When one looks up the word “Supreme” in the dictionary, one of the definitions you will see is, “Of the highest quality, degree, character, importance, etc supreme courage,” and this definition clearly describes Claremont bred emcee Keon Supreme.  Growing up as a Jehovah Witness, Keon Supreme left his religion to follow what was close to his heart, and that’s his music.  Despite the backlash, and potential threats of alienation with his family, Keon Supreme is content on staying true to himself and giving us dope music, which is seen on his latest project “Supreme” out today.  Keon Supreme spoke with Rawe about his project, why his name is Keon Supreme in the first place, his religion and his feelings on the LA “movement.”

Bella: Why is your name Keon Supreme?

Keon Supreme: My first name’s Keon and Supreme came from me being in 6th Grade.  I used to think of all these names for myself.  I used to call myself Keon The Great.  I called myself Keon 3000 and one day I was just like Keon Supreme I liked that one the most, so I’ve been calling myself Keon Supreme since the sixth grade.

Bella: So as far as your background, how long have you been doing music and who are your influences are?

Keon Supreme: Yeah, for sure.  I started off with music through poetry I started writing poetry in the third grade–my first poem was for my grandmother when she was sick because I had no money to get her flowers.   Then I kept writing poetry throughout elementary and middle school and then when I got to high school I started freestyling because I had been writing for so long.  I just jumped in a cypher and started freestyling and I was actually good and then after that I started writing raps.

Bella:  So do you find that writing poetry and writing raps are kind of the same or do you feel they are different to write?

Keon Supreme:  It’s the same idea but I think it’s different because poetry doesn’t really have a rhythm–well it has a rhythm but it doesn’t really have a steady pace like when your writing to a song there’s always a steady rhythm that you have to keep to but with poetry you can slow it down whenever you want so.   I think writing music is a lot more creative personally.

Bella: When I read your bio, I read that you were raised as a Jehovah Witness, how do you feel being raised as a Jehovah Witness has shaped your musical identity?

Keon Supreme: Well musically it gives me a lot more topics to talk about since it’s such a structured religion it’s like, a religion that’s apart of your life 24/7 it comes out in my music a lot.  I know a lot of musicians don’t really talk about religion much, but for me, I think every single one of my projects is going to have something about religion because of that.   So it’s definitely structured me that way and also you know in that religion it’s not just Reverends and Decants that do the talking, sometimes just the regular people in the congregation and they go up there and speak themselves, this has also helped me because when I have shows and stuff, it’s almost like a normal thing for me to be up there.

Bella: Okay.  So how do your parents feel about you doing rap music then?

Keon Supreme:  They don’t support it, they support me but musically they don’t support it.  I think they wish I didn’t do music.  But I try to keep it separate just to avoid any problems.  When I do get more exposure, I don’t know how it’s going to affect our relationship, I probably won’t be able to talk to my family anymore after that to be honest.

Bella: You’re from Claremont, and I know for me I’ve never really heard of Claremont besides in The Bay Area.  But, living in such a small town–did you look to LA’s hip-hop scene to influence your sound in anyway?

Keon Supreme:  To be honest with you, I don’t really identify with Los Angeles rappers because Claremont’s really different from LA.  It’s definitely a suburb of Los Angeles but we’re almost like 45 minutes away.  There are a lot of white people in Claremont and it’s different because there’s racism it’s like a different kind of city.  But to be honest I don’t really identify with a lot of LA artists, they talk about fashion and other stuff– and a lot of us in Claremont aren’t like that.  We’re more into drugs.

Bella: You’re into drugs?

Keon Supreme: Yeah.  If anything, we’re more into psycdelic trips.

Bella: Okay.  Well since you don’t really listen to too many artists from LA, who do you listen to?

Keon Supreme: I’m into a lot more 90’s rap: Jay-Z, BIG, Tupac, Nas.

Bella: So as far as your project, Making the Supreme: The Appetizer in June, and now your new album Supreme is coming out, why did you want to do a mixtape prior, and what’s going to make them different?

Keon Supreme: Because, no one had no idea who I was and I want people to listen to Supreme really bad, I just want people to listen to it so I wanted to grab people’s attention.  A lot of people told me they liked The Appetizer, but when I listen to Supreme– the appetizer sounds real mediocre because Supreme is just on a whole other level like I think it has some of the same topics and it almost has the same feel but I think the album goes a lot deeper into some of the things that I talk about.  It’s a lot deeper, but I think it’s a lot darker too.

Bella: As far as some of the songs you sent me, like “Love Me Again,” which is like a deeper song, what was the inspiration behind this song?

Keon Supreme: This was right after I had left that religion and me and my mom were kind on bad terms because of the decision that I had made.   She had invited me to dinner because I had moved out and because I love my moms cooking so I was really excited to go over there and rekindle a relationship because me and my mom were very close and when I decide to leave it kind of put a strain on our relationship.  So I went over there and there’s a group of Jehovah Witnesses in the house and they’re all talking to me about where I’ve been.  I thought it was going to just be me and my mom so of course, that hurt my feelings really bad.  I went home and I wrote that song I had that beat already and that verse came out that’s where it pretty much came from I was trying to get out my emotions.  The reason why that song isn’t longer and it’s just one verse is because it just took a lot out of me when I was writing it and I couldn’t write anymore.

Bella: On this project who did you work with?

Keon Supreme: Jansport J for sure, he pretty much put me on.  Make sure you let people know that I give ultimate props to Jansport J; he showed me the way like for real.  Jansport J has two beats on my album, one with just me and one with my boy Poetick Force.   My personal producer, Ben Bauer, that’s the boy.  I went to high school with him.  He’s just this white boy but when you look at him he seems like this real mellow kid, but when you hear his music and his beats you can see there’s so much more darker, deeper feelings inside of him.  His beats are amazing I think that me and him could possibly change hip-hop with us working together so yea, that’s pretty much the main guy that’s on this album.

Bella: How you just said that you guys could possibly change the state of hip-hop, what do you feel about it’s current state?

Keon Supreme: I think it’s like all industry.  It’s all industry, and all media; it’s not really real anymore.  I don’t think anybody cares anymore.  It’s like no one cares or sees the importance of music anymore.  Music changed lives.  I don’t think that people see music can change lives.  Music can implant ideas in your head.  It can influence anything because when you think about it, a lot of the Bible is music. Psalms, are all songs, I don’t think people realize that.  They don’t appreciate what you can do with it; I don’t really like the state of hip-hop right now.  But, I think the underground scene is pretty dope.  I think what there doing in LA with the whole movement; I think that’s tight like they get a lot of respect from me.  The underground scene is dope, but the mainstream is whack.

Download: Keon Supreme: “Supreme” here.  Also follow him on Twitter @KeonSupreme