Ozone Magazine

Talking to Kokane is like opening up a buried time capsule. Full of stories, ideas and visuals, Kokane has seen, heard and a experienced enough to write a tell all book on the music industry if he wanted to. The son of a Motown song writer and a founding father of West Coast Hip Hop, Kokane has just about witnessed all there is to see about your favorite artists.
After spending nearly two decades behind the scenes as a singer and hook writer, Kokane is finally ready to put his face and talents on the forefront with his new album Gimmie All Mine.

So what have you been up to today?

Well, I just got the kids off to school.

So that’s the daily routine, how many kids?

Eight kids by the same woman, they range from ages 5 to 19, the oldest are identical twin boys. We’ve been together 21 years. The best thing about that is that at the end of the day, after you’re finished with work, or done with this music industry, the best thing you can have is God and your family.

So what have you been up to as of late?

I just got off the Malice and Wonderland tour with Snoop. I sung on the song “Secrets.” I have my label Buddy Boy Entertainment with Fontana. I recently put out my first mixtape, On the Back Streets with DJ Crazy Toones who is Ice Cube’s DJ. It features Ice Cube, Above the Law, Snoop Dogg and WC. Its for free, I didn’t want to charge the fans for this one. I’ve been featured on everybody’s stuff. I’ve practically worked with everyone one so I wanted to use that mixtape to let people know that. I have a single called “Twilight Zone” on iTunes right now.

People automatically think of Nate Dogg when they think of hook guys or collaborators as far as the West is concerned. You’ve worked with more people than him but you keep a rather low profile and many people still don’t know about you. How do you handle that or do you like it that way?

A lot of times some artists do things and people don’t see their face, but hear the voice. After 21 years, we’re fixing all of that. But I’ve worked with more than just West Coast rappers. I’ve worked with George Duke and Stanley Clark. I’ve worked with Diddy and Busta. I’m not just a West Coast artist. I have East Coast roots too. I was born in the South Bronx and moved to the West Coast when I was 3 years old. One of my strong points is coming from a lineage of musicians. My dad Jerry Long was a writer. He arranged and produced classic songs like The Temptations’s “Just My Imagination,” The Four Tops “Still Waters Run Deep,” and the song “Smiling Faces.” So music was always in my life. But in 2010 you have to move according to how God makes the season. This has allowed me to learn the game from Eazy E, who had the blueprint. If it wasn’t for Eazy it wouldn’t be no Dre, Cube, 50 Cent, etc. So now in 2010, we’re putting it out there to match the face. I don’t boast about this, I’m a humble cat, but I’m all over. People are enthusiastic about my music, they call me the Rich Little of the game. People didn’t know I was on [Bad Azz’s] “Wrong Idea” or Dr. Dre’s “Some L.A. NIggaz” and eight songs on Snoop’s Last Meal album. Even back in the day I was the first voice you hear on N.W.A.’s Niggas 4 Life album. We are educating people on it. If you don’t, people won’t know.

Coming from your father’s lineage and then getting involved with what people were labeling “gangsta rap” did you ever feel conflicted?

As far as my dad, back in the old Motown, certain people couldn’t say things unless they wanted their legs broke. But in my era, you can say things. He did so many things at Motown and they took so much credit and money from him, everything, even time. I never had the opportunity to be raised by my dad. I saw him often but wasn’t raised by him. I was raised by my grandmother in a suppressed environment. Everything I saw as a child shaped my character. It reflected in my music and lifestyle. When you’re a child you develop calluses on your heart from what you see. That’s what Eazy loved about my style.

And I’ll always love him for sticking by me. There used to be a misconception about my name, I was ahead of my time. People didn’t like my name, but now look at Joey Crack, Tony Yayo. I wasn’t talking about advocating drugs. I was using the slang, it meant dope.

After Eazy passed, was it hard for you to get work? Death Row’s influence on the game made him look pretty bad. Were you considered guilty by association? Was it hard to stay afloat?

I started going to studios and just singing hooks and people like E-40 and Too $hort started putting me on. That’s how I started my niche, getting on the road doing hooks. I started doing that from ‘94 on up, it became second nature. People wanted that George Clinton/Rick James sound. Then in ‘99 me and Snoop rekindled our relationship. Because at one time it was Ruthless vs Death Row.

Yeah, when you came out with your tribute to Eazy, it seemed like people thought, “why do this and who is this?” What was it like being involved in that war so to speak?

Yeah, before I talk about that let me clear something up. When we checked into the game, we didn’t call it Gangsta rap. Some journalist started calling it that. Above the Law got signed to Ruthless in 1989 and came out in ‘90. I did a 3 song demo, Eazy heard it and he signed me too. Easy brokered one of the biggest deals at the time with Epic Records. It was for Po’ Broke N Lonely, Above the Law and Kokane. A guy by the name of Kenny Camersol was afraid of my name. But Eazy had vision, people wasn’t gonna accept NWA when they first came out either.

There was a movie coming out in ‘91 called Deep Cover. This was before Death Row had even started. Eazy and Dre always had differences in the studio, creative differences but Eazy always had the last word because it was his company. At the same time Niggaz4Life came out, we had Calvin Broadus who you know as Snoop Dogg and Warren G around. Above The Law was the first group to really give Calvin his props, or discover him if you will. This happened in Inglewood in ’91. We was all mad at Eric at the time, we thought he was playing with the money. Suge was D.O.C.’s body guard and he was my manager back then. We all was supposed to have a meeting in Inglewood to see what was up. But Dre never came to the meeting, he went and started Death Row with Suge. But he was still under contract with Eazy. Kokane and Above The Law rekindled our relationship with Eazy. Snoop didn’t want to wait for me to drop my second album, so Warren G took him over to Suge and them. That landed the deal. All the while the Deep Cover soundtack is coming. I had a song on there “Nickle Slick Nigga.” Of course many people know that soundtrack for Dre and Snoop’s title track.
Then Snoop started badmouthing Eazy. We all was like why you do that? He said he was riding with them, which I understood, he was a new fresh artist. So that started the beef between Ruthless and Death Row. Eazy didn’t want to beef, because he was getting more money off those records than Dr. Dre was. Then I did my album Funk Upon A Rhyme. We felt that Snoop and Dre took our concepts, we was the first to do G-Funk and on top of that one of my groups was called The Aftermaths. This is all facts and on the back of the CDs and liner notes. [Above the Law producer] Cold 187 brought a lot of that funk to Dre too. But all the fans was running to them, they ain’t know any better. We going back and forth but all the fans are rolling with them.

But to catch up to speed, I was just doing just doing hooks. Snoop said he wanted to squash the beef. He sent a message through his homeboy Lil Half Dead to come to the studio. I was only supposed to do a couple songs, but we wound up doing a lot. This was ’99 and Snoop said he wanted to do a group called The Eastsiders. Working with them also rekindled my relationship with Dr. Dre and I wound up doing the hook to “Some L.A. Niggaz” with Knoc’Turnal. After that Snoop asked me to get on The Last Meal and we’ve been doing good after that.

That’s good that after all of those years, you could put those misunderstandings and beefs to the side. Do you think the same can happen with this new “old west vs new west” thing that’s going on?

Whenever a house is divided a house will fall. We’ve supposedly lost the flag. When you look from radio to the streets, you don’t hear us. Whenever you have denomination, it separates people. You can’t go to the East Coast and say this is the New East Coast or the old. You can’t do that with the South either? Why are we doing that on the West? We have to perpetuate unity, if we don’t do that ignorance comes into play. There is no New or Old West, its just the West Coast. People need to get stuff off their chest, but after that we have to come to some agreement with each other, you can’t survive separated. I embrace everybody, Cube, Jay Rock, G.Malone, Nipsey. But you have to really look at what Cube did. You want to trip because he only put a couple artists on? He made it accessible for doors to be open. Its about longevity, its called pay your dues. You have to look at it for what it is. People always want to be put on, but never look at the contribution. Isn’t the contribution bigger than just putting one or two people on? Why give somebody French fries when you trying to give somebody the game to get a franchise. At the same time, us as OGs, we have to put our pride in our pocket to talk to these brothers. That’s why I play the diplomatic role. Go right so you don’t get left.

Are you going to try and do that with your music?

My music always been cut of 70s cloth. Gil Scott Heron, Roy Ayers, George Clinton, Rick James. I actually have a whole record with George Clinton and I lived with Bootsy and them. I’m trying go touch on reality and social ills with my music. Right now everybody is playing on a beach but no one thinking that a psunami can hit. But I’m telling you, music is so powerful, it can throw you left or make you go right. I’m not perfect, but I want to put some positivity out there. With my stuff I’m here to uplift people who have nothing to relate to. There’s nothing wrong with dancing. Those songs are cool, but we need to transition Marvin Gaye’s doo wop to “What’s Going On.” We need to wake people up. There is a problem when we have 10,000 kids that know 10,000 dances and 10,000 ringtones before they know how to put a business plan together. Before they even know two sentences of scripture. What happened to X-Clan and Public Enemy? That was shut down on purpose. They don’t want that positivity. That’s why I’m naming my album, Gimme Mines Back. Give me back what’s mine devil. I have a song on my album called, “What Change Have You Made in Your Hood Today?” Each one teach one. It’s a Public Enemy twist with NWA with 70’s grooves. We want to get back to what Curtis Mayfield was doing. People are hurting out here. The minute you try to say something, they try to discredit you. The people that want to spread ignorance think saying “fuck you” is more important than saying “I love you.” We have to perpetuate a message of love. Love isn’t like African medallion chains, in one day and out the next. We have to have love again.