Simon Amon

One of the most frequently asked questions to me is:
‘What kind of music do you make?’
I usually respond with something like:
‘Love Music.’
‘No, I mean what genre?’

Phew I really don’t know, and I am not quite sure if I want to know. It might affect the freedom I feel writing music, not caring about anything outside of my own experience. Isn’t this something other people should decide? Whether it is culturally credible to interview me for a rock magazine or not? Whether it is ‘street’ enough for a hip hop head to dig my music and say it out loud without damaging his own credibility?
To be honest, I couldn’t care less. You say I make R‘nB? So I am an R’nB-singer! He says I make soul music? Fine! She says it’s hip hop? All good!
I think she is right, though. If I had to pick one myself, I would say I make hip hop. Hip Hop in an evolved eclectic stage, where it takes shapes very comparable to so many multiple genres and artists. There are many great and many unknown artists who have inspired me heavily. Every period of listening to each of the inspirators taught me something, brought me closer to my own sound. I like to look at this as my own impression of hip hop’s sample culture. Hip Hop has its first draft of a mature generation today. Our (former) heroes are now either dead or wiser men with wrinkles and graying hair. It’s all new. No one has been here before us, no one knows where hip hop will take us. But we all know where it comes from, from the heart. We all could connect to the uncoated way of telling a very personal, unjust truth. We all feel there should be equal opportunities for everyone. We all feel things like racism and xenophobia do not belong in this fresh century. The whole concept of ‘gangsta’ in hip hop, the ideal of being seen as a gangster, is dangerous. I firmly believe the majority of the people who listen to contemporary hip hop dramatically miss the point. By now, it should function as a metaphor, the embodiment of change for the better. An example of someone who never forgot where he came from, but managed to drag himself out of misery into a life of abundance by using everything he learned in the jungle. That means we all need to adapt to a certain level. A ‘gangsta’ is a survivor. No matter what the circumstances, he or she survives by any means. A ‘gangsta’ is someone who takes matters into his own hands and manipulates his luck. Someone who speaks highly of things as loyalty, honesty, righteousness and family. All of this is subjected to surviving. Call it the ten commandments, call it the way of Buddha, the Torah or the Koran. In the end we all want to be happy and ‘pimp’ our lives.

We sample, we learn, we imitate, then we release and innovate.

In the name of Hip Hop worldwide.

Yours truly,

Simon Amon