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Add the andPOP Facebook Application(andPOP) - Citizen Cope is not a hip-hop artist. Nor is he a pop artist, a rock artist, a blues artist, or a country artist. Or maybe he's all five.
"I think every artist somewhat has a battle with how they describe their music," he says during a recent stop in Toronto.
Cope, born Clarence Greenwood, is most commonly associated with hip-hop music, probably because he used to be in the rap group Basehead. But he says his latest album, The Clarence Greenwood Recordings, shouldn't be classified as hip-hop.
"I respect and love hip-hop and identify with the emotion and poetry of hip-hop, but it's not a hip hop record," he says. "But I think that people who like hip-hop will like what I do."
And what he does is make music, though it's not something he's been doing all his life. He only started his music career in the early 1990s, rapping with Basehead. He released a few albums but none as well-received at his current release, his RCA debut.
Working on The Clarence Greenwood Recordings, Cope didn?t rush.
"I did the less is more thing. I relied more on my first instinct," he says. "I recorded at my own pace. I just kicked back and let the record happen."
Critics have trouble classifying it, but most agree on at least one thing: his music is emotional.
"I kind of had to make a statement. I felt artistically it was my time. It was just one of those things that it just came together."
The album earned him a spot on the coveted Artists to Watch list from Rolling Stone late last year. They named 50 Cent, Norah Jones, and most recently The Game to the list before anyone heard of them. Cope is pleased, but modest, with the mention.
"Sometimes Rolling Stone disses you and sometimes they love you. They said bad things about me too," he says. "I read that magazine all my life so I'm kind of like I was happy to get that."
He hasn't reached the level of 50 Cent or Jones, but he didn't expect to shoot to superstardom because of the article. He's happy with the way his career has been going since the release of the album in September 2004.
"The progress has been the way we wanted it to go," he explains. "We wanted it to go slow. We've been doing a lot without much radio. We haven't really been on TV yet. We have all that stuff still to do, so there's a lot of good things happening."
Despite his plan, becoming a celebrity is not something he is hoping for. But if it happens, he says, he's fine with that.
"I just want to make great records and consistently do that and connect with people and hopefully they hear the music. (Becoming a celebrity) is not something that I have a problem with. You need a little of that in order to have your music reach a certain amount of people."
