Five Things with Kid Kenobi

My dad is a muso so I grew up with music all around. The first music I recall hearing was Bob Marley’s album Uprising. There is a track on it called ‘Coming In From The Cold’ and I used to listen to it imagining all these people huddled under a shelter getting cold in the rain [laughs]. I was about four. We went to heaps of Dad’s gigs as a kid and even though at the time we’d have rather been at Luna Park or the movies, it was certainly a big influence on us musically!

2. Inspirations

I’m not sure I have any favourite musicians as such, but I’m always inspired by those artists who aren’t afraid to evolve and follow their own path, often to the point of obscurity and failure, and yet (hopefully) prove everyone wrong and ‘make it’. That’s what I love; artists with passion and authenticity.

3. Your Crew

Back in the day my crew was Q45, Ritual and Goodwill – they were the guys I started out with. That’s shifted and changed now and I’m not 100 per cent sure I have a ‘crew’ in that way anymore. I do run a label called Klub Kids, though, and that has a crew factor about it – though it tends to be a bit more of an ‘online’ posse than a ‘hang out’ crew.

4. The Music You Make And Play

As Kid Kenobi I’d call my style ‘breaks’. I’d moved away from that sound for a while but I’m back with it now. It’s sounding really fresh to me, plus not a lot of people are doing it, so it feels good to be doing my own thing again.

5. Music, Right Here, Right Now

This is a hard one to answer as I’ve been doing this for 20 years now! I think musically the scene is amazing with so many talented producers doing great stuff. On the negative, I do find people in clubs a little more disengaged than they were ten years ago. Obviously there are still some amazing clubs operating in Australia, but I think overall the ‘culture’ has gone a bit from clubs as clubs and DJs are no longer the epicentre of distributing new dance music to the general public; the internet is. So, in a way, they aren’t as ‘special’ anymore, their cultural value has decreased. I recall kids coming to hear me play as it was the only way they could hear certain tunes or tunes they’d never heard before, so they were super pumped to be in a club. Now we all seem to have the same music. It’s the downside of the internet revolution! Oh, and obviously the lockout laws are destroying things.

[Kid Kenobi photo byStephen Govel]