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Diverse.
Chicago MC Diverse sounds relaxed as he explains the reason behind the title of his new album '1AM.' It comes from a couple of different things," he explains. "Before I really delved into this record, I lived in a house with a couple of my friends who were very much a part of making music and laying down beats, so we had a basement studio where we did pre-production and we'd go down and often create. It sort of bugged me how often we'd go down and beat around until 1am - so [the title] was sort of like paying homage to where I've come from in terms of creating. That was many years ago. But also, I'm somebody who doesn't really gather my creative energies until well into the evening - I stay up until 6 o'clock, 7 o'clock every morning and then sleep 'til 12 in the afternoon, you know, so it's a reflection of where my creative energy comes from. The night time is the right time."
Chicago is the third largest US city and has a thriving underground hip-hop scene, yet hasn't seemed to break through in the way that other US scenes have. Diverse agrees: "I think there are numerous groups that are really solid and doing really well, but I think what it's going to take is more of a collective energy and a collective approach. I think the scene is sort of isolated here and its different to the New York scene and the LA scene where they seem to have a great amount of support for local artists, regardless of whether they're in their crew or not," he suggests. "People really go out and support local talent - and I think that's something that we've been missing, but it's really starting to grow here in Chicago. So if you ask my opinion on what it would take for Chicago hip-hop to really gain momentum is just a little bit of a collective force. People say that Chicago is one of the toughest places you can play, like if you can make it in Chicago you can go out and do it anywhere, but it's been a process. I've had to work it - Chicago's not one of those places where you touch a mic and everyone goes crazy. There's a lot of b-boys and people involved in the culture and you think 'I've gotta work hard to impress them.'"
It could all have been very different for Diverse. Back when he was Kenny Jenkins he'd been accepted into Northern Illinois University on a partial baseball scholarship, but after joining the football team he tore his anterior cruciate ligament, sidelining his dreams of athletic stardom. However, it was during his convelescence in Chicago that he began to take his music seriously.
"It takes certain things to happen to make you realise what you really want in life," he shrugs. "I mean, who knows? If I hadn't injured myself I might still be pursuing an athletic career, but I'm actually pretty happy with the way things turned out. Writing was something I always did, I always wrote poetry and freestyled with friends and everything, but it wasn't until I came back from school when I had that injury that I really started getting involved in performing in shows and collaborating."
Diverse is not only reticent to define his own style, but also seemingly unwilling to categorise his music as even being exclusively within the genre of rap. "I don't really try to put it in a box, like saying 'it's this' or 'it's that' - for me it's just something that I do," he insists. "I don't really try to analyse it or over-think it: I wrote poetry, I write words, whatever, regardless of whether there's a beat, because I get into situations where I get inspired where I don't have anything to write to. Having a basis where I started not even writing to music I think it should stand us as writing at any point in time: it could be perceived as raps, or poetry, or MCing or whatever label people want to put on it.
I write serious things, whether it was just writing down what my day was like, you know what I'm saying?" he chuckles. "I think that it benefits me to not really let days go by where I don't at least sit down with a pen and express some of the things that are on my mind, you know? It's something that has assisted me - I love what I'm doing and the time I spend doing it, so it's always a priority for me."
As for his hip-hop moniker, he explains "I was born in a very diverse ethnic neighbourhood, you know, I grew up and spent time with many different cultures and I think it has informed me and given me a broader perspective on how to relate to people, and that's reflected in the music. Also, I've listened to many different types of music throughout my lifetime - it's not like I came out of the womb listening to hip-hop," he laughs. "I just say that 'diverse' is an assessment of my character - not to sound pretentious, you know -whether in music or in my life, they're one and the same."
Andrew P Street
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Diverse performs with Madlib and Peanut Butter Wolf at Traffic on Sat 6 March.
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