Get to know San Francisco’s Funk Child K-Maxx!
Interview by Raouf Grissa (Cherries Records, NYC)
Ken Hopkins, better known as K-Maxx, has been actively creating music for more than 20 years in his native San Francisco. His talents are multi-faceted, as he writes and performs every note heard on his tracks, keeping it strikingly original in an age of constant remixes and collaboration. I was able to catch up with K-Maxx about his influences growing up, his penchant for natural, organic sounds, and his upcoming release for the stalwart modern funk and boogie label, Cherries Records. So without further ado, K-Maxx!
Hey Ken! It’s nice to meet you.
Hey Raouf! It’s a pleasure to meet you as well.
So who were/are your influences? Where do you draw from musically?
Well I grew up in a musical household, there was always music playing. My dad, who’s from Alabama, was what we would call today a “record head”. They weren’t called that back in the day but he was a heavy collector. Records were everywhere.
Any particular genre? Or all across the board?
His preference was jazz, so he had all the Miles, Coltrane, all the Blue Note and CTI, Bob James, all that. He was into a lot of the early bop right into the cool jazz so he had all the Prestige, Blue Note, Strata East, then he got into the fusion and all of that. So I was hearing all of this, and it was funny cause my mom didn’t talk much about jazz. She was into that straight-up soul shit like Motown and stuff.
Yeah, it was non-stop in the house from early on, so it was bound to affect me in one-way or another.
So when did you start playing and learning?
My older sister was taking piano lessons and recitals, so my parents bought her a piano, but she got burnt out. It was in the living room just sitting there and she didn’t really want to deal with it anymore, got into voice and other stuff. So this shit is sitting there in the living room, so of course I started twinkling on that and it started evolving from that, and that was about 7 or 8 years old. My mom could get down a little bit too so we’d do a little family sing-a-long. Pops would never sing though, he was too cool haha! My dad also really liked Nat King Cole, that was really his dude. My dad is originally from Alabama, and Nat is from down there too, so I think he was like a hero to him. I’m not really sure how it’s manifested in my sound or style at this point, but you never know right?
Yeah, everything has influenced you; you kind of just soak it all up.
That’s the thing -- I think that’s the most important part.
So where does your mom come from?
She’s originally from Dallas, Texas. So, I’m actually first generation California which, a lot of us out here are that are African American descendants. California was like a migration in the 1950’s and 60’s from the South out here and also to the East Coast and up the middle in Chicago, Cleveland, and Detroit. I have some family out there too. I used to spend my summers in Dallas at my grandmother’s house. My mom’s youngest brother who was my Uncle Steve was a crazy, crazy Parliament/Funkadelic/P-funk head man. Like he swore by that shit. So when I stayed at my grandparents house, I was a little ass dude but I would stay in his room, take the spare bed in his room. So I’m in there and there are all these posters of all these crazy characters and – this shit was actually scary at first when I was little man (laughter) but he was like, “Man you gotta listen to this stuff. You gotta listen.” So I was hearing the Funkadelic, and some of that early stuff is kinda eerie sounding cause it was almost like acid rock and doing a lot of effects and echoes on the voices. So that shit is way out but I know that it evolved and influenced me like it did all of us.
It’s crazy that you had that across the spectrum; each person had a particular genre that really struck you?
Yeah man, absolutely. And then I always had an open ear – I don’t have any style or genre or anything like that I don’t like. I feel like there are qualities in any aspect in music you might dig given the chance to listen to it. I feel like people get too much of “I’m into this” or “I’m into that” or “This is my shit”. I mean, there’s good and bad in everything.
So you grew up in California, so what were some of your influences out there?
But I grew up out here man, and you know of course we have our own influences, which I think are a big part of it. Just the homegrown influences… a big influence of mine, may he rest is peace, and I had a chance to meet him a few years ago, but George Duke, who was from right here man. Like as far as a synth guy he was a keyboard wizard and a funk dude and a jazz dude. When I listen to cats like Thundercat I hear George Duke man and it makes me feel good in a way because when he passed it was an unexpected blow, I mean he was working on some projects. But you can hear his influences in my music and around, so it feels good.
How do you approach your music?
I always approach music the same way, with whatever genre or whatever… I just approach it from a grass roots organic kind of way. I’m not “out to make this or that”. Maybe you had an argument with your girl yesterday so you might be feeling melancholy or whatever, or you might be feeling euphoric cause you guys had a wonderful night last night. So you’re walking down the street after leaving the coffee shop – and that feeling you feel, I’m just trying to capture that, and I don’t know what that’s going to manifest as, but when I sit down at the keys or the workstation I try and figure out what it might feel like to be in that moment. If it’s something good I might keep it if it’s not I’ll trash it, but I learned to not ever do that (chuckles) you never know man, that might be the shit they like.
Your sound, are you using more natural or sampled sounds?
So since about ’98 or ’99 everything I do I play every note. It’s like cooking some food, all from scratch man. Every “klank”, “click”, all the guitar riffs, all the bass, all the drum tracks, the lead vocals and the background vocals is all me. I was doing hip hop beats growing up and guys would go grab a record and say “make a beat out of this record!” And there’s a lot of legal shit with that and I love the art form in itself but when its time for business you have to get clearances and all that, and it just made me more interested in the science behind it, why that record sounded like that, “why does Bob James sound like that”? So the more I got into that that was more fun anyway so I started whipping up tracks, straight up and down.
So how would you describe your sound to someone who hasn’t met you or heard you before?
For the un-indoctrinated? (laughter) I would say soul-centric funk/boogie. The way I approach it is always from a soulful perspective because soul is the father of all of it, and soul can be anything, jazz can be soulful, country western can be soulful. It’s harking back to an overlooked era in the cycle of music you know, that post-disco era. Disco took a bad rap for a long time and right after that a lot of artists and producers had to figure out what are we going to do now. So this thing rose from the ashes, and they didn’t call it boogie or anything like that, but that’s what we classify it as.
Back then it was just r & b, danceable, up-tempo r&b. But that’s why I call it Soul-Centric because some of mine you might just want to throw your headphones on, meditate, and bob your head. And the record I’m putting out with Cherries I’d put right in that category, soul-centric boogie and funk. Some people are calling it modern funk to make the distinction from the forefathers, but you know at the end of the day, funk is funk! A lot of cats right now call themselves beatmakers or whatever and I am those things too, but what I feel like I am first is a songwriter. So when I’m writing, I’m just using whatever color or sound will work out the concept of the song I’m making.
How did you get involved with Cherries?
Sheila and Andrew have been good friends for a while and they’ve always been supportive of what I’m doing out here with the music. It was just the perfect timing where Cherries is right now and where I am and what I’m doing, it was just such a natural partnership, and I think this release is more of a double A-side because you can flip it over and I don’t think you’ll go wrong.
You have anything else on the table right now?
A couple other releases with a couple other labels but … I got so much material and like we were talking about before I ain’t throwing nothing away! Cause you never know! You could revisit and be like “ooOO!!” I got enough tracks for an album (albums worth of material, like the ep format, world got a short attention span) and Cherries is fam so you never know!
Yeah speaking of EP’s, I’ve been bumping Them Changes by Thundercat!
Yeah man! I’ve been bumping that heavy, and on my radio show on KPOO FM!
So when can we find you on KPOO FM?
Weekly every Friday nights from 10 pm – 1 am pacific time, 89.5 fm KPOOFM.com every Friday night. Ghetto Gumbo is the show.
What’s been the biggest challenges?
Just being an independent artist, with the technology its almost democratic now, we all have access to the same thing. But at the end of the day money is still gas in the tank. If the music game is a car money is the gas that keep that shit moving. Being an independent guy you’ve got to think about everything you do.
Music is blank, what would the blank be?
This is gonna sound corny, but I was think over this question for a long time but LIFE.
You can also find K-Maxx spinning top shelf funk, modern soul, boogie & 2-step jams all on original wax with his crew Sweater Funk every Sunday night at The Knockout in San Francisco. Be sure to grab K-Maxx’s first release on Cherries Records ‘Be Together b/w Reachin’ (Paradise)’ available on 7″ vinyl & mp3 on Friday, August 14th at www.cherriesrecords.com!
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