What’s Cookin w/ TastyKeish


With her co-hosting duties at the monthly Bondfire shows at the Bowery Poetry Club in NYC, as well as her co-hosting duties on WBAI’s Rise Up Radio with K-Swift, Divino DeNegro, Digo RockZtar and Varyus Waise, and her work with Society HAE and her own Taste of the Town video series, TastyKeish is making a name for herself both in NYC and worldwide. The Brooklyn native recently made a trip to Japan and I caught up with her after her return to find out how she came to be a part of Bondfire, in what way she’s searching for her Ricky Martin, and her dos and don’ts for trying to get on the radio. TastyKeish also revealed what the Travel Channel has to do with her future.

Adam Bernard: A lot of folks know you as one of the hosts of Bondfire. How did you link up with Conscious?
TastyKeish: He found me through, I guess from being online, and he knows K-Swift. I think the first Bondfire after he took it over K-Swift was the featured act. He figured I’m gonna hit her up since she knows Swift and Swift will tell her about me. At the time I was paranoid about new people, so I didn’t even go to that one. I had just gone through this whole thing with another partner, so I was like I need to find out all of your credentials. Who the hell are you? Just because you know my cohost doesn’t mean you know me. I would flake out on him. I flaked out on him three times, then I came to my first Bondfire to watch and was like oh, now I see what he’s talking about.

Adam Bernard: What do you feel you bring to the show?
TastyKeish: I think I balance things out. He’s got that whole Uber Villain thing, so I’m not the Uber Villain. I’m friendlier. When I need muscle, or someone’s trying to get over on me at the (open mic) list, I just go “ask him” and he looks on me with the sunglasses. I’m like the softer side of Bondfire, me and Marthalicia.

Adam Bernard: Have you had a favorite Bondfire moment?
TastyKeish: My first Bondfire. I took it super serious because he put the scary Jesus, wrath of God, in me like “if you fuck up my show...” So I was like OK, I can’t F this up. That’s why my first Bondfire, the all ladies one, I went all out. I dressed up and did a Michael Jackson thing.

Adam Bernard: In addition to Bondfire you’re also a host of Rise Up Radio on WBAI. How long have you been doing that and what’s Rise Up Radio all about?
TastyKeish: A little bit over five years. In October we hit five. The show is actually older than the most senior host on there. They Menudo-ed that shit. We don’t want it to die because we know once we all leave, the way that they are over there, they’re just going to fill it with somebody that they want, or some old person show, so we just keep recycling. We just keep in bringing new people. It’s been five years for me so soon I’m going to look for my Ricky Martin, I’m going to start looking for the person who I want to replace me. It’s a youth oriented show and I’m still young and I still feel like I’m in tune with this generation, but now I gotta start doing grown up stuff for me personally. I like to say I was the new Doug. Doug was the guy who trained me. I want somebody to be the new Keish, so I need to look for the right person.

Adam Bernard: You say it’s a youth oriented show. When someone tunes in what are they going to get?
TastyKeish: It’s a community affairs show for young adults, so when someone tunes in they get young adults’ opinions and observations on life and community efforts in the NYC are and sometimes national news because a lot of this stuff occurs all over.

Adam Bernard: What are your things to do, and things to not do, as far as being a radio show guest and submitting your music to a radio show?
TastyKeish: Do use the proper channels. If they say email them at a certain address, email them at that address. You can always introduce yourself on Twitter or Facebook, that’s great, but go through the proper channels because there’s a reason for them. We set up our email so when we go in the studio we can just access your track from gmail so we don’t have to track it down.

Do things properly. Don’t be like “yo I got this new song,” or “yo I want to come up,” and don’t even know what the show is about. Learn what the show is about and then tailor your request to that. If you know that we’re about community affairs, and you don’t sing about nothin but hoes, then don’t send us an email, or if you do have a song just about hoes, but you’re a school teacher and want to talk about that, then tell us you’re a school teacher and that’s what you want to talk about and perhaps, if you clean that shit up enough, maybe we will play the song about hoes because you’re a good guy, but you have to let us know.

I think my 100% pet peeve, the worst thing is that we have a lot of hosts and you can’t try to play us against each other.

Adam Bernard: People try to do that?
TastyKeish: All the time. People we know, and in the last month. I won’t know if they’ve hit up Devino, or Digo, or K-Swift, or Nick (Varyous Wayz), so I’ll just tell them this is this type of show, community affairs, and the music is a bonus. We’ve been trying to tell them that but nobody listens, they just want to get on. They’ll hit me and I’ll tell them the answer and they’ll take that as a no. I’m like you are stupid. I just told you what I wanted to hear and you just took it as oh forget it let me see if I can get one of these other hosts to sign up for it.

Adam Bernard: What do you hope all of this is ultimately leading to for you?
TastyKeish: My main goal at the end of the day, and I hope this doesn’t sound crazy, but I want to do a travel show on the Travel Channel, or some kind of channel like that. I want to host one of those shows. I’m getting all this experience, and not that I had that in mind when I started, but that’s where my interests are going with my next projects. I want to take all the personality experience and go to TV with that.

Related Links

Website: tastykeish.com
Twitter: twitter.com/tastykeish

Comments

Homeboy Sandman said…
tastykeish has a one of a kind soul. her place in new york city's talent based hip hop community speaks volumes about our collective strength.

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