Ron Contour (Moka Only)

I hear 2010 has been a real big year for you so far, after some much needed dental work and a license to drive. How does the new independence feel?

haha.. I don’t know about dental work.. some jerkoff started that rumor and the label thought it was funny for my bio so we kept it for giggles. My teeth are fine.. its not like i have wooden teeth. I’ve survived worse. Right? Anyhow, 2010 has just started so I’m gonna cross my finger and hope for the best. Its really like a wet balloon if ya think about it. Could slip or pop, either. I know it’ll be good. Got the fat record deal with Fake Three records. Checky is a cool label boss. Factor is the man.

There is much confusion when it comes to you and Moka Only. Can you set the record straight for the listeners what the deal is?

What’s the confusion? I don’t see how people compare us other than we are first cousins. Stylewise I’m doing stuff he would never do. That’s no diss but c’mon, lets face facts. I’m older so I know more than him… nah… haha joking.

How annoying is it for you to have people continually confusing you with your cousin Moka Only?

Wasn’t this what you were kind of getting at with your last question? Yeah, holy turtle, you bet its annoying but amusing too.  I mean, we  DO look similar and there was that initial confusion when Moke broke me into the game in 99.  He thought it would be smart to bill my first album as  Moka Only Is Ron Contour… But NOW look.. a thousand doofus’s are putting things on the internets like “Moka Only AKA Rontour”… bunch of apple morons, you know? Who are they? Electric scientists? Is these tha people that are going to run my countries in the future? Hope not. hawhaw!

You disappeared shortly after your 1999 release. The word on the street is you left the rap game to pursue some honey dips and bee keeping?

Yeah, basically the first deal soured and Moka was pretty busy with his music so I took time off to learn how to make my beats better and yeah, i was living in a small ranch house in Kelowna for a min and i had taken over the last tenant’s bee hive, if ya can believe that. Crazy, huh. I went to a workshop then and learned about how to care for the beez and cleaning the hive and extracting the honey. It was fascinating. I did get stung once or twice or three times over a couple years and I think I may have developed a partial allergy. I went to the doctor about it but he told me it wasn’t a allergy so who knows. Needful to say I gave up beekeeping. It bugged me being away from music so long. I have my stories to tell so…

Is there any truth to the rumours that Moka Only discovered you freestyling at a family reunion?

hehe.. kind of.. I mean, he always knew that I was the  rap guy that was into doing some raps  but I don’t think he really knew how skilled I was until 95 at a fam reunion and a couple of us were  freestyling. I knew that Moka was already doing some stuff and had been living in California and meeting people but. I NEVER sweated Moke for hookups… it happened naturally, as it often does for family, ya know? Pass the torch, pardon the pun. From there on we stayed in close contact and he got me into rap things and those type of situations with rap.

Do you think distancing yourself from Moka Only on this release and working with Factor will be enough to break free from his shadow?

Honestly, let me  address that… I’m gonna address it like this.. I think Moka’s pride gets in the way sometimes and he bites off more work than he can handle and gets himself into situations where he is trying to balance like 20 projects at one time. He had always done the bulk of my beats but around summer 2008 he didn’t have time to work on a new project for me so i hollered at Factor and we started Saffron. Factor is dope so i knew it would turn out swell. We crafted the album slowly though… over a year, actually. Summer of 2009 i started working with Moke again for the album The Beach and it was dope. Moke hit me with a bunch of beats for another project that i finished in last November called Rontario but I’m waitin’ on releasing that one.  For now I’m going full steamy ahead with this Saffron. Its a safe bet and it will unfold like a napkin. Totally.

Saffron is your third release and you teamed up with Factor and Fake Four. How did that connection come about and what was it like working with Factor?

Oh i just knew Factor through Moke cus they had done occasional work together since 2001. Simple shit.  Factor is easy to work with… creates the beats, we sit with them and then he kinda zones out and doesn’t talk… at all… for a long time.. So I just do raps at him and we put it all together. Then we usually eat some food or whatever. Typical type rap stuff, ya know? I try to come flexi with tha verbals.  Verbals for gerbils, i always say.

How would you describe Saffron?

Let me break that down.. the Saffron sound… well the title has Ron in it.. and saf.  Factor’s other nickname is saf and its short for moneysacks, in a roundabout way plus where he is from in the Canadian prairies its all yellow with Saffron so there’s a dual meaning. Its like two meanings… in one! The sound is like raw veggies. its something that isn’t in rap and is a step away from my usual shit with Moke. Although the stuff i do with Moke is magic too. Three.  Ummm… Factor and me used a lot of folk music type vibes on this album. To bring out a special mood. A new mood that feels like the flatlands. We tried some uptempo stuff too. Even Def Three is on the album! I dig it.. its mellow and nice and hyper. The both.  Both of the vibes. Mellow yet it can be hyper. you know?

You just released the first single “Glad” accompanied by a video directed by Stuey Kubrick. Is the Sasquatch in the video a friend of yours? Why did you make him wear a paper bag on his head for the video?

You didn’t get the underlying theme of the hairy sasquatch in the vid? Remember my song “Hairy Gumdrops” from 1999? Well go back and check it… there’s messages. And also in the vid i think its apparent that the squatch is trying to fit in with civilization and does not want to be  spotted, other wise it’d be like the movie E.T.  and guys would come and take him away… so he  was just hiding, but we had to turn him loose cus its the right thing to do. That’s what we were  trying to get across. You can’t always get the cookie AND the cake. That’s the message.?

What does the future hold for Ron Contour?

The  future of Ron… well… more raps. I’m kinda like Moke, in that sense… I just care to do music and build on that. Me and him are the only ones of our immediate families that do music so we gotta represent. I mean, it wouldn’t be very cool if we quit and did normal jobs, now  would it? Nope. I’m happy doing some raps and beats.

Any last words, shout outs, stories etc?

I gotta shout out the monkey kings, my homie flan-dog, din din and my homeboy mic-grabba and pinchy and betty the sweater. As for stories, yo.. I  ate this  weird muffin two days ago and it gave my the shits something terrible. I went to the movies with my homeboy’s girlfriend cus they were  fighting and anyhow, we were halfway through the movie and i kept have some farts come out of my bottom and it was getting worse by the min, and pain too. I didn’t think much of it cus we were eating that stinky movie popcorn so you couldn’t REALLY tell what was a fart or what was just food.. and then  BOOOM.. my guts were twisting and i had to bounce to the toilet. I sat down and just spray painted that toilet… let me tell you! When I was  done and wiping up, I heard someone come in the mens room and say somethin’ like “boy, it stinks in here”… so i said somethin’ like” what the eff do you expect? its a frigging TOILET ROOM ” or whatever and that shut him up.. I mean, its crazy that people make comments like that when they KNOW damn well where there are. I mean, how is it supposed to smell in there? Like some nice candy or a bunch of the flowers or something?  Anyhow, I went back into the theater but the girl I was with bounced… She left her soda and the rest of the popcorn so i gladly finished that off and then I went home and watched the late news on tv or whatever.  SO… yeah… that’s a little story. Some REAL rapper life shit! Stuff that most cats won’t talk about but its real.  I’ve always been the type of nigga to keep it accurate as far as what really goes on so thank me later… or now.  Thanks for the interview, doggie.  Go pick up that Saffron. It will shit your pants!

fakefourinc.com
myspace.com/mokaonly
myspace.com/factorg
Twitter: @ron_contour, @factormusic, @fakefour