HipHopDX - On the title track and first single, “For the Future of Hip-Hop,” Killah Priest lays down the first verse in classic KP style when he proclaims: “For the Future of Hip Hop, Respect Due.” During the breakdown, Awdazcate repeats a Chicago mantra, “Cold in the city, hot in the blocks,” before Pugs Atomz bursts onto the second verse, referencing spacetime travel and radioactive flows.
Alternately, the Flamenco-influenced “Just Me and My Girl,” showcases Ford’s classical guitar riffs with Pugs and Awdaz on vocals. “The song pretty much wrote it self was, one of those magic studio moments where it all just came together,” explains Ford.
"I made electronic music, but was always drawn to hip-hop,"says Ford. In 2015, Ford heard that one of his favorite emcees, Killah Priest was in Chicago and invited Priest to the studio to check out some beats. “We originally were gonna do just one song,” Ford recalls. “And he immediately gravitated to the track that would eventually become For The Future Of Hip-Hop and laid it down then and there.”
"The kid has no limits in music," says Killah Priest, who is living in Los Angeles now, of working Ford. "The more I think, the more he can do!"
KP’s most ambitious project to date, the album links him with an experimental in Ford. According to Ford, the initial connection between the two was purely organic.
“We felt connected through our friends and associates in Chicago,” he says. “I had a beat and we were going to see what would happen. As it turns out, Priest had a line that said For The Future of Hip Hop and that turned into the album.
Less of the more boom bap many associate Killah Priest with, For The Future of Hip Hop is a hodgepodge of different sounds, from electronica, jazz, soul and live instrumentation. Of course, it’s all rooted in Hip Hop.
For Priest, he was up to the challenge in sound. “When you work with someone who knows what they’re doing, that’s first,” says the Iron Sheik from the Middle East during an exclusive interview with HipHopDX. “It’s more live and more humans with you instead of a machine. It’s also important that we never lost the boom-bap feel.”
Ford says that the interaction led to more beats and Priest’s flows kept coming. “What really excited KP to collaborate was watching my band jam the same night in the studio.” Over the next few months, Ford started sending Killah Priest tracks that could be adapted well to a live band scenario.
“I always felt like my music always melded well with emcees,” explains Ford, "so this project fits just right".
