Kembe X, Sleep Paralysis and singing like Modest Mouse

Kembe X is glad to be back outside.

The Top Dawg-affiliated artist is coming off his first full-length project in nearly five years, having released Sleep Paralysis back in March as a collaborative effort with Hippie Sabotage. He has since embarked on the Enter The Unknown Tour alongside the duo, which concluded back in May after two months of traveling the United States and Canada.

“Touring with them is great,” Kembe said of traveling with Hippie Sabotage. “Also, to perform to a crowd full of people who know the music and are excited to hear the songs.”

Going on tour is a source of joy for the artist, and one he says he has not experienced in quite some time. His previous album, I Was Depressed Until I Made This, was released in October 2019. He says he was looking forward to promoting that record on tour until the COVID-19 pandemic prevented those dates from ever happening. Now, four years later, Kembe has taken his most recent tour as an opportunity to finally perform tracks from that record in addition to his new collaborative effort with Hippie Sabotage.

“After the shows I usually sell my own merch so I can connect with as many people as possible,” Kembe says. “People will ask me why I didn’t do more songs, or why I didn’t do a certain song. That’s the first time, for me, where I felt a knowledge of the songs and a demand for the songs.”

The new record, Sleep Paralysis, was the result of several years of work with Hippie Sabotage. Kembe says the duo, whom he has known since early in his career, offered production he could only describe as sounding “expensive.”

“Those dudes are amazing producers, there’s no other way to describe it.”

Kembe says early in the album-making process, he took the production duo’s lead on beat selection. As the record came into form, though, he took more artistic control, including acting as a co-producer on several occasions as well as simply giving his personal input. In particular, he mentions “Love Songs” as a track where he gave significant input on the production.

The artist speaks highly of the recording process with Hippie Sabotage, mentioning their long-standing friendship and how it makes collaborating and respecting ideas feel natural. But he also finds solitude to be similarly important when putting together his projects.

“I write separately from when I’m creating. I journal, and have notes in my phone. Because of that, one of my rules is ‘no thinking’…sometimes something more raw or vulnerable will come out.”

Regarding the album’s title, Kembe says he has had sleep paralysis since he was a kid but began experiencing it much more as he got older. He mentions experiencing it on the first night of the tour earlier in the year.

“I came up with the title after we had worked on the album for about 15 months, and we went to an AirBnB in Hawaii on the beach.” After an experience with sleep paralysis on that trip, he came up with the title Sleep Paralysis In O’ahu before shortening the title upon release.

“I thought about it metaphorically,” Kembe says. “Sleep paralysis to me was more about the concept of what actual paralysis is, and then what it means to be ‘sleep’ in a metaphorical sense. To not know what’s going on, or to be unaware.”

Kembe mentions Sleep Paralysis as being a cycle of ‘ego death’, a vulnerability, and rebirth. The first several tracks on the record, such as “Pole Vaulting” and “King,” show the grandiose. Vulnerability manifests itself on “Love Songs” and “Shallow,” for example, where he depicts personal flaws. Rebirth occurs on the back end of the album, such as the penultimate track “Start a Business.”

The stylistic influences on Sleep Paralysis stretch far beyond hip hip, trap, etc. as Kembe dabbles in rock influences on tracks such as “King” and “Start a Business.” The artist says he tried to learn guitar growing up, and while he did not keep up with it, it became an avenue to expose himself to the rock genre.

“Nobody I grew up with really listened to rock like that…but I used to listen to mad Audioslave, and I dug into all the s*** I heard on Madden soundtracks like Papa Roach and Linkin Park. Recently I’ve listened to The Strokes.”

Kembe singles out “Shallow,” the lead single for Sleep Paralysis, as a rock-influenced track.

“The delivery on ‘Shallow’ is very much inspired by Isaac Brock of Modest Mouse, because he has this really wacky style of delivery. It’s very frank and poetic observations.”

“I like to take those ingredients and remix them together,” he explains. “A lot of times it just doesn’t work at all, but sometimes it does and that’s just dope to experience.”

The artist says this ‘remixing’ of uncommonly matched styles is representative of his current creative headspace. He cites Outkast and the fusions André 3000 and Big Boi infused into their records as one of the models for where he aims his music towards.

Thematically, Kembe’s aims are to depict his experiences in a way that makes them relatable to listeners, in particular his audiences on tour.

“Whether it be pain and what we’re going through, and the things that are hidden from the surface that make us feel different…that’s my main fascination in life. In different ways I want to explore those things through my music.”