About 10 years ago, Michael Aguilar was a Penn student who managed to drive a rental car across Locust Walk. He was “petrified,” he says, that the bridge was going to break — but he went for it anyway, and made it safely across. At the time, he didn’t realize how much this would foreshadow his career as one half of the hip hop duo Kidz in the Hall, who released their third LP this month.
Entitled Land of Make Believe, the album means many things to Aguilar — otherwise known as DJ Double-O — and Jabari Evans, whose MC name is Naledge. It means the successful execution of their first headlining concert tour, a breakout single (“Juke Box”), and a statement of their musical and personal identities. All this has required a mixture of the hard work, personal exploration and go-get-‘em attitude that, together, have a fair amount to do with Penn, where the group will perform in April.
“A lot of the entrepreneurial spirit I developed started at Penn,” Aguilar says. “So you ask yourself, ‘What am I going to create?’”
For both him and Evans, the answer to that question wasn’t always music. Earning his degree in applied science, Aguilar initially hoped to take advantage of the dot-com boom that was still thriving when he graduated in 2001, but he also devoted himself to running track. He didn’t meet Evans until April of his junior year, when Evans, then a prospective freshman, performed at a talent show during Multicultural Scholars’ Weekend. Once Evans started school in the fall, they began collaborating. Three years later, Evans graduated with a degree in communications and joined Aguilar in L.A., where they ran into their current manager and fellow Penn alumnus, Dan Solomito. The rest, as they say, is history — albeit a complex one.
Solomito, who studied political science and economics and played basketball all four years at Penn, says his decision to enter the music industry required a few gradual realizations: first, that his years after college would be the best time to pursue his passion for music; second, that music was actually a viable career. Evans, too, describes a turning point in his life when it fully sunk in that rapping could be more than a hobby — probably when he and Aguilar found themselves in the studio with Just Blaze, a prolific hip hop producer who worked on Jay-Z’s The Blueprint.
In the years to come, Kidz branched out from their roots in the indie hip hop scene and they’ve been straddling the line between indie and mainstream ever since. As Solomito describes it, this balance is often less black-and-white than it seems. “Like with anyone, the goal is to find a happy medium between the art and doing this for a living,” he says.
Amidst these competing categorizations and the never-ending debate of finding success versus selling out, the Kidz have tried to distinguish themselves by making music that appeals to fans and will also last, Aguilar says. With Land of Make Believe, they “wanted to make a definitive record, something that can’t easily be replicated” by other groups.
Evans sees their role in the industry pretty simply: “In the land of music, we can bring realism back to hip hop.” More specifically, Kidz wants to fill what Evans calls a “void” in the current scene, a lack of high-quality artists speaking to those fans who are transitioning into adulthood. He and Double-O are not all that far removed from that stage of their lives, he explains, and they try to tap into “our day and age” while also relating to this sense of youth. “Kids need that type of hip hop,” he says.
And does he think Kidz can bring it? Absolutely. “We make believers,” Evans states, laughing. “I’m trying to start a cult.” A lofty goal, maybe — but one at least as achievable as driving a car down Locust.
3.5 Stars
