Originally published in Verbicide issue #19

From our seats in the otherwise empty bleachers, a jagged red mountain framed the horizon of our scene, and all around us was desert and sky. Behind us, across the flat tracks, the Vegoose Music Festival was in full swing. On our walk from backstage to this strange and compelling location, we overheard The Raconteurs and Yonder Mountain String Band blaring in the distance. While two men flew remote control helicopters in the practice field adjacent UNLV’s Sam Boyd Stadium, I shot dice with Keith Thornton — better known as Kool Keith, Dr. Octagon, Keith Turbo, Black Elvis, Dr. Dooom, Mr. Gerbik, or Crazy Lou.

Las Vegas, the city of endless stimuli, was the ultimate backdrop for this psychedelic meeting; however, Keith bemused, “Las Vegas has its quiet settings. It’s the original town of cactus and open land. I think there are unidentified beings here because of the spaciousness, the spacious mouth of nature, it might be a guy with two heads.” We agreed that aliens are more apt to visit Vegas because of its proximity to Area 51, and Kool Keith himself is a rap astronaut and the self-proclaimed king of alien records: “I am a poetic author, and I can write professionally about space and do it the best.” Having become a classic fixture in the world or hip-hop, Keith is able to maintain his various personas, however odd they may appear to the masses, with sincerity.

This is no con. It’s a style.

Thornton was born in the Bronx, but he started getting into nature and space and was inspired to create music that expressed this concept when he moved to Los Angeles. “I think that Prince makes so much amazing music because he’s from Minnesota and there are tons of open spaces there,” he theorized. Just then, one of the remote helicopters zipped by and caught our attention. And Keith kept improvising. “I don’t necessarily have to be the future. I’m like a 1975 Rolls Royce or a ‘75 Corvette or a GTO or 442 Oldsmobile. It still looks futuristic. I think people get ‘futuristic’ mixed up.” At that point, I understood, that Kool Keith spans more than a generation of hip hop.

“I want my records to be timeless,” he continues. “Something you can pick up in ten years and it still makes sense.” Strangely enough, Dr. Oct seemed blissfully unaware of current trends. Proving that with quiet humility, he kept asking me about Myspace. I explained the wonderful concept of anyone being able to express themselves for their peers, and also the pitfalls of an obvious advertising and marketing machine. But Keith didn’t get it. He is stuck in an old world where artists paid their dues before they were noticed.

“Why is Joe Neckbone on the cover of a magazine?” Keith asked me, with a great degree of seriousness. “He doesn’t even have a story.”

On that note, he told me story about working with Ol’ Dirty Bastard. “We got some Kentucky Fried Chicken. I picked him up where he was staying in LA. We got some sodas and we made the song — it wasn’t like we emailed each other, or I emailed him the track. He did it right on the spot. He didn’t need to write it down. No paper — he just worked it out in pieces, by himself.”

Kool Keith is an old-fashioned man. He is demure and polite, and his ego is non-existent. His flow is clear because he believes in his style, unconcerned with fame and content to speak frankly about aliens, space, and gynecology — a true poet, as well as a musician and philosophizer.

I asked him if he ever wanted to be on television. And he told me that he wanted to be the Captain of the Enterprise on “Star Trek.” But with a cape.