Interview: Father & Son Rap Duo Lone Wolf & Kub Talk Music And Family

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Lone Wolf & Kub aren’t your ordinary rap duo.

It’s not everyday that you find a father and son musical duo — even less so within the genre of Hip-Hop — but that’s exactly what we have here with Lone Wolf & Kub. Comprising of father Shao Sosa and son Nobi the Seattle natives have found a way to truly make fatherhood fun. After releasing their self-titled debut album just last month they’ve already dropped a pair of new music videos for singles “Bolo Yeung” and “Street Fighter” and if you can’t tell by the silhouetted samurai in the video still, you’re in for a high-flying, toe-tapping, katana-swinging, good time.

I had a chance to sit down and chat with both Shao and Nobi to learn a little bit more about this dynamic duo. Catch the full interview below.

How did this all start? What made you two decide to form a rap duo?

Shao: I think this was just a natural progression. Being an active MC so long in the underground scene out here and then having a son who was just a natural at spitting, I feel like it was just a certain amount of time that this would eventually happen. The father/son mechanic is pretty unique also.  You are seeing it a little more here and there but it’s nice to be one of the few in an arena that lacks rarity.  So we definitely wanted to take advantage of that but then also and most importantly, we wanted to just work on something together.  Like some and dads and sons work on cars or house stuff, we make music.

Were you always a hip-hop focused family?

Nobi: Definitely. Pops had already solidified himself as a rapper and my mom married a Tri-Cities jazz musician and producer. From an early age I was exposed to the wonders of golden age hip-hop and encouraged to listen to what I liked. My elementary – middle school days were filled with absorbing as much of it as possible, as well as being exposed to the process of creating instrumentals from scratch and seeing the amount of work it took to become a successful musician.

Shao: I think its hip-hop first but we also both have always had really eclectic tastes in music so in the end, it’s also like a music and arts in general focused direction.

Why the samurai theme? Is it at all inspired by the Wu Tang Clan?

Shao: We have always been really into culture and history from everywhere, but with both of us being of mixed-Asian descent, there was a lot of that cut into our fabric, especially in film.  From samurai to kung fu flicks to Hong Kong John Woo type stuff, it’s all been a big piece of what I grew up on and what I exposed Nobi to at a young age.  I’d say there’s definitely Wu inspiration from a love and respect standpoint, I mean, those cats have put out some of my favorite albums. But it also goes beyond that. The samurai theme just fits, an aging verbal warrior who is passing the torch to the young upstart assassin so to speak.

And tell me about the name, Lone Wolf & Kub, it’s somewhat self explanatory, but how did you come up with it? What was the process like and what does it mean to you?

Nobi: Our moniker, Lone Wolf & Kub, comes from a few places; One of our favorite things to do for the past forever, is watch movies. So this one summer, pops and I decide to watch Shogun Assassin (A samurai series based on a manga titled, “Lone Wolf and Cub”). The series held a special place for us because it’s all about this vengeful samurai who goes on a quest to slay an evil shogun with his 4 year-old son on his hip. Side note, the movie also is where the GZA took the intro for Liquid Swords. So the series served as the perfect medium for us with the all of the action combined with it’s hip-hop ties and it made perfect sense when we began writing the first song (Lone Wolf & Kub) to call ourselves the same name.

Shao: What’s cool though is if you dig a little further and look at our album cover, you see this old samurai and his mic and this giant wolf-beast behind him.  And that just represents the lone wolf samurai and the cub, but the cub is actually the great beast.  And I think that matches our chemistry when like sure, I have been out here scrapping for many moons but the boy, the cub is the beast.  No one wants to see the beast out here. And that whole idea tells the story of the name as well.

Nobi: Lone Wolf & Kub to me is representative not only of a father & son duo with flashy action scenes, but also how their quest to dispel evil spoke to us and we chose to reflect that with the political/sociological content we spoke about throughout the record.

How has your music changed since you first started rapping together?

Shao: We got more conscious as the album progressed.  We had fun with the braggadocio stuff and “Pixels” and the town anthem on “Vintage”, but with everything going on in the world, we started to look around us and inside of us and say “hey man, we need to talk about this”.  And we did and I feel like those messages that can be heard in the latter half of the record are some of the strongest points on the album.

Who handles the production in your music? Any notable names?

Nobi: The entire record was engineered and overseen by Phinisey. He produced 3 of the beats on the album. Originally, we had planned for Phinisey to produce a lot more of it but we got some heat from a lot of guys who we had either collaborated with previously, or had a great deal of respect for. I believe they’re all noteworthy so I’ll list the names here. Lavish Beatz, Nemz, theDGTL, Soultanz, On One, C. Ray, John L, and Phinisey.

How has the Seattle scene influenced you?

Shao: I feel like the Northwest scene as a whole is really more of what has influenced us, not just Seattle. The scene out here is like a melting pot, kind of like a soup where you got all kinds of flavors going in. Everyone out here is cooking soup, and we all cook it differently so it all tastes like soup, but those cats over there might taste like clam chowder and those dudes over there taste like gumbo.  But it’s ok though because most everyone in the region likes to eat different soups. And that’s how the scene out here has influenced us is like we can do what we doin’, and those guys can do what they doin’, and we both dig each other’s cooking but might not necessarily taste like the same type of soup. That’s the Northwest.

Nobi: We taste like pho by the way.

Who do you envision or hope is listening? Who are you really trying to reach?

Nobi: I like to think of this album as our tribute to Golden Era Hip Hop, so I wouldn’t think it’s far-fetched to say that our target audience would be people who share a similar value to that timeless 90’s early 2000’s vibes.

Shao: We weren’t interested in doing specific types of sounding songs. There’s no trap music.  There’s no club bangers. That’s not because we don’t enjoy that type of stuff, we just kept making what we felt like making at the time and it ended up being a big nod to that 90’s era because we really love that era.

What’s the message you’re trying to send?

Shao: There’s a lot of social commentary on this album. Trump, Sunday Christians, immigration, generational laziness, gang violence, police violence, greed, family dysfunction, addiction,  etc, etc, plenty to take in.  But we balanced it with a lot of fun songs as well and the message there would be do something about what you see around you but also don’t forget to live. Don’t forget to breathe.  Don’t let the ugliness eat you up.

What are your thoughts on the rap game currently? How do you think it’s changed?

Nobi: I feel like the game is definitely single or short EP based. I feel like projects keep getting shorter and shorter running-time wise. Look at everything Ye dropped or collaborated on in June, they all ran right around 20 minutes if I remember correctly. I also feel like this is the strongest year for hip-hop that we’ve had in a very long time. We had dope records from Wayne, Em, T.I., Kanye, Pusha T, Saba, J. Cole, Hova, Jay Rock, Styles-P, Dave East, Denzel Curry, etc. I could keep going haha. This year to me is the year everybody old, young, and in-between, dropped fire. I feel like I’m in a renaissance.

Who are your biggest influences?

Shao: We could probably go on for hours on this. Musically, I might listen to Scarface, Fela Kuti, and Ramon Ayala in that order and all those guys have a place in inspiring what I put in a record. Nobi is the same way, with different artists filling up those really wide-ranging categories of influences. But in the end, we are probably most influenced by what happens each day and what we take in.

What else do you guys do as father and son besides rapping?  What do you enjoy together?

Nobi: Watching kung-fu flicks, playing video games (we did the PUBG thing for awhile, but now we’re waiting for Red Dead Redemption 2 to come out), the occasional hike, criticizing music, pretending we know how to fish, eating dope food, roasting each other in the family group chat, the usual father-son stuff.

Shao: I got the funnier barbs.  But he kills me on any video game these days.  It’s pretty sad.  I used to be a beast on the sticks.  Now when I play with him and homies, I can hear the collective groan when i jump in the group chat.

Anything else you want to share with the world?

Shao: Nobi is wrapping up a solo record that is absolutely bananas.  Its really gonna be a hard left turn from the Lone Wolf and Kub album. I can’t wait for you guys to get onto that.

Also,  check us everywhere online as we have a slew of shows coming up that are gonna be super fun and crazy.

 

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