MC Ras Kass

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Years before rappers began embracing the comparisons to artists like Pablo Picasso and Jean Michel Basquiat, West Coast MC Ras Kass was showcasing his lyrical art for the world to see, all while embracing the Van Gogh legacy.

Emerging on the scene in 1996, MC Ras Kass built a reputation for thoughtful tongue-in-cheek wordplay and heavy societal content with his iconic 1996 song, “Nature of the Threat.” Hailed for its expansive and piercing analysis of white supremacy, the song and the album, Soul on Ice, reimagined the perception of West Coast lyricism in the middle of its East Coast, West Coast tension.

Celebrated by his fans and peers as a wizard of words, his skill became his calling card as he continued to prioritize lyricism years before the culture shifted towards it. In the middle of his ascent, however, he ended up ensnared in a publicized dispute with his record label, Capitol, and the industry at large for respect, autonomy and proper compensation. Stalled and unable to forge the momentum he needed due to label disputes, he continued to fight for his brand, releasing projects with other comparable MC’s like Canibus, Killah Priest and Kurupt, as well as his own projects over the course of the next decade and a half.
Twenty-seven years after his debut release, Soul on Ice, Ras is just as skilled as he was then and equally as cynical. Hopeful, reflective and unapologetic, this interview is one of his rawest reflections on Hip-Hop 50 years after its inception.

HipHopWired: Ras, how are you feeling today?
Ras Kass: I’m alive so I’m blessed man.

Ras, you are regarded as one of the most prolific MCs ever, you know, people use the word legend a lot. I’m hoping that I could get some perspective and get some stuff from you that I don’t typically hear in interviews. So I’m gonna start with the beginning. You coined a phrase that said, Carson raised you, but Watts made you. 
So yeah, I guess that would be right. I lived in Carson my entire life. But I didn’t socialize. I didn’t even go to school in Carson until [the] middle of the seventh grade. So my, you know, kind of my formative years were in Watts. That’s where my friends were. I went to hang with them when I got out of school. That’s where I played at. Summertime, that’s where I stayed at. So I always claimed both, and there’s been certain rappers that try to give me shit over it. I’m a Watts baby. People have to make things mutually exclusive, because people categorize things. And it has to be this or that. And some things are a little more nuanced.

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So how did both cities influence you and in what ways?
Lots. By culture, like my culture, how I was raised within Watts is very important. My mother came from a family that moved in the late ’50s to Los Angeles from Louisiana, their culture was Creole. Thereby, I was raised around a lot of Catholics, while most blacks are Baptist and all this other stuff. I was raised and went to Catholic school where the majority of the students were diverse. In Carson, we lived in a neighborhood where there was space. And what happens when you got that kind of space, people don’t socialize, they have enough space to be amongst themselves. So you don’t f*ck with everybody, you stay in your own space. And so I had my bedroom; I did what I did in my bedroom, in my garage, in my backyard. Sometimes I went out to the front and then socialized with those kids. But in general, I have my own world.
“I hope as a collective, as a people on the eve of the 50th we probably should be looking into having some type of a union.”