Rapper Keith Murray on sunsets and southern culture
"Hubba Bubba, if you're nasty"
I have met three famous American rappers in my life. The first was Flavor Flav who was on a Southwest flight with me to Atlanta. He was acting crazy and flirty. He did not remain seated, and the flight attendants let him serve the other passengers cheese nips. Sadly I didn’t think to get an interview (or even a photo) but I did write about it on Facebook when it happened.
The second was Fish Scales from Nappy Roots. I was able to grab him for a quick interview after his performance at the Master Musician Festival in Somerset, Kentucky. You can listen to it if you read it here, it’s at the end of a long opinion piece about Beyoncé and country music.
I met Scales during my southern summer public transit adventure of 2023.
On that same trip I later met another famous rapper, this time in a fairly different environment, at the Raleigh Greyhound station. It was a gentleman named Keith Murray. Had I not been interviewing other people at the bus stop previously, I might have never known the legendary rapper from NYC was there. I now know that his album, The Most Beautifullest Thing in This World received good reviews in 1994, and thirty years later BET is still writing about how great his tracks are. The title track to the afore mentioned album has seven million plays on Spotify. That’s quite a few, but not as many as “High as hell” which has 11.5 million.
I’m looking backwards for my last Substack of the year. It was cool to interview Keith. He was attractive and charming. I don’t know how we ended up riding the same Greyhound together, but I’ll never forget it. On the ride from North to South Carolina, he kept passing his phone to me to show me what he was watching. He introduced me to a British woman on his video call. I think he liked that I was telling people’s stories. He kept encouraging me to record more interviews on the bus. (This was the same bus where I met the young transwoman who was returning from New York to Georgia after failing to get the funding to medically transition.)
It was a ride I’ll never forget.
Below is the recap of my brief interview with Keith.
”My name is Mr. Keith Omar Murray, Junior baby. Bubba. Hubba Bubba, if you're nasty,” he said into my recorder. He’d just come from doing a “riveting” performance in Dover, Delaware. He was from a crew called Def Squad made up of Red Man, Eric Sermon and Little Jamal. He suggested everyone listen to The Most Beautifullest Thing in this World.
”Well, fortunately, by the grace of God, I'm here on a wing and a prayer, and I've been a recording artist since 1995, since I was 20,” he said.
For Keith home is Long Island, New York/ Roosevelt/ Crown Heights/ Brooklyn/ Bennettsville, South Carolina/ Charlotte/ Maryland/ London/ Australia.
He was waiting for the bus to Columbia, South Carolina for hours, yet he was miraculously in a good mood. I asked him if it seemed odd he was at a Greyhound bus station.
I've been around these parts before. I'm no spring chicken. I'm familiar with the Raleigh Bus Station, the planes, trains, automobiles, do you remember that movie?”
I asked him (as I did everyone I interviewed) about nice sunsets he’d seen.
”Oh, well, I was in Jamaica, saw the horizon. I live in Long Island, Shirley, around the corner from the beach. There's sunsets. I look at the sun and watch it set all the time. I spend time in the West Coast. I spend time in South Africa. It's like you could just reach out and touch the moon,” he said
I asked him about music he had coming out and he told me he was Googleable.
”I have a mixtape called Lord of the metaphor, part one and two. I have a song called “The Shalimar” dedicated to my two of my friends that just passed away. And I have a song called “Make it better.” And I have three albums. Most Beautifullest Thing in this World, Enigma, He's Keith Murray, Puff, Puff, Pass and Rap-Murr-Phobia. That's four.”
I just looked it up and according to Wikipedia he actually has nine, 11 if you include collaborations!
I told him I was writing about southern culture for this trip.
”Southern United States is very warm, felt people, culture,” he said. “And this is really where you really get your culture, like South Carolina, North Carolina, Charlotte, Wilmington, Greensboro is the home of the barbecue.”
I asked him what else he wanted to say while he had the mic.
”Just check me out, baby. Check me out, baby. Keith Murray, Keith Murray, Keith Murray.”
We texted a little bit after I got off the bus, but I haven’t heard from him since. I would love to randomly run into him again on another journey, another plane (or bus) of existence.
My musical inclinations tend to be folksy and country, but in 2025 I’m manifesting more wild interviews and charming rapper encounters. Take heed, pretty please, universe.