A conversation with Keno Mapp
By kSea flux
(accidental beauty)

To the reader – this is as raw as it gets. This wasn’t even supposed to be included in the magazine, but Keno swung by after just getting his master a few minutes before, we started talking, started having an amazing conversation, and luckily I had Bobzilla’s recorder in my RV still. When I asked him if I could record, he said yeah – and this is it. I ran it past him after Nilambari spent many hours making it into words, and thankfully Keno agreed to let it be set down for the world to read. His exact words were “WOW!!!! We said that? That just put a big smile on my face friend. Yes!!!!”

I never had any intention of including this as an interview, and I was just recording it so I could remember some things that he said and include some key points in the review of his new CD, give it a small blurb, as the tunes, though incredibly beautiful, didn’t really match up with what I think you might expect from Big Top – but I just read it, and damn, I don’t think I could have chosen not too as a caring human. It has so much love, so much caring, and so does Keno’s music. Intertwined with a sound that makes you want to groove are lyrics so wonderful I reached down, and went past what I  want and embraced what needs to be.
  It has barely been edited at all, I just corrected some spellings, took out a couple redundancies, and he filled in some information - but what you get is essentially the pure, uncut conversation between Keno and me while sitting in my tiny little motor home, with no prescribed direction, with no thought of having it here, with no intention that it would ever be included in it’s entirety. We both spoke incredibly freely as a result, and there are things that you will never read anywhere else, and otherwise would never know – but it needs to be read, and his music needs to be heard. - kSea....

Keno:  So, yeah, that was put into the first album World War Peace, the whole message.  I had this thing where I had been lucky to see things before they come, so this was well before war, well before the whole Bush phenomenon and Sadam and all that stuff.  The first album I had ‘How Do Teach Your Child About War?’ on there. ‘You Gotta Believe,’ ‘What is Waiting on Us Tomorrow?’ Things like this.  It was this whole driven, spiritual thing, an insight of what goes on later on.  But then when I did the album, when it came out I was just not happy with it.  Then also, I did it through a record company that didn’t do any marketing or anything, so it just tanked, basically.  It sat there on the shelf. So then I said to myself, ‘Well, what do you do?  First time you’re lucky, second time you’re good.’  Back in the studio.  My family was like, ‘Oh, no, not again.  You’re going to do that.  You’re gonna put us through it again,’ and I’m like, ‘Yeah. I came here to do something.  I’m gonna do it right.  I was pulled the last time.  This time I’m gonna follow my instinct and do it in my fashion. Sure enough, for the last year and a half, year and 8 months has been putting this together.  It’s really cool because when the spirits came, they gave the album so much love.  I mean all of them, High Street Studios – Those guys are $150/hour for the studio, $150 for the engineer, so you’re dealing with $300/hour, and I got rates of, like, 40 bucks because I have a friend that works there who gets hours because he engineers there.  So he was selling me his hours.  You know? Things like that, and then the musicians coming in.  They’re just, I mean, these guys get paid top dollar, like Uriah Duffy.  He’s touring with White Snake now.  Ira Black, he’s just sick on the guitar, he’s playing with Lizzy Borden.

kSea:  No shit? Lizzy Borden is still around?

Keno:  Lizzy Borden, man.  Last Thursday they did Sweden Rock, so they’re over in Europe right now.  B’nai RebelFront, he played guitar with Lyrics Born and he’s just the hidden secret of Oakland that’s blowing up right now.  He’s opening for Bilal at DNA next week or something like this.  He’s like Prince. Young cat, plays all the instruments. He’s just really off the chain. It’s funny cos B’nai [?] – See I was in New York doing a show and the girls (The Punany Poets) were playing this music, and I was thinking, ‘Oh, shit.  Who the hell is that?’ [imitating girl’s voice] ‘Oh, that’s B’nai..  You don’t know who B’nai is?’ with the neck twitching.  [laughs] ‘You don’t know who B’nai is?’ you know.  Then, sure enough later, about a week later, we were at the Scion Party.  We did Scion two years ago,– You know, Alcatraz Scion?  But before that, we were at Ft. Mason. opening up with Vau de Vire.  I was looking, ‘Who is this brother up here ripping this guitar, right?’  Sure enough, Uriah plays the bass for Lyrics Born as well,  So Uriah comes off and he introduced him to me, ‘This is B’nai.. I’m like, ‘Dude, I met you in New York by way of a bunch of girls who were mad at me cos I didn’t know who you were.’  [laughs]  That was a really neat little connection– how everything just mashed together, you know?  Then Durga McBroom, of course, from Pink Floyd.  She’s on there wailing her lovely  voice.  And our lovely Angelo Moore, Officer Moore aka Dr. Madd Vibe. Gosh, man!  He played on all those horns – tenor, sax, baritone, the big ol’ dog sax and Madd Vibed the hell out of it.  Stefania from The Vau De Vire Society.  She sang background vocals on ‘Underdog.’ My sweet daughter, she graduated from high school last year and got the Lewis Armstrong Award for the best musician at the school, playing trumpet.  So she played trumpet on the album with Angelo. [sighs exasperatedly] Gosh, man.  Just crazy.  Then Uncle Funky – you know, jamming with Gooferman. Uncle Funky, me and him went to high school together. Uncle Funky is Juan. He plays that funky guitar. 

kSea:  Okay, so he’s one of the newer members.

Keno:  Yes, Juan – His real name is Juan Richardson, and we went to high school together. We were in my first band in high school. We performed at the talent show, did ‘Gigolos Get Lonely Too’ by Morris Day and the Time, hot you know, he’s on there. Atma Anur, drummer. He played with David Bowie and Journey. He’s in Poland right now.  They have an Atma Anur day. He’s just a mad scientist for drums, you know?

kSea:  How’d you get all these people?

Keno:  Friends! That’s why I was saying how the spirit just moves and everyone’s just coming. I’m just calling out, like, ‘Hey,’ – like B’nai.  He just happened to be in San Francisco.  I’m like, ‘B’nai, what are you doing? I’m at Hyde Street. Come down.  Bring your guitar.’ ‘What am I gonna do?’ ‘I don’t know, just bring yourself down here.’ [laughter]  Then Atma who’s the drummer – He’s just very technical about these things.  ‘Why is B’nai coming?’ I’m like, ‘Don’t worry, don’t worry, don’t worry.  I don’t know.’  To be really honest, I only heard B’nai play that night.  I didn’t even know his skills. He just came in and ripped it up on the first song, so everything just moved completely out of spirit.  Azalove, my love, I think she’s the best singer in the damn world. We run with Vau de Vire but she hasn’t been out on stage yet, but boy, she just sings so beautifully.  She sang on about five of the songs, just so beautifully, it gives me goose bumps.  Even Nigel the dog is on the CD.  There’s a dog.  See we did one song, “Senseless Murder where Angelo did all the music on it.  He did all the music because the guys did the song at first, we redid it and redid it but I didn’t like the rhythm.  Angelo was like, ‘I’ll do it, I’ll do it.’  [laughs]  So he came up with the whole Madd Vibe Orchestra version of ‘Senseless Murder’ and we went down to LA and there was a dog in the studio and he was having a moment so we recorded the dog growling on there. My sister came, and she just had a brand new baby. The baby Princess Kimiko started crying, so we got the baby crying on there with the dog growing to protect the baby. Just so insane.  Then Ricardo Scales with his piano. The album goes from funk –  I re-did ‘Underdog’ from Sly and the Family Stone, so you got them real funky horns – then I got my rock, my hard edge rock.  “You Gotta believe” it’s a rockin, hard rock song. Then Ricardo Scales playing on Frank Sinatra’s old white baby grand piano came and did a song total classical, beautiful, then my spoken word, of course I got my spoken word and the national anthem, “America” which is a Prince cover. 

kSea:  I had no idea what to expect.  I never heard your music before or anything like that.  Knowing you as a person, you’re incredibly spiritual and loving and quiet and serene.  So, honestly, I was expecting this Yanni kind of shit.  I hit yor myspace page  and I’m listened to your tunes honestly not expecting to hear what I did. ‘Oh shit, this is fucking good!’  I must admit - I was relieved. You gots some delicious funk...

Keno: I got a little twist, cos people look at me and see the name –

kSea:  The CD, you know, the title is ‘Heart Touch.’ Friggin hippie.

Keno:  Uh-huh.  All fighty-fight, but boy, when you put it in, you’re getting like [crunch sound].  The band I had in Berlin, the name of the band was ‘Cute’ because we were anything but cute.  People, they have their impressions and they see you and all this stuff, and they wonder, and then – you know my big thing, you know, I do the inspirational poetry so my whole thing has always been to try to help – try to help, try to help the planet, help inspire, show people it can be done.

kSea:  That’s the exact – that’s one of the main reasons behind the magazine.  Tomorrow I get to interview someone who has a circus, a grass-roots circus, in Bangkok.

Keno:  [gasps]  Wow.

kSea:  What she does – there are two, actually two I’m interviewing there but I’m interviewing her tomorrow – she performs for and holds workshops for the refugees there, for the children, for the places that just don’t have much to smile about.  [inaudible]  I saw pictures of this immense crowd and every face was just shining bright with a smile. I want to do.  That’s what I want to do through the magazine, introduce people to each other.  I interviewed Maya from Fou Fou Ha! a couple of days ago and I was talking about it and I was telling her how much I love watching Fou Fou Ha! because it just warms me inside.  I asked her if she’d ever thought of performing at hospitals and things like that? She goes, ‘No. That sounds great!’

Keno:  Oh my God, that would be so great.

kSea:  So she’s gonna look into that, and I’m feeling, ‘Wow, cool.’

Keno:  That’s really a good idea. I came from a really crazy upbringing, kSea, here in Oakland. I lived in France for five years in the south, I lived in Berlin three years, I lived in Spain a year, in Sweden a year, Hawaii – like, seven years.  Always back and forth, but I had a crazy upbringing here, very violent.  I lost my sister. She got shot at our house.  Father was a pimp, my mother was a prostitute back in the 1970’s and all this stuff.  They were running all of San Pablo and all of that. So I’ve always felt, especially as an African-American, this thing to show people that, regardless of what you go through – regardless of what you go through, you still have the ability to love. You still have the ability to believe in yourself. Your dreams are not dreams.  It’s very funny because –

kSea:  Not ‘only’ dreams.

Keno:  Not ‘only’ dreams, yeah.  We’re so surrounded by – I feel like a lot of people left their dreams a long time ago. They stuck themselves in the office.  I don’t draw no more, I don’t paint no more, I don’t even go out anymore.  I just watch TV, I just play video games.  That whole life-drive that they had when they were kids really has left a lot of people, and now that we’ve been at war for so long, under financial strains for so long, people are so not feeling, ‘I don’t believe impossible, nothing’s possible, nothing’s going to work.’  It’s been an ongoing thing.  It’s not just now, it’s been years.  I don’t know if people realize – years.  Then, when you look at the entertainment world – television, TV – how the big man runs that and just pumps all of this poison into the damn market, especially the African-American community.  I mean, I love me some Tupac but I just ain’t swinging with all of the mainstream stuff that they put out today and have been putting out.  It’s very destructive.  So, this thing is to show something positive, show an alternative in music, a real alternative – because a lot of people, I think – American Idol killed it for a lot of people. [laughs]  It ain’t like that, man! It’s not like that.  So, what I’ve been trying to do is say to the world, ‘Hey! You know, you can go through hell. I’ve been through hell, man.  I know what it smells like.’  My grandmother told me, ‘When you’ve been to hell and back, you know what it’s like so you can go to the light.’  I’ve been through hell, I swear. I’ve seen the devil.  That mother fucker is way up close and personal in my face. I refuse, regardless of what goes down, I totally refuse to let it take me over or take over my inner ability, my inner dreams to make positive things, beautiful things.

kSea:  Yeah, refuse to take let it take away your spirit and drive and make you forget about your dreams, and the wonder you had as a child.

Keno:  Or get in line, and be like everyone.  That’s just ludicrous.  Everyone is individual and everyone has so many beautiful, beautiful things about themselves.  With the thing of losing your way, so to speak, people start to follow other people, or America.  ‘Let me do like this and let me do like that.’  But each individual is just so beautiful, like a snowflake.  Everyone is so different and so, so beautiful but we’ve been in this mad place where those kinds of things have been forgotten or we’ve been told that you’re not a beautiful snowflake.  ‘If you look like that snowflake over there, then you’re beautiful,’ you know?  That’s just such a lie, it’s such a lie.  Or, ‘Oh, you don’t have a lot of dough, a big house and you don’t fit in.  You don’t have a shiny car so you don’t fit in.’ All these little rules and regulations.

kSea:  Yeah, or you don’t have any money so you can’t really do anything.  But I mean, look, without a fucking red cent, I’m working on a borrowed computer because all the programs killed my other laptop, a borrowed recording device and taught myself how to make a website, starting in February.  I’m constantly learning without any knowledge, without any money on how to do it, it’s just something that I felt needed to be done because there wasn’t anything like that out there to introduce the artists that could brighten the world to others.  San Francisco was pretty tight, then some Portland, and some in LA – All these amazing, amazing circuses and performers but no one really knows what’s going on in the rest of the world, and I want them to be introduced to each other and at the same time let the rest of the world know.  I’m hoping this will eventually be able to afford to go into print.  I want someone who’s in the rat race who’s doing the daily grind and getting ground down to walk by a magazine stand at Borders and see this cover of these amazing kids and think, ‘Oh, wow.  What the hell’s going on?’ and see that there are people his age doing phenomenal things as well.  Or her age.  And just get inspired to let the heart shine again.

Keno:  Yeah, let the heart shine again.

kSea:  Bring the shine back into the eyes – hope and wonder and dreams and love.

Keno:  Yeah, love. Oh, l’amore.  Gosh, that is the most important, most important, highest power that there is.  That’s why I walk by and stand by.  People call me ‘old-fashioned.’  [kSea laughs]  So what? I don’t care.  People look at me and they say, ‘Is he gay?’ I get so many strange titles.

Back to Top

kSea:  Well goddamnit, Keno, let’s make it the new fashion!

Keno:  Yeah, that’s the new fashion.  Be your damn self and be happy.  One time I was inside of Berlin and actually this old guy was walking down the street.  This old guy came and he was like, ‘Be proud.  Be proud if your hair’s long.’  I don’t know if I had a look on my face or something. He was just like, ‘Be proud.  Be beautiful.’

kSea:  Nice.

Keno:  Yeah.  I was like, ‘Yeah!’ [laughter]  That whole thing is just – you really have to – it’s hard to, but I think it’s only hard when you look too far out of your own heart because inside of your own heart, I think everyone really has their own individual answers.  It’s just that when they start to go out of that, they start to wonder, ‘Well, who’s going to approve of this? Is this okay? Is this how I’m supposed to do it?’ and yada-yada-yada-yada-yada.  That’s where folks lose, I think, because really it is within inside of your own make-up to make something beautiful, individual – that individual snowflake, so to speak. 

kSea:  And it doesn’t matter where you’ve been. For a few years of my life, I was a fucking [herion] junkie. Before that and after I was a meth head.  I was a really hardcore drug addict for a lot of my life, 6'2 and 130 lbs. at the worst - but then luckily got away from that. During that time in my life watched as an acquantance slowly died from being shot in the stomach, an agonizing ten, 20 minutes. Watched people I considedered friends die a lot slower - and heard of others on top of that. Realized when I got off the shit that I was still alive, beyond all odds. . Then I tried to do the whole typical American life, get a real job. Did it for years, and did it well. In the end I was wearing these fancy suits and all that stuff, and realized how unhappy I was doing that.  This was only a few years ago, probably four of five years ago, and just said, ‘Screw it,’ gave all that up.  Exactly at that time I got connected with the Dresden Dolls and became pretty much the ‘den mother.’  They had this Dresden Dolls Brigade, who are people, usually kids, mostly amateur, who bring life into the performances.  In the audience, they dress up and perform and create the space, so you’re in a show not just watching one.  So, it was my job from my computer and wherever I was living at the time, to bring these kids together and organize them and it was fun! It was wonderful.  I was like the den mother.  A few of them said that I did change their life.  I know a couple of them that are still performing now and just doing a phenomenal job. That step went into street performance and working through that, and being who I am instead of what society says I should be in order to be a “productive American citizen” by society's standards. . 

Keno:  Wow, that’s such a heavy ride, man.  Right now, since I left my job last month – it was a 30-day leave of absence.  I decided last week it’s going to turn into a 60-day leave of absence. 

kSea:  Right on.

Keno:  I decided yesterday that I’m going to try my damnedest not to go back.  [laughs]  I did it for this.  This cost me some dough.  A lot of people buy new cars and all this stuff or buy a house.  I said, ‘Let me do something I can put on here,’ and that’s legacy, basically. I got the old Volvo, man, and she’s leaking water like crazy right now and I don’t know if I’m gonna get back to the house. [laughs]

kSea:  Well we’ve got a hose if you need one. [laughs]

Keno:  But I’m fine, you know! That whole idea – I’ve gotten up and left two times –  This is my third time leaving.  I always worked with legal. I work with attorneys and all of this stuff, and I’m good at what I do, but I left before to tour with the Punany Poets, the Punany Poets from HBO Real Sex with the Magic Johnson AIDS Foundation.  We do Erotic Poetry.  Sex Education Theater.  We would get, you know, mainly a couple’s show.  A lot of couples, they don’t communicate with each other.  They talk to us more about their sexual questions and desires and stuff than they would do with their own partners. So, we would have dancers and we would talk about sexual issues to help keep them together, that big taboo in America.  ‘Ahhh, sex!’  I was touring with those guys a lot, and I left my job to do that.  Then I went back and I’ve left again to move to Berlin, and I’m back, and I just left again, the third time. [laughs]

kSea:  Third time’s a charm! [laughs]

Keno:  Third time’s a charm!  I tell you, kSea, just – hold your thumbs for me, man, because I so am not going back. 

kSea:  There’s no reason to.  I mean, I’m not making a damn dime.  I’m hoping the magazine will eventually support itself but I’ve just got my first paid advertiser a couple of days ago, and I was excited! I had all this money – well, not ‘all this money,’ but enough to basically get a burrito, sit in a café and have a cup of coffee, walk around San Francisco and not say, ‘Oh, wow, my pockets are empty.  I wish I could have a candy bar or a buy some water or something.’  I don’t know if you know about the show I am producing.  August 8, 2008.  The money is going straight back into that because I’m like, ‘Okay, somehow this needs to make money.  The word needs to get out about the magazine,’ so it’s ‘Big Top Presents - Revolution.’

Keno:  Wow!

kSea:  The definition I have on ‘Revolution’ is – ‘The orbiting of one heavenly body around another.’

Keno:  You know what?  I looked at your site the other day, your site. 

kSea:  Yeah?

Keno:  I could tell you, kSea, it’s going to do very well.

kSea:  Yeah, I hope. That's all I can do. I’m redesigning it right now, now that I’ve learned all this Photoshop stuff with creating the flyers.  Check it out.

Keno:  Wow. 

kSea:  What I want to do in the future – this is a show put together because I know most of these people and so I went the easy route.  What I want to do is eventually have shows through the purpose of the magazine.  Throw them together, have them fit well, but with performers who normally don’t perform together, or who wouldn’t.  Lapsus is this kind of creepy, goth-y belly dance troupe and most people in the circus world don’t really know about them.  Things like that. I know Wandering Marionettes and Lapsus will fall in love with each other because they’re both kind of dark and beautifully unsettling.

Keno:  Where is it going to be at?

kSea:  Fat City.

Keno:  Down the street, Folsom and Harrison.  Fat City.  Did that used to be the Pound, or the Z? Not the Pound, but the Z?

kSea:  It used to be a bunch of things. So did we.

Keno:  Well that’s going to be hot-hot-hot.

kSea:  I definitely want to do this at least bi-annually, maybe three times a year, if I have the energy to do it, if I get some people to help me out on the website and updating, and other people writing.  Then, just focus on going in all these directions – having the magazine, and then through the magazine creating these shows which brings the magazine to life.  Boe has the phenomenal idea of having a circus fest – yearly, three days long, just taking over San Francisco, essentially.

Keno:  That sounds hot-hot-hot.  That sounds really hot, man.  Wow, that’s fun, man.  That looks good.  I’ve got to get you my book, my inspirational poetry book as well. It’s called “Senseless Murder”. 

kSea:  Please, definitely do.

Keno:  Because I write, just insanely.  I just can’t stop writing, unfortunately.  [laughter]

kSea:  Yeah.  Me, too.  There was a time when I went through journals like water

Keno:  Yeah, that’s hot.  That’s really hot.  Yay, kSea.  I’m proud of you, man.

kSea:  It feels good. It feels good to do something and I’m telling you, man.  Today I woke up and I was just like, ‘Oh, God. I don’t want to do this anymore. I don’t have the energy.’  Having your presence here is really, really helping. 

Keno:  Yay, thank you.

kSea:  Just warmed me up and saying, ‘Okay, there’s a reason behind this,’ because I was like, ‘You know what? Fuck it.  I’m hungry and nothing’s happening.’  Sometimes it feels like – even though it isn’t this, I create it in myself – like there’s just like so much indifference to the magazine.  Trying to contact people to get interviews and it’s just constantly running and constantly working and busting my ass.  Yeah, they’re busy, too, I understand that.  I need to remember that.  This is the most impostant thing in my life, but I need to remember that their life is their life, and while my life is completely focused on the magazine, theirs isn’t necessarily.  [laughs]

Keno:  You know what, on the album – will you play the second track?  Number two & ten. This is for you.

kSea:  You got it.

Keno:  It’s just something, man.  kSea, I know exactly how you feel, man.  It’s just that you gotta believe.  The hunger, the food, the money, the blah-blah-blah-blah-blah.  Ya gotta believe, you know.  I think that’s something that I think is easier said than done, especially when it starts raining like crazy.,  Then when it’s raining so dog-gone awfully, it’s very easy to fall into other peoples’ reality.  I don’t know you 100%, but I know your spirit enough to be like, ‘Oh, no no no.  kSea can’t really have a bad day [laughter] because kSea believes.’

kSea:  I have bad days, let me tell you. Bad weeks. There's something behind the whole "ignorance is bliss" thing - and many times I wish I could just simply be nothing...

Keno:  This is more on the rock side.

[song plays]

kSea:  There was a little bit of Lenny Kravitz in there! Along with Bad Brains, and old school, too. Fuck yeah!

Keno:  You got to believe.  That’s the big ticket, man, with what you’re doing, with what you’re all doing.  It just takes you from beginning to end.  You gotta believe. 

kSea:  And keep going.  That’s the toughest thing sometimes.  But you have to…you have to try, at the very least.

You can hear more of Keno's music and find more about him at www.myspace.com/kenomapp and www.mooremapprecords.com