"Mad question askin', blunt passin', music blastin..." aptly describes our interview with Kid Kurup Thursday afternoon. Interviewing him is like chillin' with one of your boys. Reclining in the futon, dressed in a white tee, jeans, and sneaks, Kurup breaks it all down for us, while smoking the 'big head' he has just rolled. "I just like the music" he says in response to the question about what inspired him to become a deejay. He also attributes his love for reggae and dancehall music to his family (his father was part of famed Reggae group Burning Spear) as well as going to House of Leo to listen to Stone Love, back in the day when he was in high school at Wolmer's. Raised uptown by "classification", as Kurup puts it, doesn't make him any less convincing than the next deejay who may be born and bred in say, Seaview Gardens or Waterhouse. "The uptown is based on what's in the mind and not necessarily territory…there is another side (of me) that adapts easily…being in the 'ghetto' on a regular…because I am aware of both sides I can function in both situations."

He began deejaying at 18 when he released his first single, "Wifey fi Gwaan Pressure", then later linked with Don Yute, a popular deejay in the early nineties, with whom he did a couple of dub plates and specials for the (then highly popular uptown) sound system, HMV.

Whaddat: You've been deejaying for quite a while (albeit sporadically), why is it that people don't really know that much about you? What prevented you from being in the spotlight?
Kid Kurup: Me. Just me and my personality... I am a lot older now. I understand a lot more things now. I'm able to appreciate music as an art (istic) form. I love music but I never liked the game. I never had a problem with the players because it's the game (music industry) that has made them the way they are.
W: And how is that?
KK: Ruthless. Straight up.

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