HYPETRAK's "American Hustle" - A Conversation With Keith Ape

It isn’t really a stretch to say that Keith Ape’s “It G Ma” put Asia-based rappers on the map. Not only did the Seoul native bring together Korean and Japanese trap music, but he also successfully opened doors for many burgeoning hip-hop artists from the Far East with his now-viral track that featured the likes of JayAllDay, Loota, Okasian and Kohh. Despite receiving some shade from OG Maco, most of the feedback has been positive leading to a heavy-hitting remix featuring none other than A$AP Ferg, Father, Waka Flocka Flame and Dumbfoundead. Our sibling site HYPETRAK recently sat down with the Underwater Squad frontman to discuss the role social media played in his breakout, musical influences and what he thinks set him apart from other Korean artists trying to make a name for themselves in the American music scene. Read an excerpt below and head over to HYPETRAK for the full interview.

Can you talk about some of your musical influences?

As far as American influences, I do have influences like Young Thug, Travi$ Scott and Awful Records just to name a few. As far as my other influences go I’m heavily influenced by movies and art. I get subject titles from them and some raps are inspired by them. I visually consume these things in order to recreate them in a musical form. As far as my Korean influences, other than the people that surround me like my friends, there’s this guy Dbo who is kind of like a Korean abstract artist. I like him because he’s one of the very first people to make that kind of a music in Korea. He’s not popular but he’s transparent in his music and he’s exactly the same person on a track and off a track. He’s not artificial and he doesn’t have an image he needs to keep up off stage which I respect. He’s a real person and artist and whatever he lives and whatever he says is exactly how he is.

There’s been a lot of controversy surrounding your “It G Ma” track and its similarities to OG Maco’s “U Guessed It.” Are you guys cool with each other? Where does that stand?

The situation is cool, we’re cool with each other. We met during SXSW, I explained the whole situation. I wasn’t too familiar with OG Maco as an artist when I created “It G Ma” but I did know about the song U Guessed It. I help produce my music in addition to writing it and we were talking about making a song that was similar to it. It wasn’t something where I was trying to practice the cadence a certain way and I wasn’t trying to emulate him. I was inspired by his sound though. I personally don’t feel like it was plagiarism but I thought about it like if I was OG Maco I would maybe be upset. So I thought it was fair to offer a percentage of the song to OG Maco. Once we had an agreement we were both cool with it and we’re on good terms.