The Gibson Interview: Keb’ Mo’, The Early Years

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The Gibson Interview: Keb’ Mo’, The Early Years
December 22, 2009
Aidin Vaziri
Gibson Lifestyle

Going through our archives the other day we were thrilled to come across this interview we conducted with Keb’ Mo’ in 1996, shortly after he had released his Grammy-winning sophomore album, Just Like You, and watched the title track become a leftfield hit. During our conversation the singer and guitarist talked about the challenges of growing up in Compton, how he discovered the blues and how he was dealing with having his face on VH1. Here are some of the highlights.

What’s it like hearing yourself on the radio?

I’m disconnected from the radio and the VH1 stuff. I’m connected with my performance, I go in, play and sign autographs and I’m there. As far as the radio stuff, I have to say I enjoy it and I’m grateful but at the same time I like to keep a distance from it because I don’t want to be influenced by it too much. I think if I had become some huge phenomenon with my first album, I don’t think I could have handled it. I just don’t think I was ready to take on that much. But I’ve found that the more successful my music becomes the more responsibility I have to take on and the more I have to search and keep myself centered.

Would you say your music comes from an intensely personal space?

I’d like for it to come from life. Intense personal stuff is harder for people to relate to and it’s harder to communicate. I like to communicate stuff that we’re all experiencing; things that I perceive that we all know. ‘Just Like You’ was something we all experienced through the OJ trial, so everyone was a part of that. My goal is to communicate. My music is a vehicle to communicate, just like a newscaster, actor or minister, ideas and concepts. Hopefully, those concepts are coming from some noble place.

How would you describe the typical Keb’ Mo’ live experience?

I’ll be there with my guitar. I sit down and perform. I’ll make a set-list. If people want to hear something, they’ll tell me and I’ll listen to them. I try to put on a good show and make them feel good the best I can. I draw a lot of couples. I get a lot of wholesome, healthy folks. Where I feel successful isn’t in the notoriety or the record sales, it’s when somebody says ‘I really connected with your material.’ It’s when they relate to it in a healthy place, and I can contribute to that attitude, rather than what you see on talk TV and the tabloids nowadays.

How did you survive Compton?

A lot of it was in school and my mother taking me to church. There was a principal in my school and he started to instill pride in the students. Along with the national anthem in the morning he would play the negro national anthem. It was a good time in Compton during that period, because there was a lot going on. I look at Compton now and it’s full of gang activity and there’s a negative vibe. But I still think the same thing is going on now but it just goes unnoticed.

At what point did music enter your life?

When the blues came in. I was always writing songs but when I added the blues what it did was complete the circle for me because it added history. It added integrity. It was my link as an Afro-American to my music and who I was became that much more clear to me. I saw what the old blues guys were writing about and they were writing about life in their time. So I chose to take my songwriting skills and this blues thing and started writing songs about my time. Rather than trying to go back and recreate the old blues or be an archivist I wanted to express myself and give respect to that genre. It added a richness to my music that I really have to give thanks to the old blues masters for. Taj Mahal talked a lot about the ancestral connection to the blues. I listen to what Taj is saying more than anything and what he feels so I can think about how I feel with.

Are you prepared for whatever comes next?

I’ve got 40 and some odd years behind me of tooling along. I didn’t get signed until I was 41. So I’ve got all this time behind me being who I am. I’ve had a lot of time with myself, of knowing myself, my failures and my successes. If this would have happened at the age that most people think that I am I would have been a wreck. I’d probably be out there on crack or something. I really like the fact that I have a history of knowing who I am and I want to keep that. I don’t want to give that up and replace it something that doesn’t have that in it.