Artist Spotlight: CLBRKS & Conrad Mundy

CLBRKS and Conrad Mundy are two exciting prospects coming out of the UK, and their joint project ‘Out For Lunch’ is finally here. The two have been working together since meeting back in 2017, with singles such as ‘First Class’ receiving love from underground Rap communities. Fast forward to 2020 and they are reunited, with years of friendship behind them it’s a long overdue body of work. The 5-track project is produced by DraeDaSkiMask, providing a fuse of nostalgic 90’s boom-bap rap and trap allowing both artists to experiment over a variety of styles of beats.

CLBRKS has been on many peoples radars this year, his most recent project ‘Microwave Cooking 2000’ was released back in March and he has not slowed down since. Conrad also featured on the project providing us with an epic verse on ‘Cement’ giving us an example of what to expect. I was fortunate enough to interview them both of them to discuss ‘Out For Lunch’ and more.

Jimi: Easy Lads, I hope all is good. Congratulations on the release guys, firstly what inspired the project name?
CLBRKS: Thank you. The project title is inspired by a phrase that Lemmy Kilmister (Motorhead) had written on his bass guitar; “born to lose, out to lunch”. The phrase sort of resonated with us, we both like to go out to eat, get around, etc. We just liked something about it. The project and its title are kind of inspired by that era of Rock & Roll, the sort of glamour and excess that you don’t usually find in popular music these days. We tried to incorporate that kind of style into the artwork by Junior Adesanya; he typically creates black and white graphics that are a bit zine like, punk kind of shit. Drae also carries that raw, D.I.Y aesthetic both in his beats and work ethos. It all kind of blends.

J: This isn’t the first time you have both worked together, tell us how the two of you originally linked up?
Conrad Mundy: When I moved to London a few years ago we hit each other up on IG, we got along straight away and had bare shit in common. The fact we both have the same name and make music was a bonus too.

CLBRKS: It was in 2017 at Kiina’s house, I was working on ‘Habits’ at the time I think, or maybe had just released it. Over that time it’s taken us three years to pull together five songs we feel really confident about in project form. Our friendship, knowledge and following has developed, and that has given us the time to revisit and reconsider aspects of the project that we may have initially ignored.

J: Fast forward to now, how did it feel getting back into it and what was the workflow like for this project in particular?
CL: Very spaced out, we released two odd singles collectively in those three years (First Class, Lethal Weapon 2), but just kept the project on ice for a long time. We had to edit music videos together ourselves using footage downloaded from YouTube as a means of working around lockdown restrictions. When we next meet we’ll begin working on the next thing.

J: You both have a distinctive sound when it comes to UK Hip-Hop, this tape in particular combines elements of 90’s hip-hop/boom bap rap and trap; who were some of your main influences growing up?
CL: Prodigy is my favourite rapper, I often find myself looking at his structures and flows for inspiration. ‘The Infamous’ has been a favourite of mine for a very long time.

CM: My main influences vary really, I used to listen to a lot of grime so people like Griminal and Ice Kid were early influences for me. I used to bump a lot of 50 Cent back in the day too.

J: The cult references are crazy ranging from Zoo Tycoon, Crash Bandicoot, Space Shuttles, Anarchy, Hennessy and more. In a few words describe a day in the life of CLBRKS and Conrad Mundy.
CL: We’ve probably spent more time chatting shit, watching films, listening to music and getting pissed together than we actually have making any music. So I think being mates and just talking about cartoons or clothes and stuff we like all the time just rubbed off into the EP. In reality though, I lead quite a simple existence and don’t put myself out there too much.

CM: Sometimes we’ll do some random shit like go to a museum or arcade, but more time we’d be at the crib getting drunk and fucking around making music.

J: Do you feel like the alternative rap scene in the UK is competitive, and how crucial is it to be assertive when releasing music through marketing strategies, and social media campaigns?
CL: I think it’s only competitive because there’s so much of it happening. Art wise, I think as long as you have something that’s unique without trying too hard to be cool then people will admire you for it.

Marketing and social media is a subject I find I’m always curious about; how to make your way into people’s algorithms and feeds. Being down to earth and communicating with people is crucial, you can’t always hide behind a façade of lyrics and performance numbers. There’s a balance of being a performer and a person.

CM: These days its getting very competitive but in a good way especially with the various ways to promote yourself, its cool to see the ways people are getting their names out there now

J: Social Media is a valuable tool for independent artists like yourselves, talk us through how you utilise the likes of Instagram and Twitter?
CL: I’m not really preparing a weeks worth of Instagram posts and Tweets in advance, I just know when I have something coming up that I have to try keep moving, posting every day. I try to post what I like, sometimes food, weed and shit, but recently I’ve had to get into the habit of constantly plugging releases. I’ve come to realise that there’s no point in working hard on things if you’re going to brush them off next week like its nothing. You can increase or decrease the longevity of a product however you like with social media, that’s why it’s so important.

CM: I just use Insta and Twitter for promotion really, other than that I’ll just be looking at memes other pointless shit.

J: CLBRKS, You dropped Microwave Cooking 2000 back in March along with producer Morriarchi which is an amazing project - what has the feedback been like and are you two planning to continue working together?
CL: I couldn’t be happier with feedback, my dad bought it and posted a picture of him holding it on his Facebook like its a uni degree or something, that made me feel really good. People are still buying the last few copies of the vinyl from Blah’s website (shoutout Lee and Salar) and I’ve had a few people message me to let me know they really enjoyed it.

Morriarchi and I plan to be working together for a long time.

J: With the UK being on lockdown for the past few months, how have you both dealt with the circumstances changing, has it hindered your creativity?
CL: I’ve been dealing with it okay, it’s forced me to look for new hobbies and try different things, it’s also keeping me healthy as I’m cooking a lot more than usual, being inside all of the time.

Creatively I struggled for a while, I was unable to go out and get motivated by the things that usually inspire me, but once I found that in other formats I’ve been alright. I’ve been doing a lot of admin and micro-management type shit too, learning about PR, using Excel and iMovie, just shit to acquire additional skills that can help me as an independent artist.

CM: The lockdown has helped me look forward to a lot of stuff I wanna do when its over, I’ve got some projects planned with some good musicians.

J: Sticking with the theme, ‘Out For Lunch’ what are some of your favourite food joints to eat at?

CL: Trullo, Andina, Lahore Kebab House, Ceviche, Tay Do, Kiln, Sutton & Sons, On The Bab and Hix.

CM: If you know me you know i’m a fussy cunt with food so anywhere that sells a decent burger.

JFinally, what does the future hold for you both on the other side of the lockdown?
CM: More music from the both of us really we have a lot of shit planned both solo and together.

CL: And hopefully a holiday somewhere hot near the sea where there’s plenty of cannabis and seafood.

Be sure to stream ‘Out For Lunch’ which is available now on all platforms!

Artist SpotlightJimi Scott30 May 2020CLBRKS, Conrad Mundy, UK Hip Hop, Rap