Krizz Kaliko dropped his newest music video “Talk Up On It” last Friday, the same day GO hit stores, and the response to both has been huge.

In this exclusive interview, Krizz talks about choosing Kansas City as the location for video shoots. Check out what he had to say:

With Talk Up On It, it looks like the video was pretty fun. You had a ton of people come out and shot it at Union Station, a huge landmark in KC. How did that feel?

Well, on this project, I said that I was gonna have a lot of things that are particular to Kansas City. We shot another video, “Stop The World“, on the city bus. With Union Station, we almost didn’t get that location, but the guy that runs the place just happened to go to the same high school that I went to. Not while I was there, but he just happened to be apart of the alumni. I feel like that connection made it okay for us to be there. You know, rappers get a bad name sometimes, man. I was able to lock it down anyways. It was really dope.

What’s filming and staying in KC been like? Has the community been receptive?

Ah yeah. Even when we shot on the city bus, Kerry, who’s the manager of our video department, he went down there to lock in the city bus and once again was met with resistance. So, I went down there and just so happened to know the girl working at the front desk’s sister, who had went to school with me. She was one of my good friends – a girl named Monica. I went down there and was like “girl, what’s up?” and she was like, “oh hey! you’re trying to shoot the video?” and we went from there. Her boss came out and had Frank White, a former Royals player with him and I’m like, “man, what’s up Frank White? Where’s the bus?!” I joked around with them for a minute.

Everybody in hip hop puts their city on. These people put their city on, and I want for my city to be on. Tech N9ne has put the city on, don’t get me wrong, but I want to put the city on for more than just hip hop. There’s a lot of things to see, great stadiums, we’re the sister city to Seville, Spain. I just wanted to display that if I have the format to do so.

What’s it like to have the press coverage you’ve had in Kansas City?

Well, one of the things is that Krizz Kaliko is synonymous to Tech N9ne. So, with a couple of them, their first questions were, “so how does Tech N9ne play into this?” and “is he gonna be there?” It’s hard because I am coming up under his shadow which is a gift and a curse. It’s a beautiful thing because he put me on.

The news outlets got misinformed, I think. They were like, “did Tech produce the song?”, and I said, “no, he provided the money” (laughs). Another common mistake is the pronunciation of my name. My name gets butchered. Because we’re putting more marketing into my album, I need everyone to spell my name correct and for them to know who I am. I couldn’t correct the news because it was already out there, but appreciate them covering me anyway. At least I got an impression on people who have maybe never heard of me.

What’s it been like filming “Talk Up On It” versus the previous videos in the past?

I think “Talk Up On It” is gonna come off as a more fun video. I’ve definitely never done that much dancing. I try to reinvent myself with every release. I think that that’s exactly what I did on this album. Travis has been trying to get me to make a singing album forever and I always resisted because I wanted for everyone to know that I can rap.

Now, I feel that a lot of people can connect to my singing songs more. Even though they love my rapping, but they really love the singing songs. Even when we released “Stop The World”, everybody keeps talking about it. That song gives them something to attach to, as opposed to my song “Girls Like That”. [Sings “Girls Like That”]. They relate a lot more to tragedy or loss. Those things will happen in people’s lives from time-to-time.

The response has been huge just from the songs you released prior to the album release.

I’m really proud of it. I think we’ve done more for this album and that was the whole idea for this album – just to GO. We really took that approach, period. We went further on our publicity, marketing, the music, and the performance. When I just performed this music for the first time, I performed with a twelve piece band. It wasn’t just like I added a guitar, drums, or DJ. I added 12 people. Tech called me up and said, “man, you know how Trav and I are always teasing you about trying to do too much? Keep trying to do too much.”

• What do you think of Krizz adding a 12 piece band to his music?
• What Kansas City landmarks have you noticed Strange Music’s videos?

Let us know in the comments section below!

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