Koikoikoi interviews Kid Acne

Koikoikoi made this interview for the fourth issue of italian magazine Bang Art, out now (you can buy it here). We had this interview, for our and for Bang Art’s readers, with Kid Acne, english street artist, illustrator and… rapper

Koikoikoi: Let’s start with a quite obvious question: you’re a musician and a visual artist at the same time. If I ask you which one is the job and which one is an hobby, what would you say?
Kid Acne: Well, they both started out as hobbies, but I would say I am an artist first and a musician second. I don’t see either as a job, but I am self sufficient as an artist. With music, I rely on my friends – so I guess it’s less regular.

K: What the deepest connection between your music and your art?
KA: The only real connection is that I make them both. I suppose Graffiti and Rap both come from Hip-Hop, but as I get older, my music is less-rap and my art is less-graffiti. It’s just my personality presented in different formats depending on what I feel like doing or want to try and say.

K: You have a strange way to be a “graffitist”. You have an entire world of charachters and you prefer to draw “scene” that told a sort of story than usual letters or tags. Where you find the inspiration for your works? Where are your characters from?
KA: I’ve always painted letters and tags and I still do, but it’s not enough to express everything I want to say. Some people are happy to only paint letters, but after some time I felt I was just adding to mediocrity and not really having my own voice. Graffiti is important schooling, but it is also about having your own style and breaking conventions. I come from a graffiti background, not a Street Art background, but I think the inspiration for my work came from wanting to see things I didn’t see in regular graffiti and I was trying to present some of these things to a wider audience, not just graffiti writers. Actually, many Graffiti Writers would ask me to paint characters because they were different to the usual stuff and they wanted to see some changes too! My work is not groundbreaking, it’s not the best, but I am proud to say it’s mine! It’s my style and my personality. I see many people creating things that look competent, but it’s not really theirs – they stole it from books and the internet. Individual style and personality is most important I think, otherwise you’re just painting by numbers.

K: Your style looks very “handmade”, how’s your relation with digital design?
KA: I draw everything by hand. I never use a ruler to measure things, but I do use a computer to lay out work for print. My favourite mediums are screen-print and spray-paint. I never mix them together, but I love the analogue process of them both. Everything is better in real life.

K: Have you got any “art-hero” you look at? And a “music-hero?” Both in the past or in the present…
KA: I would say my art heroes are Ramm:Ell:Zee and Quentin Blake. My music heroes are perhaps Beastie Boys, New Kingdom and Mark E. Smith. The artist who has influenced me most however is She One and the musician I learnt from the most from is his brother-in-law, Req One. They are both true heroes!

K: Tell us something about the environment you’’ve grown up in. Did the fact of being in a small town and not in a big city like London influence you in some way? How’s the street art scene changed in these years in front of your eyes, for you that lived both like visual and music artist?
KA: I grew up in a small town – a nice, quiet place, but also the kind of place where it’s easy to get lost in drugs or get someone pregnant at a young age. I was the only kid who did graffiti, but I really enjoyed having non-graffiti friends. We used to go on road trips, have BBQ’s, swim outdoors, play in bands, get drunk, take drugs, make music and make comics – basically anything to escape boredom. It was good, fun place to grow up, but I would hate to live there now. I moved to Sheffield when I was 17 to study Fine Art and I stayed here since then. It’s a good base, there’s not much of a graffiti scene, but i have a lot of good friends here and it’s also surrounded by beautiful countryside. I go to London regularly and also travel abroad as much as possible. Living in Sheffield means I can travel round the world but also have somewhere to come back to I can call home.

K: You’ve always been inclined to experimentation, trying to distinguish yourself. Have you got any advice in this moment, where on the internet you can find a lot of inspirations but also a leveled language? You have a blog, so what’’s your relationship with the internet? Which sites do you surf?
KA: I really hate the internet. I had a basic website 7 or 8 years ago and then decided to take it offline because it just felt pointless. I went on FaceBook for 6 months and deleted that too. I have a My Space page, but i keep thinking about deleting that too. I started a Blog 18 months ago. The main reason was to keep track of my work output. It’s nice to look back over a year and think “I actually did something this year. When did that happen?” I try to keep my blog strictly artwork, but it is only really 5% of what I do. I don’t want everything I do on the internet, but it’s a necessary evil – i got sick of seeing shitty photos of my work on Flickr and decided “If you can’t beat them, join them” – so here i am! It’s nice to have control of your work, but it’s also nice to let go. Once it’s on my site – i don’t think about it anymore and i don’t care about Flickr anymore either. I’m glad people like my work enough to photograph it and put it on the internet, i’m just glad i have my own site too. I check a few websites, but i much prefer finding old music videos on You Tube. There’s some classic stuff out there + i don’t have a TV.

K: Can you tell us something about your so much different experience. Designing art toys for Kidrobot, skateboards, totem, also apparel… What the different for you at the beginning of each project? You try yourself to get closer to the client or maybe you do your stuff and only after you adapt it to the new “media”?
KA: I’m interested in different print processes, but really everything starts the same – with a sketch. I don’t really look for work. People often contact me. I had an agent for a while, but they never got me any work and it’s nice to do things on your own if you can. Some companies are good to work for, some aren’t. The best work is usually the stuff you never get paid for, but I don’t really change what i do. If a company likes my work, cool. If not, they can find someone else. it doesn’t matter if it’s £50 or £5,000 – i always do my own thing, you just need to remind yourself that that’s the reason they contacted you in the first place!

K: Where will be Kid Acne in 2014? And in 2019? And in 2059? You know, a sort of crazy time travel!
KA: Well, 2014 is not so long away, so i’ll probably be doing the same kind of thing. I hope i’m not dead before 2059, but if i am – please play ‘Ooh La La’ by the Faces at my funeral, followed by ‘Infiltrate 202′ by Altern 8 and ‘Tribal Bass’ by Rebel MC. Thanks for your interest. Peace out. x