Civil Scope: Kris Kasanova
by Staff Editor
Where are you from and how has your hometown influenced your career?
Kris Kasanova: I’m from Red Hook, Brooklyn. It’s a one way in, one way out type neighborhood. It influenced me with the good and bad. For every hood it’s like a trap, getting into the wrong things and getting stagnant and settling. I saw too many close friends on the block and when I come home from work. They wasn’t even getting money, just being there. I’m looking at that and I was thinking I want something different for myself. When I was 22 my son was born and I wanted more for him too. It taught me how to hustle, how to grind. For it to be the way it is it made me want to get away from it.
How did you come up with your name?
Kris Kasanova: My name is Kristopher with a k and Kasanova was something that was real smooth. I was a Big Daddy Kane fan, as well as a Biggie Smalls fan and I felt something like Kris Kasanova was similar to that. Something that was cool. It almost sounds like a pimp in ways and as a youngin I was always very charming and able to finagle and move in and out and make things happen for myself. I thought the play on the Kasanova was going to be real smooth and make something for me.
When did you start taking rap seriously?
Kris Kasanova: Just like everybody else you freestyling in the lunchroom and everything. I was 18 when I got in a real studio and it was cool but it was more so saying I was doing something instead of realizing I could make something out of it. I lost my job and I didn’t have a source of income, I was nervous, my son was born and I wanted to provide. I started to rely on my craft and making music. I dropped my first project, A Long Way Home, I got a really good feedback from it. Flight Club was my sponsor for it and I gained a lot of fans and recognition from it. It wasn’t like the money came but it became something I could rely on and be a therapy to help me through what I was in. Eventually, I got my job back but I had something to rely on.
You mentioned Kane, Big, what other influences you have?
Kris Kasanova: My father was an artist as well. he did records with Mary J. Blige, Big L and Big Pun. This was actually my stepfather and I wanted to be like him. My mom was a saint, she went to church and stuff like that and my pops was a street dude. I was dressing like him, they was calling me the young him. He was really my big influence and put me on to – my mom was into Jodeci, he was the one who said, “these are the guys you should look into.” He never gave me enough to be like “yo we going to do this together” but enough for me to make it my home.
Your new project, Always Something, what was the inspiration behind it and the creative process for it?
Kris Kasanova: Truth be told I was working on another project and it was more uptempo, it was a lot more live and mores what the sound of what cats are doing now. It was cool, my bars were good and the production was hard but it didn’t sound as well as Always Something. I’m more strategic and try to write my stuff before I step in the studio but this time it was more off of emotion and feeling. It was something that just spoke to me and felt right. Even on the title track, it was just a lot the was happening. Ti was hard to make records of slick talking and having fun when I really wasn’t. I worked this nine to five, I’m chasing this dream, I’m a father, I’m losing friends and family members, my cousin got killed, somebody I consider to be my little brother got killed as well. It was a constant negativity around but it was just perfect.