INTERVIEW | KANE TRAIN SPEAKS ABOUT NEW SINGLE ‘TOO REAL’

UK Rap­per Kane Train drops his new single ‘Too Real’. We catch up with him to dis­cuss mak­ing music, men­tal health and the import­ance of express­ing your­self.

‘TOO REAL’ OUT NOW

Listen Here

For those who have not heard of you, tell us a bit about Kane Train.

Kane Train is a young man who has faced a lot of hard­ship, and as a res­ult is angry at the world! He speaks with fero­city and pas­sion in his music as he feels it is one of the only places where he can speak his true thoughts and feel­ings. Most people who know Kane Train, do not really know Kane Train… and so he feels he should show them the real him inside of his music 😉 .

When was the first time you real­ised you could rap?

It took me a lot of prac­tice before I ever felt like I could actu­ally rap prop­erly. Learn­ing to rap was one thing after the next! First, I had to learn to write, then record, then mix, then mas­ter, then I figured per­form­ing live was com­pletely dif­fer­ent from rap­ping in the stu­dio envir­on­ment. I always knew that I would be able to rap well if I kept prac­ti­cing but, I think the first time I felt like I could actu­ally rap well was when I first listened back to the final ver­sion of my song ‘Lem­on­ade’ !

Tell us about your new track Too Real?

‘Too Real’ is me when I was feel­ing super motiv­ated and battle-ready! It expresses that angry-at-the-world atti­tude that I men­tioned pre­vi­ously. When I made it, I was listen­ing to a lot of Aitch’s stuff and I felt like the beat was kind of sim­il­ar to that vibe so I wanted to make some­thing out of it. There are some per­son­al lyr­ics in this track but over­all, I feel it is a dis­play of my lyr­ic­al cap­ab­il­it­ies and con­fid­ent atti­tude more than any­thing.

How would you describe the pro­duc­tion on the track?

I would describe it as a UK banger type-of vibe! This track in par­tic­u­lar was a pre-made beat that I pur­chased from a You­Tube pro­du­cer. I have been try­ing to steer away from buy­ing beats from You­Tube, and on my upcom­ing album there is only 5 out of 20 tracks which are not pro­duced by me, or my team. The beat for ‘Too Real’ was just too fire when I heard it though, and it sparked some­thing in me instantly, so I wrote the whole song in a couple hours and felt that the lyr­ics had to stay with that beat. I like the bouncy, club type of sound, com­bined with relent­less fierce, non-stop lyr­ics on top. When I pur­chased the beat, I bought the stems and re-mixed the instru­ment­al, along with my vocals and then mastered the track myself! I am happy with how it came out.

You are cur­rently work­ing on your album ‘Insan­ity = nor­mal­ity’’ – What can we expect to hear on it?

Now, this is an inter­est­ing ques­tion! The album is kind of broken into 2 halves. The first half shows a much more comed­ic side of me, whilst still address­ing and expos­ing some ser­i­ous issues in my life (it shows me accept­ing myself, even my flaws & insec­ur­it­ies, mainly by embra­cing my weird, dark sense of humour & pok­ing fun at myself). The second half, with a couple excep­tions, is deep­er and heav­ier. There is a whole array of dif­fer­ent themes and top­ics being explored in this album, but I think the over­arch­ing concept is about how, for each indi­vidu­al, their insan­ity is their nor­mal­ity. Their men­tal health, unique­ness, indi­vidu­al­ism & weird quirks are nor­mal to them, no mat­ter what expect­a­tions soci­ety has of them or what extern­al judge­ment they receive. Of course, I am explor­ing this theme through my own men­tal health and per­cep­tion of real­ity. I really wanted to dis­play the con­trast between the bene­fits of one’s ‘insan­ity’ and the cons of it too. The fact that one’s ‘insan­ity’ is what makes them an indi­vidu­al. it is what allows them to have some­thing unique to offer the world. But, it is also a curse at the same time because it can make it hard for them to accept them­self, and unfor­tu­nately some people nev­er do. Some people will be boxed into being a cer­tain way for their whole lives and nev­er explore their insan­ity, and that is enough to drive any­one insane! 😉

You have spoken about your own per­son­al exper­i­ences with your men­tal health. What advice can you give to any­one who may have or still is going through some­thing sim­il­ar?

I wish I had the answers… I still battle with stuff every day but, I think the num­ber 1 thing is to under­stand & accept is that you are buckled in for the long ride, and you should cause as much chaos and dis­turb­ance whilst you are here as humanely pos­sible!  I’m jok­ing of course… some­what… People should aim to make an impact whilst they are here. They should voice their views and opin­ions, no mat­ter how con­tro­ver­sial or upset­ting they may be. As long as they are true and inten­ded to be con­struct­ive to their com­munity as a whole, then I think they should be voiced.

No one else has the right to tell someone how they should or shouldn’t think, and what they can or can’t believe in. I believe that every indi­vidu­al will find some­thing in life that they are pas­sion­ate about, and it is down to that per­son to pur­sue that pas­sion and make some­thing spec­tac­u­lar out of it. That is how you find your pur­pose in life, and ulti­mately that will make you happy, para­dox­ic­ally, even when you are unhappy.

We heard you speak about the trauma sur­round­ing your men­tal health on the last album ‘sui­cide note’ How did rap help your men­tal well-being?

This is an inter­est­ing ques­tion as well! Over the last year I actu­ally feel like all of the pres­sure I put on myself because of rap has been more of a hinder­ance to my men­tal health, rather than a bene­fit. I don’t want it to be that way though because I love rap music more than any­thing. That is only a recent change though and it mainly comes from the pres­sure of feel­ing like I need to make money from it. The art­form itself has always been thera­peut­ic for me, and at the time of mak­ing ‘Sui­cide Note’, I would say it was cru­cial in my recov­ery and well-being. If I did not have rap music, I don’t think I would have been able to make it through. That is some­thing that I feel a lot of people don’t truly under­stand.

What do you want your listen­ers to take away from your music?

I think that I just want them to listen with an open mind and appre­ci­ate the truth behind my feel­ings and views on things, wheth­er they agree with them or not. I want ignor­ant people to wake up and real­ise how their actions and words impact oth­ers and that not every­one has to agree with their world views and that there is more to life than liv­ing in a nar­row-minded box.
I have had a few people tell me how much my music has helped them in times of dis­tress as well and if my music helps a hand­ful of people who relate to my story, then that is also a super mean­ing­ful thing and proves that I am doing my job well!

Where can we find out more?

By fol­low­ing me on socials. @insanekanetrain on everything. And, also by listen­ing to the album when it releases. I am try­ing to land myself in a pos­i­tion where I can make more con­tent for socials and con­nect with people more. Over the next year you can expect more non-music­al related con­tent from me express­ing my views and dis­cuss­ing things! I look for­ward to see­ing you there!

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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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