The Further Adventures Of Kapabel and Inf
Gather round and I’ll tell you a story to stir your hearts and fire your imagination in these dark days beset by urban music. A tale of two heroes from the town of Utga who armed only with a mic and a crate of records embarked on a quest for the music that would banish the false Idols from their land forever. All that is known of them are their names: Inf, a Zen like figure who marked his followers with hickeys, and Kapabel, a man blessed with a flow so fierce that it touched all who heard it, even those not versed in the dark and mysterious ways of the Dutch. We meet at a secluded spot near a local brothel, and after the ritual sacrifice of Leffe and donuts, they revealed the truth about the myths documented in their debut EP De Avonturen van Kapabel en Inf.
Their story begins with an encounter with an elusive figure called De Vliegende Vloeitje…
Kapabel: That means the flying cigarette paper. It’s a metaphor for someone that wanders from one place to another. A whole lot of people in Holland blame a lot on smoking weed, like 'if I hadn't smoked weed I’d have finished school a year earlier and made three albums’. But it has nothing to do with weed, it’s just getting your arse off the couch. It’s ok to have these moments sometimes, but if you do it too much, you’ll become a vliegende vloeitje. And that’ll only end in a bad way.
It was this cautionary tale which gave rise to the EP’s title (and the slightly dodgy introduction to this article) through what some might call coincidence, others, fate.
Inf: After that track we knew we had to do a fairytale thing. I mean, I don’t think there have been any fairytale albums in hip hop.
Kapabel: And from that moment on Inf had to make a folder on his computer to put the track in, and he just went ‘I’m going to call this, whatever, ‘The adventures of Kapabel’. We really liked the name, so it stayed.
And so the legend was born.
The thing about fairytales is that they’re a lot of fun. By definition they’re stories told for amusement. That’s their charm and it’s this spirit which infuses De Avonturen and makes it so enjoyable to listen to.
Kapabel: My whole perspective on music is just that – putting a smile on people’s faces. For me it’s easier to start getting depressive and critical about stuff in lyrics. It’s easier to curse than not curse in a lyric.
Inf: It’s easier to make a dark beat than a happy beat.
Kapabel: Yeah, it’s ten times harder. If you’ve got a track like K.A.P.A.B.E.L, you just go all out as much as you can without blowing your voice out. But if you want to record a slow song like Tis Ok or Neem De Tijd you have to really control your voice and breathing as you hear everything on the mic. A few years ago I chose not to be the happy go lucky rapper, cos that’s not who I am. I’m a serious guy as well, and I see what’s going on in the world, so I write serious lyrics too. But the main point for me is to make music that people enjoy listening to.
Inf: And to enjoy making it too. Nowadays you see so many people who make music because it’s cool but we started because we have to do this, whether it gets put out or not.
It’s this burning passion for music that unites the pair and over the course of the evening it’s manifested every time they talk about it (in fact it’s all we talk about for 4 hours apart from a surreal diversion about Uri Geller) whether it’s Kapabel launching a blazing diatribe against Kanye West or Inf waxing lyrical about the latest break he’s dug up. There’s a brilliant moment at the end of the night when Inf plays us one last break before he evicts us from his lair, which turns into about twenty as he continues to pluck record after record from his rack. Sadly reality has to intrude at some point in the malevolent form of day jobs, but that doesn’t seem to bother Inf at all.
Inf: I have this fear that if I ever come to the point that I can live off making music, then it will become a job, something you have to do. And if you don’t do it, you can’t eat, so it becomes difficult and you end up losing your mojo. So I like where I’m at now, where I work 4 days a week and spend the rest of the time on music and doing the things I love and I don’t worry about not doing projects because they won’t make any money.
Like a project to bring the world the first hip hop fairytale record for example. One of the strengths of De Avonturen, and perhaps the most pertinent for an English audience, is that you can feel it without needing to understand every word of what Kapabel’s saying. Fortunately, this is something he feels entirely comfortable with.
Kapabel: If you can get the message across without people understanding the actual words, then it’s ten times more powerful. If I can make an English person understand what I’m saying in Dutch, then that would be my biggest accomplishment as a Dutch rapper. Hip hop isn’t about being handy with words, because I’m fucked up with words. I can’t write Dutch for shit, I got the worst grades possible at school. But I am good at bringing across what I feel about something. That’s what hip hop’s about, bringing across what you’re feeling at that moment and that’s what people react to. I love it when someone comes up to me and has a completely different idea of what I’ve said. Usually people are scared if I say that wasn’t what I meant, but if you hear something else in it, that’s just as good.
Inf: Absolutely. It’s like if you’ve read a book, and it’s made into a film, everyone has a different picture in their mind of how it will look. It’s the same with music, there’s no exact picture of how it is, you fill it in with your own ideas and perspective and experience. You can think of Mr Leugen on De Leugen Regeert as a friend or chick who double-crossed you. Everyone has their own interpretation of the song and when you make music you have to realise that someone else is going to take it completely differently.
As I did with that track. I had it down as a happy go lucky banger as it starts with a funky ass horn line that takes you away on a wave of optimism and is impossible to get out of your head. But that’s not entirely the feeling Kapabel intended to capture in his verses. It would seem there’s a dark chapter in every fairytale.
Kapabel: I really wanted to do something political but whatever I tried to write was really corny like ‘All politicians are liars and you shouldn’t listen to them’ and then I started to get angry so it doesn’t work. So after a while I thought the best way to do it was to make it easier to listen to, so people will listen to it again and again and eventually they might get the message.
And that’s why De Avonturen van Kapabel en Inf works so well for everyone. We get a fantastic record with depth that’s more rewarding with every listen and Kapabel and Inf get to do what they love, and do it well. Happily, plans are already afoot for a full album, which will move away from the fairytale theme but keep the work ethic of De Avonturen.
Kapabel: It’s going to have a similar approach, but there’ll be more boombap with harder hitting tracks like K.A.P.A.B.E.L and Beter Wel. But I’m not saying the whole thing is going to be bangers because that’s just not me.
Inf: If we do an album we want to have one sound and in this case, one producer. If you have a couple of beats from one cat and one from another, it doesn’t really work. All the old school stuff I love like Cypress Hill or Black Moon had one producer. They’re classic in that sense. You either love or hate the whole thing, not just one or two tracks.
And that’s the key to De Avonturen. While most people shy away from concept albums, if you put it on you’ll be too busy bugging out to notice the concept that runs through it. It’s just good music, plain and simple. Before he goes back to his endless quest for the perfect break Inf has time to drop one more pearl of wisdom to give us all hope to find our own happy ending.
I haven’t been happier since I changed jobs. I had a nice job, paid well, but it was stressful. Now I’m making less money, but I’m happier. If you do what you love, then you end up having it all.
If you haven’t already, then download De Avonturen here now and thank Kapabel and Inf later. And if you need any more convincing, I’ll set the dogs on you.