for Bullough in New York. Then I go to the West Coast and I do a quick West Coast run. Mercht selling out every night. This is February 2020. I’m really feeling like okay, this is about to really pop off. Like I’m about to really do this. March 1 in studio KEXP. It felt like a dream. You know, I’m running on low sleep. The band is sounding great. We did our thing. And then like two weeks later, lock downs. You know what I mean? So I would say like it was the highest high and it was also like there was this worry about this looming pandemic, and then everything shut down. So I think that that, that moment will always, you know, live in my heart, you know, to just not take it for granted and to realize that, like, things change like that, you know, but that was definitely a high moment man.

Rich Hobby: And last question, I promise, I have to ask, what was your experience like for that first show back in front of a live audience?

Kassa Overall: The word that comes to mind is cathartic. You know, and not only for me, but for the the crowd as well. I could tell it was like, it’s like, you know how food tastes when you’re super hungry. That’s the best slice of pizza I’ve ever had. That was the best bowl of Raisin Bran I’ve ever had, you know. And it was like that, man. It just was, it was like, nothing but gratitude and catharsis and like realizing like, sometimes you don’t know what you’re missing until you get it and you’re like, Oh, that’s right. That’s why I do all of this.

Rich Hobby: Kassa, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me and we cannot wait to see you live on stage at the Hult center on February 15 for our 10 for 10 series. Safe travels to you and can’t wait to see you soon.

Kassa Overall: Thank you, man. Thanks for having me. It’s great talking to you.