4Memphis July/August 2022

4Memphis sits down with Al Kapone

By Cyrena Wages Photography by McKendree Walker

JULY/AUGUST 2022

Coming up in South Memphis, Identity, Craig Brewer, The Grizzlies

Coming up in South Memphis, Identity, Craig Brewer, The Grizzlies & more with Al Kapone

Photography by McKendree Walker

If you’re reading this, you likely have a similar fascination with this town as I do. It’s not just our home. It’s loveable in a way that surpasses geography and familiarity. Memphis is a feeling. Memphis feels like the groove to Al Green’s “Love and Happiness.” I think you’re only able to love as deeply as you’re able to embrace vulnerability and rawness, and so much of life is devoid of those two things. Memphis, however, is raw, honest, and real. Itis a well, and if you’re like me, it’s become part of your identity.

Alphonzo Bailey, “Al Kapone,” welcomed us into the studio April 21, in the heat of Grizzlies Playoffs Round 1. This particular day, he was working outof a space above the Memphis Black Arts Alliance, which resides in Historic Fire House No. 12, a one-truck station built in 1910 and converted in 1984to the MBAA (founded by “Bennie” Nelson West as the city’s first regional arts and cultural organization nurturing artistic excellence andblack heritage.)

The fire pole once ran through the now vocal booth, but the building has been otherwise untouched. Al had just picked up the veggie plate fromPeggy’s Healthy Soul Food off Crump. “Box Me In,” his latest single, was playing as we arrived and Al was sporting his custom “Whoop That Trick”Grizzlies tee (his single from Craig Brewer’s 2005 film Hustle & Flow), a black and gold satin jacket from Lansky’s, and his tinted Ray-Ban’s. AlKapone is a star. But Al is real. He is Memphis.

Al grew up in South Memphis, initially the Mississippi Blvd. and Walker area, not far from Stax Records. His family, mother Barbara and grandmotherLouise, remember Al’s gravitation towards music beginning as early as two years old. He had an uncanny ability to understand and learn lyrics. Hewas listening to David Ruffin (The Temptations), Al Green, and soul music that morphed into a love for hip hop. “I fell in love with hip hop when Iheard “Rapper’s Delight” - the look, the graffiti, DJ’ing, all of it.”

Al described his childhood as “a typical story of coming up in the ‘hood.” He commented, “As a kid, even though we were living in poverty, I didn’tknow it. I knew I didn’t have some name brands I wanted, and I knew it was a money problem, but I didn’t really feel it. I had a community. We hadfun doing typical things like being outside with friends, talking about music. It wasn’t until later, teenage years, when the crack era hit, that I startedrealizing the gritty parts of coming up in the ‘hood. I started witnessing things you shouldn’t be witnessing at that age.” He recalls his mother’s adviceas he grew older, “She gave me jewels, jewels to be safe. She’d say, ‘don’t think. If you feel like bad stuff is about to happen, you need to leave.’ Thatsaved me a lot of times.” Barbara taught Al to trust his internal guide, maybe the best lesson one could receive.

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Al got his first job in 4th grade, throwing papers for the Memphis Press- Scimitar and the Commercial Appeal. By 6th grade, he was delivering groceries for the Lauderdale Sundry, owned by a guy named Ship. “Ship was the first time I experienced how a man handles things. He was a first father figure for me.” With a robust voice and charm only Al could deliver, he enthusiastically reenacts how Ship taught him to mop. “He didn’t play no games. He owned his own store. He taught me that was something to strive for.”

With his co-workers at the Lauderdale Sundry he formed his first musical project, The Pee Wee Emcees. Throughout the years, he’d put new groups together depending on what neighborhood he lived in. “People followed me to find out the latest in hip hop. The only birthday present I ever asked for from my mom was two things…a chocolate cake, and enough money to go to Boss Ugly Bob’s Record Store and buy whatever the latest rap tape was. She delivered every time.”

He kept his finger on the pulse of hip hop from the east to the west coast, and it all started to come together when he was exposed to underground projects surfacing out of Memphis, prior to the solidification of the Memphis rap scene. “All the sudden I was hearing songs like ‘Samurai Suzuki’ by the M-Team (Boo and Archie Mitchell) and going to rap battles in the city where I’d see Coast 2 Coast - Jazze Pha and his brother. Jazze had this one move...,” Al gets up and enthusiastically re-lives this, “He’d beat box and then spin on his head and the crowd would go wild. He’d win every time,” he says with laughter and amazement.

We segued into Al’s writing process. He has continually played tug of war with what he’s wanted to express as an artist and what his early audience expected of him. He wanted to write about more than street life. “I can talk about the streets because I’m from this environment – the shooting, the drugs, but I want to talk about the reasons behind that. And I want to talk about everyday life, too. People are catching the bus to go to work, going to church, going to school. The street is just one aspect. I want to talk about how the family comes together for the holidays. I am a writer. I can write about anything. But the audience was thinking they bought an Al Kapone record to hear something gangsta, and they were disappointed.”

“Gangsta Rap,” originally called “Reality Rap,” emerged in the mid to late ‘80s. Al acknowledged the merit of some of the artist’s in this movement. We discussed the “bravado” that this format could understandably provide for many marginalized people, but that ultimately audiences often cling to it in order to hide from their own vulnerability. “People are scared of vulnerability. I want to write about life, black life, human life. Not everybody living in the hood is living the street life.”

Al recalls the Hustle & Flow period of time, when he found success on a new level. He and filmmaker Craig Brewer (The Poor & Hungry, Black Snake Moan), connected many years before officially collaborating. “We were both just independent artists hustling and trying to get our work heard.” Brewer told Kapone of the film he’d make one day, Hustle & Flow, but the call didn’t come until several years later. The film was finally happening, Three 6 Mafia was involved, and Brewer was still looking for a song for one particular character. Most importantly, he needed it in one day. “I couldn’t fumble this ball,” Al says. He gathered character insight from Terrence Howard (“Djay”), collaborated with

Niko Lyras (Cotton Row Music), and pitched the title track “Hustle & Flow” to Brewer and John Singleton (producer) in less than 24 hours. “When they heard it, they wanted more.” They bit on “Whoop That Trick” and “Get Crunk, Get Buck” that same day in the studio. “I’m sitting there thinking, I get another song? Where am I right now? Is this really happening to me?”

If you’ve been awake in Memphis in the last few months, you’ve experienced the rush of the new Grizzlies anthem “Whoop That Trick.” I asked how seeing a forum of 18k people singing his words made him feel. “Excited, happy for Memphis, happy for the connectedness. It’s as if we were in the gladiator days and everybody’s chanting ‘get em’ in unification with each other. Memphis (as a city) is always viewed as the underdog, but we’re David and you’re Goliath and we’re slaying you again,” he says laughing.

Al wants to see growth in the Memphis arts scene. He hopes to see different musical genres being celebrated and different art forms being valued. “We need that exposure so the younger kids can see there’s more than sports or street rap to be successful.” He points to Lil Buck and Memphis Jookin as a prime example of varieties of art getting their deserved notoriety.

What’s next for Al Kapone? “I’m fusing different styles, what I’ve been doing forever, but fully embracing diversity. I’m fusing Memphis rap sounds with soul, blues, and a little rock.”

In closing, I asked Al what advice he would have for a young Memphis kid wanting to do what he’s done. He answered, “Make sure you’re doing something you feel true and passionate about, because that’s what’s going to keep you strong when things are not going right. Secondly, it’s alright to listen to some people that have done it before you and try and learn from their mistakes. Have integrity. It’s not all about what you can get from someone, but keep in mind you need to give, too. You need to show love and be a source of inspiration.” “All of the rumors, I’m shaking it off. I’m gonna do me, I’m gonna stay free. I heard a voice, I’m gonna follow my call…You can say what you want, but you can’t box me in.” – “Box Me In,” -Al Kapone

Listen to “Box Me In” featuring Singa B on all platforms.