Many of us can link a certain album to pivotal moments in our lives. Whether it’s the first record you bought with your own money, the chord you first learnt to play on guitar, the song that soundtracked your first kiss, the album that got you those awkward and painful pubescent years or the one that set off light bulbs in your brain and inspired you to take a big leap of faith into the unknown – music is often the catalyst for change in our lives and can even help shape who we become.
In this series, Music Feeds asks artists to reflect on their relationship with music and share with us stories about the effect music has had on their lives.
Citizen Kay – Red Hot Chili Peppers, Live In Hyde Park (2004)
It’s been a long-ass time. This year marks fourteen years since we met & here we are again, sitting in my room and what we have is just as strong as I remember. Nothing has changed.
RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS – LIVE IN HYDE PARK.
Raw, real and freakin’ unforgettable. A friend gave me this gift of funk, rock and ultimate vibe at my 12th birthday party and I didn’t really know what to make of it… that was until I put the M.F CD in the next day and SWEEEEEET LORDY. I didn’t know The Peppers before this CD & I didn’t bother getting more albums of theirs until a year or so later.
It opens with a screaming audience and you instantly get a glimpse of what the energy in that space was like. There’s a four-minute prelude of absolute funk that leads into the first actual song; ‘Can’t Stop’. THAT GUITAR RIFF & when the slap bass comes in (I’m assuming) surely has to be the first time I ever did the “stank face” – where a riff or beat is so damn NASTY that you can’t help but physically show it. That and the song ‘Under the Bridge’ sparked my love for both emotional tenderness within songs but also pure STANK.
Apart from how obviously good this live album is, it was the first time I owed my own CD. I learned every part, every bit of banter in between the songs and of course every single lyric (or at least what I thought the lyrics were).
RHCP & this album in particular are what turned me from being someone who enjoyed listening to music to someone who wanted to learn an instrument, not solely to play along, but to write their own music that made this much of an impact. This album is the reason I pleaded my dad to buy me a guitar. This album is the reason I began rhyming, the reason I began really attaching passion and intense energy to music.
I dare say without this album, I wouldn’t be the artist I am today, or at the very least my music taste and style would have been incredibly different. I owe a lot of who I am as an artist to this band, and specifically this album.
I played this album to its death (literally) so if anyone can get their hands on another copy for me, that would be great.
RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS – LIVE IN HYDE PARK, I thank you. Sweet Lordy, I thank you!!
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Citizen Kay has just revealed his groove-laden new single ‘Funny Business’ featuring Genesis Owusu – produced by the artist himself and long-time collaborator Ben Garden.
It’s a retro-funkified MOOD coming at you on a neon wave of pornstar synths, irresistible R&B hooks and 80’s hip-hop grooves.
As for what it’s about: “The track explores our relationship with mainstream media and how we’re expected to trust it all without question,” Citizen Kay explains.
“People need to find their own truths. Stop adopting everything you read or see without researching it for yourself”.
Listen below!
