Laughs And Lyrics With @Kloud9Reacher From OLTE!

Q. Intro­duce your­self to the IAHH Read­ers…

My name is Kyran Mitchell-Nanton. I’m an Act­or and Music Artist from Lon­don and go by the name Kloud9Reacher (K9R) for my music. I also rep­res­ent an arts group called ‘One Light Tal­ent Enter­tain­ment’.

Q. Tell us a bit about your non-profit group One Light Tal­ent Enter­tain­ment (OLTE) and its aims?

OLTE is a per­form­ing arts group where are mis­sion is to give artists oppor­tun­it­ies in the arts industry to bet­ter their tal­ent and skill and a chance to show­case them­selves to the pub­lic by put­ting on our own work and pro­jects for them. A lot of young per­formers don’t have access and/or sup­port to all the inform­a­tion that can help them be the best per­form­ing artist they want to be, and as we are also young artists ourselves, we know how hard this industry is, which is why we do what we do. Our aim is to give a new light to the arts industry and sup­port artists the best way we can. We are a Non-Profit Char­ity group, and each pro­ject we do we fund ourselves and recycle back into the com­pany for future pro­jects for oth­er artists.

Q.  One of your pro­jects KA Stor­ies is a com­edy series. How did it start and how effect­ive is com­edy when it comes to express­ing the more ser­i­ous issues?

Years ago when OLTE was just made up of myself and my best friend Ander­son St John Ingleton a lot of people told us we were really funny as genu­ine people and we should have a cam­era fol­low us around on a day to day basis. We were usu­ally branded as the black Dumb & Dumber or Ant & Dec. So we decided to make a theatre series called Kyran & Ander­son Stor­ies (KA Stor­ies) which also included a 3^rd mem­ber with us at that time who is unfor­tu­nately no longer with us. It went pretty well but due to budget, funds and oth­er com­mit­ments we couldn’t com­mit to it. Few years later we met a lovely young lady called ‘Holly Edwards’ who seemed to be the cherry to our cake and who also loved us both and our mis­sion we had for OLTE. We found out she was near enough as crazy as us and, she pushed us to cre­ate a web series out of it. About a year and a half later we released it!

We love com­edy in OLTE but at the same time we try and put out a mes­sage in every pro­ject we do. I think when it comes to even more ser­i­ous issues, com­edy can have an effect­ive part in it but it depends how you use it. If for example you are try­ing to send a pos­it­ive mes­sage about safe sex for example, using slap­stick com­edy may show the story totally dif­fer­ent from if you were to make it nat­ur­al­ist­ic and com­ic­al lines came nat­ur­ally without you try­ing to force it in. I think that goes for any­thing you are doing. We done a play called ‘Karma’ back in 2011 which was our first debut which was a ser­i­ous drama based on Teen issues which revolved mainly around young preg­nancy, bul­ly­ing, dis­crim­in­a­tion and knife crime; how­ever there were some dia­logue in the play which was funny to the audi­ence (even though we didn’t intend it to be) because it was nat­ur­al and showed an example of the type of con­ver­sa­tions and situ­ations Teens get them­selves into, and this was great because it wasn’t just straight ser­i­ous because that’s not how life is. So yeah it really depends how you use it.

Q. You’re also a rap­per, by the name of Kloud9Reacher… when did rap­ping become a part of your life?

As a young boy, I was nev­er even inter­ested in music. My mom played it a lot from old school to rare grooves but I wasn’t con­fid­ent enough to get involved in music or per­form­ing arts for that mat­ter. Nev­er really appealed to me. In my early years of sec­ond­ary school how­ever, a young woman called Ruth from Lyr­ic Ham­mer­smith done a drama work­shop for us and instantly knew I had Asper­gers Syn­drome which my teach­er was amazed by because I don’t think my teach­er told her I had it. Ruth said Lyr­ic would be great for me to jump out of my shell and open me up because she saw I had a lot of ima­gin­a­tion. At this time, I would see all the boys at school spit­ting bars and rap­ping at lunch­time which I wanted to do also, and I did try to write some poetry, but was told I was rub­bish, wack and simply didn’t feel pop­u­lar enough to get involved. So my drama teach­er and my mom pushed me to lyr­ic theatre where I atten­ded an act­ing class and also found a spoken word class too and Lyr­ic Theatre told me that I can be any­thing I want and gave me the con­fid­ence to step out my shell. Through Lyr­ic, I found I was actu­ally really good at act­ing and spoken word, and from there that’s where the jour­ney began to where I am here now.

Q. Who were your biggest influ­ences in Hip Hop and why?

In terms of Hip-Hop then pos­sibly Lupe Fiasco or Sway and JME (I know hes Grime), but that’s if you are talk­ing only Hip-Hop. I listen to a lot of instru­ment­als and beats like Ta-Ku, Kaytranada, edit (love edit) Flume, Cin­im­at­ic Orches­tra, Sin­ima it goes on and on! My phone is filled up with beats. I’m inspired majorly by artists like Emeli Sande (love love love. Can listen to her all day), Celine Dion, Kirk Frank­lin, Victizzle, Dwayne Trumpf. I listen to a lot of Rare Groove, old school 80s 90s because my mom drummed it in my head from young. Although I can’t remem­ber the names to most of them, if you play the tune I would know it. Although some of these are not Hip-Hop artists, it helped open my mind to dif­fer­ent ways and ideas I can write all the crazy stuff that’s in my head.

Q. What mes­sage does your music send out? Are there spe­cif­ic issues that you focus on?

Pos­it­iv­ity. I think that’s the easi­est way to explain it. I don’t want to sound like I’m sug­ar coat­ing any­thing because that’s not how it is. There is of course a lot of neg­at­iv­ity that hap­pens in this world yes, but I always try and put out a mes­sage that people know they can make the best from the worst. I talk about any­thing I feel like at present, there’s not a spe­cif­ic area. So wheth­er it’s a track I’m talk­ing about love, food and cook­ies, Afric­an cul­ture there’s always some­thing great you can take from it. I’m try­ing to inspire and uplift people not cut dreams and put people down.

Q.  Tell us a bit about your track ‘Sun­set’…

Sun­set is a track about for­give­ness and under­stand­ing. From me try­ing to ask for­give­ness from past mis­takes that involved cer­tain people, to try­ing to for­give myself (which I find so hard to do), and try­ing to get people to under­stand to some point what even goes on in my head. At that point I had just come out of a rela­tion­ship and I was look­ing back on all the years I tried liv­ing like I’m some per­fect guy, and but­ter can’t melt in my mouth but really cer­tain things I was being a big hypo­crite and through that I messed up on a few things. I wanted to start fresh and show people what my inten­tions are and who I am. I love sun­sets because it’s a beau­ti­ful way to end a day for reflec­tion, lead­ing to a rest for the night and onto an epic jour­ney the next day.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akp_cDVgJLQ[/youtube]

Q. The Hip Hop culture’s 5^th ele­ment ‘Know­ledge’ is often for­got­ten by rap­pers today. How import­ant is it for you to share know­ledge in your music?

Its plays aspect as they say know­ledge is key, how­ever I have to be very care­ful because a lot of us mis­take Opin­ion for Know­ledge or think that we can read the syn­op­sis of Know­ledge and then hold a lec­ture or preach a ser­mon about how much we know. For me I try to have a bal­ance of Know­ledge and Wis­dom in what I try and put out, because although some of us have a lot of Know­ledge, a lot of us aint wise enough to use that for the best and pro­duct­ive things, instead for example we may use it on things that can decrease ours and oth­er people value around us. I’m not try­ing to be that per­son. I gotta have the wis­dom to use the know­ledge I do have for great and aston­ish­ing things.

Q. What advice can you give people who want to get into per­form­ing arts but may not have the oppor­tun­ity to go to uni­ver­sity?

Involve your­self in your craft as much as pos­sible. For example, if you’re an act­or go and watch plays, films, get evolved in youth theatres, act­ing classes, mas­ter classes etc. If you can­not find work then make your own! Great places to get help around per­form­ing arts for example are com­pan­ies like Latimer Group, Lyr­ic Ham­mer­smith, DV8 train­ing. Then you got act­ing classes and com­pan­ies like Iden­tity, MN Academy, King­dom and the list goes on (Google is your best friend here). Use your con­fid­ence in your craft to net­work because that’s one of the most import­ant things. So many oppor­tun­it­ies come by net­work­ing. For example this inter­view right here Rishma, would have nev­er happened if I would not of met your sis­ter in a hair salon when I was going around shep­herds bush hand­ing out fly­ers to people about KA Stor­ies! Some of the greatest sing­ers have been signed simply by someone noti­cing them singing on a bus. Keep every­one like a gate­keep­er to your oppor­tun­ity. Just because they are fam­ous, does not mean they can get you to far places! For example I went to BRIT School and stud­ied theatre there, and although BRIT is known for its per­form­ing arts, really and truly it’s down to the per­son and the work they put in. You can get the same edu­ca­tion and amount of oppor­tun­it­ies at a nor­mal col­lege; it’s all down to the work you put in. Sup­port in fam­ily is some­times hard as well. Even though my mom and dad encour­aged me to do what I like, not every­one has this. Don’t let that put you down, and to fam­il­ies out there whose chil­dren need the sup­port from them for their pas­sion, give it. People will tell you that you can­not do some­thing. How many times I was told I couldn’t get into BRIT, I couldn’t be a rap­per, I couldn’t be funny or an act­or, and I done every single one of those things. YOU determ­ine who you are, NOT THEM. As Jim Carry said “You can fail in a career that you don’t even like. You might as well go chase and do what you love”. Finally remem­ber there’s noth­ing wrong with ask­ing for help but don’t rely on ANY­ONE except your­self because at the end of the day only you know for sure if you’re going to do some­thing or not.

Q. What are you cur­rently work­ing on and what can we look out for in the near future?

I myself am cur­rently work­ing on a music video for a track called ‘Roots’ which is a com­edy video giv­ing homage and based on Afric­an cul­ture. The team OLTE is work­ing on some great pro­jects and new stuff to launch for this year. ‘KA Stor­ies’ was just the start. If you want to find out more and keep in the loop then fol­low us on twit­ter @OneLightTalent and Face­book: One Light Tal­ent Enter­tain­ment. You can find us on You­Tube with that name too. Like­wise with me, fol­low @Kloud9Reacher and on You­Tube also. I’ll be put­ting out info of the track for people to get involved in very soon!

Rishma Dhali­w­al

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Rishma Dhaliwal

Edit­or / PR Con­sult­ant at No Bounds

Rishma Dhali­w­al has extens­ive exper­i­ence study­ing and work­ing in the music and media industry. Hav­ing writ­ten a thes­is on how Hip Hop acts as a social move­ment, she has spent years research­ing and con­nect­ing with artists who use the art form as a tool for bring­ing a voice to the voice­less. Cur­rently work­ing in TV, Rishma brings her PR and media know­ledge to I am Hip Hop and oth­er pro­jects by No Bounds.

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