Krept & Konan reveal nerves with comeback new single ‘Smooth Lovin’, as they reflect on ‘being in the mud’ as they release their iconic 2013 mixtape Young Kingz.
Back with new music, Krept & Konan joined Capital XTRA Breakfast this morning, where they admitted to being ‘nervous’ about stepping back into music with their new single, ‘Smooth Lovin.’ The pair also reflected on their journey towards success, saying that they were ‘in the mud’ before the release of their breakthrough mixtape Young Kingz changed things for them.
Key
Krept – KT
Konan – KN
Robert Bruce – RB
Shayna Marie – SM
SM: “What has it been like, then, making your public return?”
KN: “Bit nervous.”
SM: “A bit nerve-wracking?”
KN: “Yeah, definitely. Because we’ve been gone for so long, you know what I mean? And it’s like a whole new wave and a whole new format of how music’s coming out.”
SM: “This new one with Popcaan, is very, very exciting. Talk to us about how that came about, and why did you choose this one to be the first one since you’ve been away?”
KT: “We had the beat. P2J – who made ‘G Love’ as well – he sent us a beat, and we were just sitting with this beat, ‘That’s a vibe.’ And we just done our verses on there, and we were like, ‘Yo, we need the right hook on this, man. We can’t ruin it!’ And then we just thought, ‘Popcaan.’ Like, this bro, we’ve known Poppy since he done the ‘Freak of the Week’ remix. We’ve had a relationship since then. He is always here in the UK, init. We just said, ‘Come studio,’ played it to him, and he just started. Yeah, he just banged it out.”
KN: “He literally just had another song that was on the album that we didn’t end up using. That was breezy though; we wanted a vibe one, you get me?”
RB: “Let’s be a little bit nostalgic right now, yeah. Young Kingz, when it first dropped – the mixtape – what was life saying just before, how did it change your life, and what is the legacy of Young Kingz?”
KN: “Before that, I was kind of in the mud a little bit. I was going through obviously situations, personally. And yeah, things weren’t looking too bright. We done ‘Otis,’ that kind of picked up, and then we went on tour. Straight after that, we was trying to put out new music and trying to get signed. And then we decided, ‘Yeah, let’s just do our own thing, init. Like, forget the labels, forget all of that.’ We was in the door now, you get what I’m saying? So it was a crazy moment for us, man. Like, we was definitely in there. MOBOs, BETs. Like, French Montana. It was going crazy. It was like an avalanche of things just happening for us, you get what I’m saying?”
KT: “It had a snowball effect. And big up Skepta and Jammer, man. Yeah, I had a conversation with them. It was like, ‘Just focus on your fans, like, forget trying to get signed. Forget all that, just focus on where you lot are building, just focus on yourself.’ It gave man that little extra fire, we just went and made Young Kingz.”
