Q&A with Kooley High

From the Triangle to New York, Raleigh’s Kooley High is a hip-hop force that weaves its true North Carolina pride into tight beats and fancy wordplay. An outfit of six — three emcees, two producers and one DJ Ill Digitz — the group has endured despite a partial relocation to Brooklyn.

Staff Writer Elizabeth Byrum talked to Charlie Smarts about the move, girls who like hip-hop and mainly Kooley High’s sexy new album, David Thompson, which drops Dec. 6.

DIVERSIONS: What inspired the album and the decision to honor the legacy of basketball star David Thompson?

CHARLIE SMARTS: We moved to New York and made the album. We just started talking about the group, and it kind of came up as a conversation piece, ‘let’s name it David Thompson.’ We all liked it — we all met at (NC) State, we are all fans of athletics and more than anything it was, ‘let’s go with that, we want to show where we come from even though we are up here.

It’s always on our minds, Carolina is always on our minds. We were making an album in New York and we were just thinking about home and David Thompson was something that really represented home and really represented excellence, and represents (NC) State.

DIVE: What has it been like splitting time between Raleigh and Brooklyn? Has it been difficult in terms of recording and production?

CS: It’s really difficult, for me personally. It’s hard on my personal life, it’s been hard on family. Sometimes, I don’t know if it’s even all the way worth it, but we ended up signing a distribution deal with Fat Beats and we ended up meeting a lot of people.

We did a radio interview on NYU radio last night, and the reach of that radio station is a high density of people. A move like that might reach a million people. We are hoping that it pays off in way to where we can really see results and we are thinking it might on this one.

But it’s very hard. Production-wise, there’s not any Foolery or Sinopsis beats on this album. The next album is going to be totally, for the most part, Foolery and Sinopsis, but on this one, the move kind of hurt that.

DIVE: Compared to Eastern Standard Time, what are some of the major differences on this album?

CS: To me, first the production, it’s a different sound palette for underground hip-hop, different sounds and a different take because it is two different producers. To me, this sounds a little bit more sexy. This sounds a little bit more edgy, it’s just more fearless.

I don’t know. You have a very emotional song like “Days Pass Me By” where it’s very heartfelt, but you also have a song where we are just having fun like “Let It Rock on You.” It’s like crazy sexy cool, more than the last one.

DIVE: How has the hip-hop scene in Raleigh evolved over the years?

CS: Since we first started, a lot more people recognize us. I mean, like with anything you put time into and put in work. We’ve been working on cultivating a Raleigh audience for a long time. At first I recognized every face early on — that’s a friend, that’s a friend, I’m glad they are here.

Now when I come through, I don’t recognize any of these people and that’s awesome. I don’t know any of y’all, but y’all are my people.
I’m looking in the crowd and people are saying words. It’s a like a smörgåsbord and it’s like we are the world to the crowd. Older people, younger people. So, we must be doing something right.

DIVE: What’s next for Kooley after the release?

CS: What we are doing is promoting. Everything we’re doing is David Thompson, until the next one comes out. We’re going to be behind the scenes making Kooley High music not really talking about it.

We’re not going to be on Twitter saying we’ve got new songs out, no, we’re just going to be behind the scenes making songs until the David Thompson marketing cycle has taken place. Marketing for us is videos.

We love making videos. Sometimes I feel like we are the North Carolina music video house. We sell t-shirts and we make videos, that’s what we do, that’s what we’re good at. We are going to try to set up a tour early next year, but we’ve got to get the right people to tour with us.

We want to tour on the West Coast too, so we are thinking maybe getting someone from the East Coast, someone from the West Coast. Doing an East Coast/West Coast tour, that’s what we really want to do. For somebody like us, with the way we do things, we haven’t been co-signed by Kanye, we don’t have somebody huge in our court, it’s all us.

It’s a one man — well, six people — but it’s just us, it’s DIY to the fullest. DIY is what it is. Right now it’s just shows, videos, t-shirts, David Thompson. David Thompson, David Thompson, David Thompson.

I mean, I might even change my name to David Thompson. Everything is David Thompson right now and we are going to do that for the next three, four months.

We’ve got five videos done, we are going to come to North Carolina and do another one — we’re just trying to get the word out. We are hoping that quality over buffoonery. Buffoonery sells music. But we are hoping quality over buffoonery can take us to another level.
Lord knows, I don’t want to have to get stupid over people.