Our World, Once Removed: Talking Rap and Speculative Fiction with Mikhail Campbell

I don’t recall exactly when I first met writer-rapper-producer Mikhail Campbell, only that he’s always been in my life. Even before I began to form distinct memories of our shared moments, I have the vague recollection of his presence in my social sphere.  

I imagine many people share this feeling. There’s a comforting ease about him, like an invitation home. He has an enviable way of connecting with others that feels genuine and unobtrusive. Perhaps that’s why he excels as a storyteller working in multiple creative pathways - his spiritual intimacy, his ability to relate.

Sometimes when we’re drunk I ask him to freestyle over whatever beat happens to be playing; it’s always hilarious and always far too well articulated for someone who’s supposed to be inebriated. Sometimes, we share feedback on writing or debate our differing processes. Sometimes, I find myself furrow-browed and caught in a web of lyrics while watching him perform. Whether it’s in lyrics, narrative or day-to-day conversation, his capacity to connect combined with his talent for wordplay makes him an invigorating person to interact with.

I’d been meaning to start a series of interviews with artists and rogues who captivate my imagination. Who better to begin with than a dear friend whose work, commitment to artistic improvement, and willingness to openly share himself through art I so admire? 

Mikhail released his first EP, Islands, in 2014 under his rap moniker, The Matrixx. Before and since then, he’s collaborated with a number of rappers and producers including PrendaSoLit, M-Lito and Yung Fusion. If you miss his music over the radio, you’ll find it on Soundcloud and Bandcamp.

Describe your working process. Does it differ when you’re writing a song versus writing a story?

Normally for rap it starts with a beat; I’ll freestyle on it, feel out different patterns, flows, rhyme structures. Usually a few words will come to me and I build it out from there. Nowadays, if I hear something and think of a concept, I’ll record it so I can remember the pattern when I come back to it later. 

After that concept phase I’ll fill in the verses. It helps if I have a plan for how I want the song to progress or what I want it to say. Even if you’re just doing a lyrical exercise, you still want to give it some direction. In general, having direction makes the process easier and makes the song more coherent.  

Another thing I’ve been trying to do recently is treat writing rap the way I would treat writing prose, in terms of not having to make the first draft perfect. If I’m struggling with a section, I’ll fill it in with stuff that I know I’m not super happy with. I’ll record it as a rough cut, let it sit for a while, come back to it, then edit it and put in lyrics that fit the song better.

It’s that idea of letting go of being perfect right away, and knowing that nobody has to read what you write or hear what you record until you’re ready for them to. You can take your time to get it right, but that doesn’t mean you should not do anything because you haven’t gotten it right yet. It’s easier to build on something you have than start from scratch. You kind of just have to let go and let it flow. [Laughs] I didn’t mean to rhyme.  

So the process is simultaneously intuitive and planned?

To write a long narrative project, I’ve found that I can’t complete it or have it make sense unless I sit down beforehand and plan it out. You have to follow a narrative arc that makes sense.  

You can be intuitive in the micro-sense, within a scene, but on the macro scale every piece is planned. You still have freedom to explore and let the characters speak to you. Sometimes, that will contradict your outline, so you adjust from there.  

In any art, you need some kind of structure. Even when I free-write a song, I still have the structure of 16 bars; and the beat itself gives you a rhythm to follow. It’s like pouring liquid into a container. You still have the creativity of figuring out what that liquid will be and how you pour it, but the container will be there to give structure.  

I can sit down and write a long, sprawling story but if it doesn’t have form it won’t resonate with people. Even as an author, the structure gives you purpose. That’s part of what makes writing enjoyable. But then of course, narrative conventions change over time. Stream-of-consciousness and slow descriptive passages used to be very popular. It reminds me of what, I think it was [Mikhail] Bakhtin, said, ‘a piece doesn’t exist just on it’s own, but is in conversation with everything else at the moment.’

You also write a lot of shorter pieces in between more time-consuming stories, what’s the benefit of that?  

Sometimes when larger projects feel daunting, I’ll do a palette cleanser. I’ll free-write, where you just write off the top of your head. I’ll time myself for 15 minutes - though it often goes longer - and just start with any image in my head to create a scene and develop it.

It often doesn’t go where you expect. Sometimes it’s not the most sensible or compelling stuff, but it helps to get yourself to stop overthinking it. A lot of the time when I go back and read them, there’s interesting ideas there that I might use later. 

You seem to gravitate toward writing speculative fiction stories. What drew you to that genre?

I’ve always had an active imagination. I don’t know if that’s because of being an only child growing up, or if that’s just part of my inherent personality. I was always drawn to that kind of stuff as a consumer.

Growing up, I always liked superheroes - Power Rangers, anime, science fiction; I just thought it was really cool, these fantastical worlds that people dreamed up. The word that comes to mind is just ‘cool’. I like imagining this kind of stuff laid on top of our world, so it’s like our world but enhanced, our world but once removed.

Does speculative fiction offer any creative opportunities that might be limited in other genres?

Having those speculative things that you can put into play gives you narrative short cuts in a way. Not to cheat, but to give life to emotional journeys in a way you couldn’t necessarily do if you were sticking to realistic fiction.  

For example, you could have a psychic character who’s trying to link their friends’ minds so they can communicate, but they mess it up and are drawn into a feedback loop of each other’s emotions and memories. You can have moments like that where a character can directly view someone else’s memories. In a way, you can make things more real by using these fantastical opportunities. In sci-fi in general, you can use fantastical things as a metaphor for society, which is what all the best ones do.  

The other thing is that I just really like world-building. I like figuring out how things work and imagining the consequences of things. If a group of kids got powers, how would it affect their relationships or their goals in life? Would they still be friends if they didn’t have these powers? What would this power look like? What would its limitations be? What would happen if someone came along and shifted their belief system? I’m drawn to stories that have really strong world building; well defined, but still open for surprises.

I studied logic for a while. In logic it’s not about whether what you’re saying is true or not, it’s about whether certain conclusions follow if what you’ve said is true. With writing, you’re creating these premises – if people could fly, these conclusions would follow.

I feel the same way about language; I find language fascinating. Just how everything has different meanings depending how it’s phrased. It’s like a puzzle, right. This piece fits here because it means this thing, but it also works with this other layer because it means these other things. I don’t know if that imprecision is good for efficient communicating, but in terms of art, music and poetry, it’s really good.  

There’s a saying that all writers are readers. What authors have influenced your work?  

I’m very much a genre reader. A lot of my influence comes from stuff I read when I was younger.

A big one is K.A. Applegate’s Animorphs series. I didn’t realize at the time how unique it was in that it dug so deep into morality and post-traumatic disorders. Again, it’s a really good example of world building. She laid out the rules and justified any exceptions. The characters were all really well defined; you see them grow and change throughout the course of the series, and because it’s so many books, you really get to know them.

Another big one is Harry Potter. It’s a similar thing where she created this world that was so vivid – our world, but once removed. I wouldn’t say her world building is perfect, but it was done in such a way that you could put yourself in there and imagine all these possibilities. As an author, you don’t want to explain every detail. You want to know them, but you also want to leave room for a sense of wonder so people can think about how they’d fit into that world and create their own head canon. 

That’s also when I first started reading fan-fiction. Seeing the different interpretations people had of the story was cool. I actually wrote a fan-fiction based on Harry Potter, which is one of the first stories of length that I actually finished. That was before I even started studying story structure, and the only way I could get through it was because I had this whole world already set up. After that, I knew I needed to look into writing techniques more seriously.

A recent one is Jim C. Hines’ Libriomancer series. He sets up his system of magic and why it works that way; towards the end he brings it together so that things are done that you thought couldn’t be done at the beginning. He also follows through to discuss the repercussions and realistic follow-up of what would happen if magic were revealed to the world.

You’re currently writing the third part of your King Stone Trilogy. How is it going?

It’s on and off. I haven’t been writing that much lately, but I feel like I’m often thinking of it and how I want to do certain things. I have the overarching plot, but I need to fill in the process of how it gets there.  

One thing I’ve been focusing on is making sure the character arc works. I’ve been following this writer, K.M. Weiland, who does a website for authors with story structure, character arc tips and such; she writes books about writing as well. She breaks down character arc and plot as two sides of the same coin; they should be intertwined and support each other. So I’ve been reviewing what I’ve been doing and making sure it supports that. I think I did a good job of that in the first story. In the second one it’s not quite as well blended together, so I’m looking at that one too and seeing what changes need to be made.

I know I need to sit down and dedicate more time to it. I always have good results when I sit down for even 15 minutes a day, even editing or just rereading.

The characters in the King Stone Trilogy have telekinetic abilities. How did you develop the idea for those powers and how they would manifest for the characters? 

It’s a pretty well explored power. I wanted something simple enough to explain and show. For the first one, the main thrust of the story wasn’t really about the power – that was a device to explore the concept of friendship. When circumstances change, can that friendship still survive?

There were two inspirations for the story, really. The first was a picture I saw online of a girl on a hill jumping, almost floating, in a sundress with the wind in her hair. I thought it was a really cool striking image, and felt like I could write a story based on it. It tied in with something I was thinking about a lot at the time. I was going through the traditional phase where I had left university and taken a year off. When I came back, I was noticing that there were a lot of people I used to be friends with that I wasn’t talking to anymore. I wanted to write a story where that question about whether a friendship could survive a change in circumstance is explored and at the end of it, the answer is that it could survive (which It’s quite the opposite of what I was experiencing at the time).  

A lot of the stories I’d been writing before then had bigger concepts; I just wanted to write a simple, more optimistic story that explored the relationship between two people. Based on that image of the girl floating, I wanted it to be a superhero story, I wanted them to get powers as the circumstance that would bring them together. But I wanted it to be simple so I wouldn’t have to do a lot of explaining. I wanted something that people already knew.  

In terms of showing the power, I thought about two ways to do it.  One is direct control over whatever the matter is. In other words, you could look at a basket and control the basket itself. The other way is that there’s a force that you can control, and that force moves the basket. I gravitated toward the second option. In a sense, their powers are like a force-field.

It’s a versatile power. There’s a lot you can do with it. I came up with the concept that it would almost surround them, like a field of gas. When they’re not using it, it’s just around them, but when they use it, it almost compresses and solidifies to move things. As the story progresses, you see the characters getting better with the power and exploring its different facets. It was cool to explore for me; I like thinking about that kind of stuff.

What have you found most challenging about writing this trilogy? 

The depth of it all.  

The first one was, like I said, a nice simple story and plot. Each successive one is now longer than the other, partly because I have more to build from and partly because as I explore it more, I want to say more.

As each one gets more ambitious, it becomes a massive juggling act of all these things you have to keep in mind. If one piece falters, it will drag everything down with it. It’s a balance.

Where do you typically find inspiration?

I feel driven to write by feelings of nostalgia or bittersweetness. I guess because they’re the kind of emotions that don’t have direction. You can’t do anything with them, but they demand a release anyway.

A lot of it is that I want to talk about my feelings [laughs]. I had this theory a while ago that, the thing that’s so amazing about art is that it’s a way to preserve an emotion, like a hard-drive. You’re taking it out of yourself and putting it into this thing. These random strokes on a paper will be read by someone else; if they’re similar enough to you, they’ll feel the emotion you felt when you wrote it. It’s part of the human condition, the drive to share those emotions with others.

Other works also inspire me, if there’s a concept that’s touched on that I want to explore more…

I’m getting into exploring tropes that have been explored thoroughly in other cultures, and bringing them into a Caribbean context. Or, at least into my personal perspective of being a black Caribbean person living in North America. There are a lot of cool examples by Torontonian comic writers. I don’t want to default to the main character being a straight white male. When I write something, that’s the default because a lot of what I’ve done is emulating what I’ve seen; I have to make a conscious effort to change that. For the next thing I do, I’d want to do something set on one of my islands, either Cayman or Jamaica. It could even take place somewhere else, but from the perspective of someone who’s from the Caribbean. That’s an area that’s ripe for exploration, and it could speak to people who like this stuff but haven’t been directly spoken to by what they’re consuming

When did you start writing music? Do you remember the first song you ever wrote?

Anything I like, I want to try my hand at.

About the year 2000, Hip Hop was really popular here. At least, in my peer group during my late primary school into middle school years. There were a couple artists that I really liked. Ludacris was a big influence on me, as were Will Smith and Loon.

There was a remix of the song Peaches & Cream that had Ludacris on it; it had a gap on the bridge and a harder Hip Hop vibe. The first verse I wrote was a rap for that bridge. I can’t remember the exact process. Back then I was just doing it because it was fun. It was one of those things I started doing and just never stopped.

You recently featured on the song Run Down with Gifted Minds, M-Lito, PrendaSoLit and Jus P. How did that collaboration come about and what was it like working with that team? 

Prenda, M-Lito and I actually have a WatsApp chat with the three of us and Jazzi, who produced the beat for Vibe Is Nicer from my EP, Islands. Lito is part of Gifted Minds with J-Nez and Fresh; he reached out to us ‘cause they were working on a mixtape of local artists. He sent us a beat – he’d already written the chorus - and asked us to jump on it. I think it was eight or 12 bars.

The chorus is, mix up de ting like rundown, from the morning, noon, to the sundown so I wanted to address that. It started with food metaphors, which became metaphors for mixing up the elements for a good song, which turned into other ‘I’m so good’ type of stuff. 

You work with other local artists a lot. What’s the collaborative process like versus working on a song by yourself? Is it ever challenging, especially in instances where the lyrics might be quite personal?

No, not really. It’s always someone’s song, so that person has already built their concept and the direction they want to go in. If it’s your song, you get someone on it who would fit it and then you direct them. 

Most the time, you’re not sitting there together working on it. You record your part and send it to them and say ‘Hey, I want you to jump on this’. Sometimes you might have more structure, so you say ‘These eight bars are for you; I want you to talk about this.’

Often, the first time you actually do the work together is if you’re going to perform it. You might collab in that sense in terms of how you’re going to move around.

There are instances where you would actually come together to create a song, but that’s more if one person doesn’t have their own equipment. These days it’s more time efficient to record on your own.

How do you feel about the rap scene in Cayman? Is it challenging to work in a country like Cayman where the creative industries are still in growth stages?

 In terms of making the music, it’s not challenging at all. It’s not a hindrance, it’s not a negative effect, but you don’t necessarily get the positive boost you could get from a more diverse environment or exposure to different things.  

In terms of performing, it’s a case where there’s not a huge set of opportunities depending on your genre. If you can sing and play an instrument, you can usually find gigs at hotels or lounges where it’ll be music as background. If you’re an artist who’s just rapping, it’s a case where you’d have to find or create your own opportunities by approaching a venue. You have to be more proactive to get opportunities outside of the set events that happen once a year.

In terms of distribution, it’s a small market so there isn’t as much opportunity to build a following. It’s more beneficial to push via the internet, but that’s the case even for big markets where there’s so much competition. You need to diversify your clientele. On the other hand, it’s not terribly difficult to get on the radio here.

It’s difficult to impossible to make a career out of music if you were just focusing on the Cayman market. It’s a case where the people who do it, often have dreams of getting signed and going somewhere else.

Your lyrics are quite intertextual and frequently reference other forms of media. Can you talk about that?

I want my lyrics to reflect who I am. I do what I do because it entertains me. Everything I write or make is for people who like what I like.

There was a process I went through where I thought I could only rap about certain things. When I first listened to Kanye’s College Dropout, I realized I could also talk about cultural issues. Then I started to listen to Lupe [Fiasco] who was rapping about giant robots and people with powers. I realized I could rap about whatever the fuck I want - about some anime samurai guy who decided not to kill, or a guy who builds a time machine to save his girl.

So if I reference The Avengers and let my nerd side out, I’m not going to be ashamed of it. I’m just being true to myself.  

These days, there’s a lot of pressure on those in the creative industries to be productive, to constantly have something to show. In your song Turner, you talked about taking time to slowly produce quality material rather than releasing sloppy work. “And that’s the dilemma, I have to be clever, I have to be better than rappers wherever, and thanks to that pressure my tracks take forever. I’m after perfection…”  

The thing about that song is that it’s very self-deprecating. Saying I don’t produce much content and the reasons I give for that in the song doesn’t necessarily mean that’s a good thing. A lot of it is me making fun of myself and talking about my own insecurities.

Taking your time to do it right is good, but perfect is also the enemy of great. If you’re chasing perfection and not letting something go until it’s perfect, you’ll fall into a trap.

It’s not one or the other.

Are you working on anything exciting at the moment?

I’m always excited about the King Stone Trilogy; I love the characters and I can’t wait to get to the point where it all wraps up. There are so many cool reveals I have planned and I can’t wait to show people and see their reactions.

I also have some ideas for stories that I’m intimidated by, but I also think are really cool. One is quite a fatalistic time-travel story - going back to my roots of telling really depressing stories. The other is a gritty sci-fi story set in Jamaica with a lot of focus on socio-economic realities.

Music wise, I’m working on a follow up EP to Islands.

Follow Mikhail and his work at @kylematrixx on Instagram, Soundcloud, or Bandcamp.