KAFANI S A MILLION HUSTLE BEVERLY Words by JULIAOR TRAYNOR PHOTO BY TREV
You’ve got a couple videos circulating now on the internet and MTV Jams. Is the video with Dorrough the main one you’re pushing right now? Or is the Bobby Valentino song the newest? The one with Dorrough is the newest video I’m pushin’. It just got added to MTV Jams and hopefully to BET soon. This is my third or fourth video on MTV Jams. I still work with a lot of Bay Area artists but single-wise, I’ve been working with southern artists because I’m trying to get that nationwide look. My records are getting a better, different look with Southern artists. I’m basically trying to take my sound beyond the Bay Area. I think the whole hyphy sound has kinda died down. I think artists are doing them right now and creating their own sound. When you had the hyphy movement it seemed like everybody was doing the same thing, but now everybody is developing their own lane. The Bay Area sound has always been universal. When you hunt around for beats or you’re looking for hooks, what kind of sound are you looking for? Or what attracts you to a particular record? Single-wise, generally speaking, you wanna go towards the females. On “Need Ya Body” that’s why I hit up Bobby V and got him on the hook. That’s where the industry is going right now – R&B/Hip Hop. That’s the direction I’m going in right now. The new record with Gucci and Dorrough is like a street record. My main focus is the R&B/Hip Hop direction. I think the majority of the fan base is females, from what I see at my shows. Generally speaking, for a lot of artists, females re the biggest fans in the game anyway. Once you got the ladies, it’ll crack. When these cats be throwing parties and they whole fan base is dudes, it don’t be crackin’ like that.
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You gotta have the females, they the ones that come out and party and dance. A lot of artists claim, “I’m not a rapper, I’m a hustler.” Which are you? Honestly, I’m a hustler. I got in the game dealing with other artists. I’ve always been a hustler no matter what I do. It’s a grind. I be makin’ music for fun, but at the same time, by me being a good hustler, I’m able to network, make connections, and get it out there. When you say you got in the game working with other artists, you mean you were putting money behind them and it didn’t work out? Nah, it wasn’t necessarily that. My family members who were aspiring to be artists, I started off working with them in the beginning and going off they vibe. Then I took it to a whole other level really. When I was first getting studio equipment, I was just experimenting, but they was really taking it seriously. But then I was like, damn I can do it too. It seemed like every year I was taking it to a whole other level in the game. My game would elevate. I know you put the album out through Koch/E1. Did that situation work out well for you? Are you looking to go another route? The last project went aight. I mean, I had the “Fast (Like a NASCAR)” song and it was a big thing about it being marketing for NASCAR. We had a remix with Bubba Sparxxx and DJ Unk and there was a big situation about it. I feel like my whole album [release] was based around Nascar getting it hot and blowing it up to their fans, and then at the last minute it kinda fell through. The day my album