JUNK magazine : ART AND KRAFT

“It’s one of the richest art forms out there. It’s musical. It’s cultural. It’s historical. It’s a business. It’s a lifestyle.”

Kraft, the new up and coming MC that’s been tearing up Malaysia’s hip hop scene in recent months, is enthusing about why hip hop is not just another genre. His brashness is a little unsightly, sure, but you can’t put down the enthusiasm of a man that sounds like he really believes in what he does.

Kraft is one Aman Dhillon, a patriotic KL-ite and rhyme-thumping rapper who’s earned his chops by sweeping the #1 spot at the finals of MC Vandal’s freestyle/rap battle Think You Got Skillz? in April. Prior to this, most of Kraft’s tracks were collaborations with other MCs such as Ad Voc, MC Rishi, Jeevz and even songstress Melissa Indot. But now, the man’s working on some singles that should be hitting the airwaves soon. “Hopefully they will be on Malaysian radio as soon as possible,” he says. “Besides that, I got a few other projects and ventures I hope will materialise really soon, once my top priority to-do list is done with.”

What this “top priority to-do list” is isn’t immediately clear, but it’s probably not going to stray too far from Kraft’s ability to string together some smart lines, like his MySpace description of himself that reads, “Rare character, so pardon my swagger. Your neighborhood’s blockbuster. College dropout. Enjoys networking and conversations. A sweetheart without a sweet heart. Hustler entrepreneur.”

That “sweetheart without a sweet heart’ bit isn’t entirely true. Kraft gives endless props to his fellow MCs, overloads his blog with classic videos of Malaysian hip hop acts, and appears to have a distinct respect for the history of the scene that he’s currently elbowing around in. “Altimet, since his debut, is probably one of the very few hip hop figures who owned his own business ventures from the very start,” he says. “Then there’s Too Phat. As a group, Malique and Joe Flizzow set standards for commercial hip hop music locally. They did it again with their solo albums. And of course there’s Vandal. He was the first guy I heard freestyling on Malaysian radio.”

Kraft is definitely a “hustling entrepreneur”, however, building his curriculum vitae up from dust to street-cred notoriety, and even bagging some awards [Best Hip-Hop Song and Best Collaboration at the Voize Independent Music Awards (VIMA)]. But accolades aside, what sets Kraft apart is his almost-philosophical obsession with the mode by which he has chosen to operate in. “Personally at this point of time, I’m making ‘spoilt brat turned hustler’ music,” he says. “I’m talking about stuff you know and I know, stuff that you probably should know that I know, stuff that you and I would love to know more about.” Yeah, got it.

WORDS THE GEEK PHOTO HAMZAH NAZARI

www.myspace.com/kraftonline

*Taken from Junk's June 2009 issue