Weighin My Options by Kenny Kapone

Since the event, he had a fascination for the urban street life in his community. He also shared a similar interest for music. He later joined Oliver Wendell Holmes’ choir. After the Fall Semester of his seventh grade year he would go from a tenor to a bass and conduct his first duet in front of parents and teachers at a Parent Teacher Conference, singing the song “Ben” by Michael Jackson.

Later that year, with fighting increasing to a daily thing for the anger harvesting youth, he was initiated into the gang lifestyle and also became engaged in gang activities. Encouraged by his cousin to pursue rapping he would no longer chase after a singing career. He later would follow the gangster-like images of rappers such as Snoop Dogg, Warren G, Tupac, Bone Thugs N Harmony, and many others of the early 90’s period. Once his mother and step-dad saw the teenager headed for destruction, they cancelled plans of having a house in the neighborhood and searched refuge in suburban areas.

At 13 years old he was new to the polished lifestyle, being of a district with metal detectors at each entry of the school. He then began to form alliances with others from areas similar to his’ – creating a new breed of gangsters. Once he reached his freshman year at Mesquite High School, he and other members of his coalition would gain control of the school, preventing rival gangs from entry. This would eventually cause him to be labeled as a gang leader by the school’s administrators.

Toward the end of his 9th grade year he would deal with the cold reality of the gang life, with the lost of his former ally Antonio Tucker. With rap embedded in his mind he continued to write, mostly of the street gang life he was now use to, and battle rap (not the battle rap typical of today’s culture but of a show of skills) against his peers and against outsiders from other schools.

This later created a ripple effect in the daily festivities at Mesquite High School. Now he’d perform to hundreds of students who formed before and after school, as his friends would beat on trash cans, walls, windows, or doors. School administrators, of this predominately white high school, were not use to this type of reaction from students, so they would scurry the crowds in hopes of preventing a fight.

Up until the end of his junior year in high school he started a party promotional company (Platinum Eightball Entertainment) with his childhood friend Sirvel Taylor. Once his senior year started he was well known for throwing parties throughout Dallas. He would network with other entertainment groups gaining access to their parties and creating an extended list of connections with DJs, artists, and head leaders of other promotional groups.

After throwing a party at Tha Lounge Café (located in Pleasant Grove, Texas) the owner immediately recognized the potential of this young man and his promoters and allowed him and co-founder Sirvel Taylor access to the club even when they didn’t have an event scheduled for that night. This would gain the young adult money, popularity, and a hungry eye for profits. The deal later went sour due to the conflict of direction. Kenny Kapone saw Platinum Eightball Entertainment catering more so to the 18 and up crowds and the owner wanted a much older crowd, due to increase in fights.

This upset would later force Kenny Kapone to a quick and easier way to make money through a number of check scams and quick profit hustles. He then graduated and proceeded on for further education at a community college (Richland Community College). Bearing the weight of working two jobs to fund his college venture and trying to hustle for extra cash, he was nearly arrested for a “deal gone bad” in a check scam. Since his involvement could not be physically proven he was fired from his retail job, at which he held a management position, due to speculations of him joining to the military. This occurred after the devastating day of September 11th, 2001.

Being unable to complete school and with his militant thinking he joined the military. Upon joining the military he was taught even more so how to be militant. This would cause him to forget about his craft for 2 ½ months. Once he was able to communicate with his younger brother, who was rehearsing his old raps in high school now, he was inspired to taking the talent seriously.

Once he arrived at his first base in Little Rock, Arkansas he started up a group called FURY, which included him, his brother, and Sirvel and together they created a demo making it into the hands of Master P., while he was visiting a local radio station in Dallas. After being filled with hope from the artist/CEO/actor, they plotted on the day they would be in the industry. With a negative response from No Limit Records they kept making music.

Sirvel later left the group to create his own record label called Swat Team Records with party member and friend Ike Iwu. Kenny Kapone invested much time into reading books about the industry and he invested even more money into a project that never left the ground (Approximately $6,000). This chain of events constructed his thoughts to a bigger scale. He would then create a label to avoid a constant let down of major record labels not replying to his demos. So Kenny Kapone and his brother created K.I. Recordz (Kapone & Infamy Recordz).

The group FURY came to a slow halt due to the constant traveling from Arkansas to Texas just to record a few songs. Kenny Kapone then created a group with other military members called (Squad 730). Keeping his loyalty, he recruited his brother into the group. The group did majority of their early work in a dorm room with a microphone held from a ceiling fan.

Once the group decided to make a more refined CD, they went out into the streets of Little Rock looking for the best studios, other artist in the area, and the major producers. This networking skill, in which, Kenny was use to, lead him and another member of Squad 730 (Water Gates) into the ranks of Conduit Entertainment as promoters with the labels founders, Chane “Epiphany” Morrow and Brian “BET’s Ultimate Hustler” Rikuda.

The four would promote the CDs of the Conduit label and make a profit of each CD sold. After a year Squad 730 started to blossom and change. The group released a mixtape with all of the original members called “Half Past Seven”. Then shortly after that, Kenny Kapone featured on Swat Team’s mixtape (Final Destination) with Dirty South Riders’ (D.S.R.) Fat Bastard.

After the success of the mixtape Kenny Kapone was featured on a D.S.R. release entitled “All Feestyles No Freestyles” which helped to increase his popularity amongst the D.S.R. fan base. The members of Squad 730 started to slim down with the discharge of a member for marijuana use. Kenny Kapone at this time was wrapping up an unfinished mixtape (Still Undagrind’N) and creating intros for radio stations and for the popular southern DJ – DJ Smallz.

After his intro for DJ Smallz, which earned the somewhat locally buzzed artist mainstream attention, he was then deployed to the Middle East to fight. This is when Kenny Kapone focused on the running of his “empire” and the organization of his group. Kenny Kapone also took this time for soul searching and to learn his bible. He had been in and out of his bible before during his younger years but this time he would gain understanding in the scriptures. This would later become a new direction for his rap music. He would recognize a hidden message within his lyrics that mimicked or matched passages in the bible.

Kenny Kapone describes the tour in the Middle East as “being closer to God without distractions from the outside world.” During the new construction of his business life back in the States, Squad 730 was reduced in size due to a lack of support and desire from members. This brought the group down to four members, Kenny Kapone, Infamy (Kapone’s brother), Water Gates, and Kuntryboi Castro. He later returned to Arkansas in May of 2005, in which he released the final “big group” project (Still Undagrind’N) and featured on another Swat Team Records release called “Americaz Most Throwdest” with Lil Rick and Fat Bastard (D.S.R.).

He then contacted super producer and engineer Thomas “Big Keys” Booth to record his first solo mixtape entitled “Hood Resume” while recording for DJ 31 Degreez' mixtape "Texas Massacre Pt. 6". On "Texas Massacre Pt. 6" Kenny Kapone featured on a song with Slim Thug, Paul Wall, Trae, and other developing artists called "Driving Slow Through Texas".

During this time “Hood Resume” had struck the ears of Big Keys. Guaranteeing him four featuring spots on Big Keys’ release “The Dirty 30: Remedy 4 The Streets”. The compilation CD released by Big Keys, featured prestigious artists out of Arkansas. This CD was also praised in the Arkansas Democrat Gazette as being the best album released. The newspaper also highlighted the song “Get Down or Lay Down”, in which Kenny Kapone starts off on with a furious approach to the mainstream system.

After the compilation Kenny Kapone helped Big Keys to spread the product to the Texas store T-Town, one of the biggest underground selling locations, and to the Hastings store in Jacksonville, Arkansas, becoming the Product Rep in those areas. During the promotion period of “The Dirty 30” Kenny Kapone and Water Gates created a mixtape called “Certified Assholes” displaying a “I don’t care” image throughout the mixtape. Kenny has also been on many other “under the radar” mixtapes and albums.

Currently he was featured on a DJ VLAD and Scotty Wu mixtape called "My Block To Your Block" and is featured on the Conduit Fam album "Theme Muzik". He is also finishing up his second solo mixtape "Angels and Demons" and is still working heavily with the Conduit Family, promoting, networking, conducting shows, and trying to maximize the Conduit brand. Kenny Kapone is definitely a powerhouse second to none!

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