Artist Of The Week - Super King Armor

Super King Armor is everywhere. No, really, I swear I see him at every show and event in New York City. Recently he sent me his EP, The Werewolf Lullabies, and I suddenly realized why he is everywhere, it’s because he’s that freakin talented. A Queens native, Super King Armor grew up in the area where Francis Lewis Blvd. and Merrick Blvd. turns into 122nd Ave., a place he describes as “the centerpiece for all the surrounding neighborhoods.” This week I paid him a visit to find out more about his work, how he became “Super,” and the extreme differences between the personality he displays in his everyday life and the one he displays on record.

Adam Bernard: First and foremost, why “Super” King? Was the title of King not enough for you?
Super King Armor: The name Super King Armor first comes from my grandparents. My Grandmother’s maiden name is King, my Grandfather’s last name is Armour. The Super got tagged on their after a battle I was in, I guess they thought that would make me sound more threatening or something. I felt it coincided with my energy level when I'm on stage so I kept it. Nothing shines like the King’s Armor, it’s a cut above the rest. I've been thinking of a name change but that’s yet to be seen. As of now we are all in the AGE OF ARMOR, not in the Age of Aquarius!

Adam Bernard: What led to your interest in Hip-Hop?
Super King Armor: My interest in Hip-Hop first came from watching VJ Ralph McDaniels’ Video Music Box as a kid and listening to DJ Red Alert and Marly Marl on the radio. The whole art form from all five elements just was some amazing shit to me. My brain was trying to understand how these dudes and these ladies did what they did. Total awe, ya know? Plus I wasn’t to far from where history was happening. Hollis, the home of Run DMC, LL Cool J, and countless others was just around the way for me. DMC lived literally around the corner from me. So it was close to me and had a certain feeling to it. I was an artist, though, like an illustrator type, messed with graffiti a little but I was into comic books and all I wanted to do was draw. I went to college for it got an internship at Marvel, the whole nine. The thing about it, though, was that drawing wasn’t a personal thing for me. I had a lot going on in my life and drawing wasn’t the outlet for me to express myself with. Now, I wrote stories my whole life, poetry included, and that always came faster to me than drawings did. Hell, my best grades in school where English and History. I freestyled from time to time, but in private never shared that with people. Then one day I was feeling a lot of pressure from things surrounding me and I started writing shit down in rhymes and it felt good, real good, like I was at a massage therapist, or something to that affect. It was writing in the name of therapy, a poor man’s therapy.

Adam Bernard: You’ve put your therapy to work for you and released an EP, The Werewolf Lullabies, that is a concept album. Let everyone know what that concept is and how it came about.
Super King Armor: The concept is my bottled up aggression transforms me into a werewolf and it’s on from there. I came up with this concept based on a dream I had, which is the first track on the EP, titled the “Werewolf Lullabies.” I've had a lot of supernatural experiences from sleep paralysis, to waking up with cuts on me, to the most vivid of dreams, my man. I don’t talk about that a lot to people but trust that this isn’t some gimmick, I really have experienced these things and I mix those elements of the paranormal with my battles with alcohol, soliciting sex only to cope with depression, and fighting to prove something to myself. All of those things have inspired me to make these types of songs and I'm not finished yet, there's still more demons I have to face. It’s this way of rhyming that has created this Jekyll and Hyde, Bruce Banner - Incredible Hulk, split personality thing that I have.

Adam Bernard: I was about to say, every time we’ve hung out at shows you’ve always been a really personable dude. What’s up with the severe emotional juxtaposition? Are you just hiding your rage when you’re chillin?
Super King Armor: Yeah, I have polar opposite moods, man. One moment I can be real chilled out the next I'm wild'n out. The latter was how I was growing up and that got me into a lot of trouble because it wasn’t channeled in a positive way like it is now. Certain things trigger that side of me where I just don’t care. I bug out. People say I black out on stage and that’s stuck with me. The calm demeanor is like the protective shell over the hostile, but vulnerable, side of me. Yes, I do hide a lot of my rage. That can be unhealthy, too, cuz bottled emotions create the most illest explosions. I know I'm coming to terms with that side of me as I grow creatively. I've become more of a laid back, watch things around me, kinda cat, instead of just reacting to things from the jump.

Adam Bernard: Are your influences as wide ranging as your emotions? Who inspires you?
Super King Armor: Off the top I gotta say Chino XL, highly underrated, angry, lyrically incredible. Redman was an early influence, too. Before them it was Lord Finesse for his solo battles against the likes of Percee P. When I'm writing I don’t like to listen to Hip-Hop too much, I listen old Rage Against the Machine, Tool, Nirvana, NiN… you get the picture.

Adam Bernard: Finally, what can people expect from your next project, will it be another concept album, or something more “traditional?”
Super King Armor: My next project will be part two to Werewolf Lullabies subtitled Pen-Ultimate. The Werewolf Lullabies will be a trilogy, that was my idea from the beginning. I wanted to really stand out on my debut EP so I went with something abstract but relative in this work. There are other projects in the works as well but I don’t wanna feed everybody too much at once, so just stay tuned. As far as something more traditional, yeah I'm seriously contemplating doing that. I wanna be able to touch all audiences without compromising myself and I can do that. So again stay tuned.

Related Links

Reverbnation: reverbnation.com/superkingarmor
MySpace: myspace.com/armorking