Interview by Kristina Pejovski

What’s your AMMO?
My family has brought me motivation recently.

What is one pivotal moment that has helped shape you as an artist?
I guess all the traveling and working in different creative communities is constantly shaping and reshaping my music. As a result, I’ve got lots of different flavors to my sound.

Talk to me about your creative process?
Different songs are written differently and may be influenced by anything from seeing something, having a dream, watching a movie, reading a book, a story someone tells me. I then write a song, which might take minutes, hours, days, months to record and release. I like working with other people, be they instrumentalists, vocalists, producers, technicians, engineers. I enjoy collaboration and my work is enriched by it.

You’re a rapper. You’re a producer. Which one comes more naturally?
Right now production and song writing come most naturally. I’d like to get rapping a lot more though. I’ve been rapping since I was 10 but am most excitedly adventuring with producing and singing.

Which one of your albums resonates with you the most?
I’ve only made two albums and they both resonate for different reasons, I am excited to take the best of both sounds into forging a new wave with my next releases.

I enjoy the fusion of rap, electronic and pop. How did the world of pop become embedded into your tracks?
I enjoy good music in its various forms.

Any hidden talents?
I make a good omelette

How did the idea of the Mixtape/Video Game come about? Favorite Classic video game from your youth?
Big ups to the RamJam guys in Brighton who made the game idea a reality! I love that there was really nothing out of the realm of possibility with them. My dada’s a programmer and he’s always spoken about problem solving. I dug working with game developers because they are the consummate problem solvers. Musicians can be such babies some times but the gaming man just make shit happen; in a big way. I came up with ideas for the levels, bounced ideas with Tom at RamJam, and poof; they just kept going further and further with the wacky levels. So much fun! I definitely spent a lot of time as a kid playing games from Commodore68, to Golden China, Nintendo, Sega; we put in a lot of shifts. That was probably my first link to all night partying; staying up all night with my cousin [and] a bunch of sweets trying to finish a game. Game rave. I liked Summer Olympics, Contra, Prince of Persia, Wolfenstein, Sonic, Doom, Paper Boy.

Who are you currently listening to?
Listening to all sorts as usual. I spend the whole day just surfing through waves of music on all sides of sound. Very random.

You and Gnucci Banana are adorable together! Any more future collabs?
Straight after doing this interview I’m doing a verse for her next release. She’s making great music.

What’s next for Spoek Mathambo?
Music; my documentary. I want to make a horror movie.

For more on Spoek Mathambo, go to www.spoekmathambo.com