Murder Dog gtw
 

Naughty Coast mp3
Interview by Black Dog Bone

When I saw you perform at the TNL talent concert, I saw you had an original sound. More like a tribal sound, unruly and wild. You use that call and response style. Do you think there’s a new sound forming in Sri Lankan Rap?

In Sri Lanka we have our own different type of Hip Hop. We took the basics and mixed it with our Sri Lankan roots and made something new. We took a bit of Hip Hop and went from there. We’re Sri Lankans, so it has to be different.

Do you think you will ever rap in our own languages—Sinhalese or Tamil?
Definitely. Yesterday at the show we were rapping in Sinhalese here and there.

What I’ve noticed in Sri Lanka is that everybody has taken on the style of rap clothing. Even in the remote villages they dress like rappers, but they don’t know Rap music. If you could make music for them, that they could understand, it would be very popular. Use the authentic Sri Lankan drumbeats, and rap in Sinhala or Tamil.

Yeah, use the yak berey, gatta berey (down south drum/up country drum). We already have a song called “Welcome to Colombo” that’s Sinhalese Rap. We did a mixtape on “Welcome to Atlanta”, the instrumental, and we did “Welcome to Colombo” on that with Sinhalese raps and Tamil also. It will reach their hearts because they can understand what we’re saying. We’re working on doing more Sinhalese raps. There’s already a big market for Hip Hop in Sri Lanka. We like Rap and electronic beats.

When you come with an original style your music will live on. How did you first meet?

We were schoolmates. We all went to school together in Wathalla International School. We got together and did a concert for the school—made the tracks and did the raps. After we got out of school we started the band. That was three years ago.

We were friends before we were a band. At the start we weren’t that good at it, so we kept doing it. Slowly we improved and got better. I was listening to stuff like Eminem and 50 Cent. At that time I didn’t know much about the scene. We all started listening to the  music and suddenly we came up with the idea to start a Rap band.

Was there other Rap going on at your school other than Naughty Coast?
At our school, not back then. We were the first to start. Right now there are a lot. They all come and say they like our songs and they wanna rap like us. The small fellows in school right now, they look up to us.

What are your names?
I’m Big Bone. He’s Black Mack, and the third one is Murder Dog.

How did you come up with those names? They sound like something straight out of Murder Dog Magazine!

We had tons of names and finally we decided to stick to one name, so we got these names.

Who writes the lyrics for the group? And how do you write your songs?
We all write lyrics. First we get the beat done, then we get the hook done. The music, usually I do it or his brother does it. Also Murder Dog does music. We do everything ourselves—producing and everything.

That track you had for the song that you performed last night at the show was really hot.

“Pop That”. A week ago we made that beat. We weren’t sure what to perform. Sunday we were making a beat and it came out beautiful. Not all my beats come out dope, some are whack. It came out good, so we went with it.

I like how a lot of rappers from Africa mix the rapping with singing. It has a nice feeling, but it’s not too polished or Pop. It has a tribal feel.

We also do it that way because anybody can listen to it. Not everybody listens to Rap, but singing, everybody listens to it. R & B, Rock, Pop, they’re all singing. People can groove to it that way.

Last night at the contest you were chosen as the best Rap Act. How did you get into the T & L Talent Contest?

I saw it on TV. I called the office and we both went and applied.

How many times did you perform?

Twice. Semi finals and then the finals. Because there wasn’t much bands. They had only selected good bands in the first place. It was only people who were good in Rap. It was a good competition.

Who are some of the rappers that you listen to?
Lil Wayne, Lil Jon, Cash Money. We like all the Cash Money stuff. We like Game. We listen to Southern Rap and East Coast. We like West Coast rappers like Game, Tupac, Snoop. Too Short is good. We still like the old NWA stuff.

Is it hard to find Rap records in Sri Lanka? How do you get music?

We mostly download stuff. We buy CD’s also, but there isn’t much Rap music in Sri Lanka. There aren’t any Hip Hop stores here. Once in a while we see a CD and we’ll buy it. We download. Sometimes we’ll download the whole album, sometimes good songs.

Are you very serious about your music or is it just something you do for fun?

Serious! Dead serious. A lot of people quit because they can’t make money from it. You have to get a job. In America some rappers might sell drugs to get money. We can’t do that here, we’ll get caught. It’s good if we can get paid from the music, because we have to move on with our lives.

Do you perform a lot?
Yeah, we do a lot of shows. Winning the T & L contest will be good for us, it will bring us more publicity. There’s going to be an article in the newspaper about it.

What kinds of things do you talk about in your raps?
Mostly it’s party stuff. A little bit of Gangsta. We mix it up. One of us has a West Coast influence and the other two are more into Southern and East Coast Rap.

How did you go in the two directions?
It’s not that I don’t listen to West Coast. I listen to all kinds of Rap. I also listen to the Sri Lankan stuff. I listen to Iraj over and over again, I like what he does. I like a certain kind of rapping style. It’s just that right now I’m interested in more Southern stuff.

You like the Crunk stuff like Lil Jon?

Yeah. He gets wild. We listen to Three 6 Mafia. They’re good too! Youngbloodz.

When you were growing up what were your parents listening to?

Sri Lankan music. My parents were listening to Sinhalese music.

We played Tamil music at my house.

You’re Tamil? I interviewed another Tamil rapper named Krishan. He’s really good.

Yeah, his rapping is really good.

In English lyrics they write the same way that they talk. In Sinhalese music they don’t write lyrics like how they talk. It’s almost a different language that’s used in the lyrics.

Exactly. If we had gone to a national school we would have known how to write Sinhalese and could have done it, but we went to an international school since we were very small.

What I like about the Rap scene in Sri Lanka is that all the different ethnic groups come together to form Rap groups. While the Sinhalese and the Tamils have been at war since 1983, you have Tamils, Muslims and Sinhalese working together. That’s unusual.

There’s no racial difference there. Everybody comes together with the music.

Like Dirty Four 4 has one Muslim guy and two Sinhalese. You are two Sinhalese and one Tamil. It’s nice to see the unity.

Even at the competition two days before we were all cool together. We were chillin out together. Dirty 4 Four, we used to hang out together. It was close between us who would win. Luckily we won! But they are good too.

Naughty Coast really put on a good show. You were 3 people on stage running around like crazy. There’s so much music out there, so anybody doing something different will stand out. If I see a CD cover with you all wearing sarongs with no shirts, you know I’m going to buy it. The thing about creativity is you have to be original.

It could be our style. That would be good for Sri Lanka. We should think about it. That would really make people talk. We could do something with the sarongs and all, it would be very unique. That’s the main thing. You have to be unique. First you might follow what somebody else has done and then we create our own thing.

How are you going to support yourselves doing the music? Do you think it’s going to make money for you?
If we keep it up. Maybe after we release an album and with the shows and stuff. We are trying to put out an album next year. We’ve worked 4 or 5 songs so far. We’ve been doing the mixtapes.

What made you go in the direction you chose?
We have our own sound. We’re doing it in a different way. No shortcuts, no nothing.

You could even sample some music from old Tamil or Sinhalese music and make beats.

Yeah. It’s like bringing back the old music, like giving life to the old music. It’s our roots.

Like American Rap has roots in African music. The rhythms and rapping come from ancient tribal music of Africa. Rappers in Sri Lanka can pull from their roots too. Primitive music in Sri Lanka or in Africa is based on a drumbeat and chanting.

Yeah. We have to move on. You can’t keep doing the same thing.

 

 

 

Naughty Coast