Q&A Interview With San Jose Veteran Kung Fu Vampire

What was the earliest hip hop memory you can recall Kung Fu Vampire?

I was breakdancing to N.W.A, Busta Rhymes, Cypress Hill & others when I was a little tiny kid. I started breakdancing at 5 years old

Who’re some artists that inspire you?

Run the Jewels, all the new female hip hop artists out right now have completely taken over my brain like Megan Thee Stallion, Kash Doll, Rico Nasty, Leikeli47 & Doja Cat.

Tell me what it was like growing up in San Jose.

Low rider culture, the best street tacos on the planet, skateboarding, fight city, watching a city grow from Apricot Orchards to being the 8th largest city in the country & growing. I’ve been shot at several times growing up arrested several times, but overall San Jose has been a fun beautiful experience & I’m proud to be living in the nicest weather in the country.

Your evolution over the years has been insane. What motivates you?

I’m motivated by a lot of things, the main one being that I feel stagnant if I do the same thing too long & I find creative ways to evolve without changing my core beliefs course styles & core rhythms. I feel like growing is the only way to live & if you’re experiencing a lot of things in life you will be influenced by new things & learn to find yourself & things that work for you even better. For me I just enjoy constantly switching it up. You never know what you’ll get with Kung Fu Vampire.

What’re your top 5 favorite horror movies of all-time?

Saw 1 & 2, Drag Me to Hell, House of 1000 Corpses, Army of Darkness & Cabin in the Woods.

Last summer, you dropped your 5th album Come Dawn. What was the inspiration behind that?

The 1980s has become a huge influence on me in the last 5 years, the synth wave, dark wave cyber punk, back to the future, DeLorean’s, all the new wave synthpop is my favorite music now. I wanted to make an album that is sassy & provocative & a bit more simple. But like all my my albums prior, there‘s a huge range of style on this record.

Our most important question, what is your definition of underground hip hop?

The true definition of underground hip-hop to me is lyricism & culture combined with graffiti breaking dancing & turntablism where the product is solely about the art and not about the attention. A true underground hip-hop record cares nothing about the attention & everything about the art

Do you have anything else planned for 2020?

We had a huge tour in July & then again October/November, but those have been canceled & most likely just a November tour will happen. I’ve got a project with my partner Chris Paxton, a project with my boy Bukshot called Double Dragon & I‘m acting in a movie that should drop this year as well. It’s a cartel movie & I get to play a gangster from Juarez, Mexico.

Lastly, is there any advice you have for those trying to set their foot in as recording artists?

My advice is focus on the art if you want to be respected & if you want popularity then focus on your marketing, it’s a completely different world nowadays in music than when I came out 10-15 years ago. I started really young as a teenager & didn’t have guidance now everything is available on the internet for you to be the best at your craft.