Photo by Freya Randle.Onoe Caponoe lives in another dimension of space and time. It's called Perivale, it's in west London and it's boring as hell. Which is probably why he's created his Funkadelic Mafia – an art collective/concept movement/phrase he shouts a lot throughout his songs. The Mafia and everything Onoe puts out reminds me a bit of afrofuturism if a teenage Mike Judge was in charge of the visuals and Sun Ra was as interested in both east coast and UK hip-hop as he was LSD.Some more fun facts: Onoe has probably MCd over every genre you can name, he reckons he's still got a while until he finds his way back to the mothership, and he's nurturing a very healthy obsession with star of the stage and screen, Emma Watson.I caught up with Onoe to talk about his new video (which we have the exclusive premiere of below), the Funkadelic Mafia and spooky crows.Noisey: Lets kick off with the video. Was there a concept at all or is it just you in some woods with a mask?
Onoe Caponoe: It’s loosely based on the song, which is "The Return of Funky Mouse". There was another version just called "Funky Mouse", and this is like a prequel to it – it's, like, the mouse speaking to that earlier mouse and shit. Hopefully there'll be some more from him. I’m looking to bring some more animals in as well.What kind of animals?
I’m not 100 percent sure yet. I’ve got one tune called "Funky Caterpillar" and I can't even really explain it – I was so fucked doing it, bruv. I actually want to take that video down. But yeah, he might be making another appearance.Cool. I've noticed you seem to come up with a concept or a character and base a few songs around it before moving on.
Yeah. Within the music that I’m making there’s loads of different styles or ways that I write for different things, and the character or concept kind of depends on how I feel at the time. Or I'll plan it out in my head – so, like, 'Right, I’m doing a project and I want there to be a couple of tunes like this and a couple of tunes like that,' so I switch up concepts and stuff as I move through. I'm trying to bring all these different styles together, because you know when you've heard three or four of someone's songs and you know exactly what the rest of them are going to sound like already? That's fucking boring.And you're bringing back afrofuturism within all that.
Yeah, yeah, but basically without knowing. You see, with that shit it's like my own version. But all of that stuff has led to weird stuff – people come to my shows asking me to come to some weird shit. I don’t even know what it was exactly, but this chick wanted to me go to these, like, "black meetings". She wanted me give speeches and shit, but they were like trippy meetings just for black people.Trippy meetings? What does that entail?
I don’t fucking know, man. She says she was sharing my videos and shit so I dig that, but I don’t know. At first I was into it, but after a while I saw something on a flyer that was like, "This is a black only event," and I was like, that's a bit fucking stupid.But the afrofuturism vibe is your own complete organic creation? You weren't listening to George Clinton or Sun Ra, or anyone?
Oh yeah, I do listen to that shit. But the whole thing came from, like, 2008 or 2009 when a load of us went to some music festival and just got mad fucked up and saw loads of weird shit. And obviously what I do is rap, but I want to do something else on top of that. That's why we're always saying "funkadelic" in videos – that's the start of what that is, but we haven't even done that justice yet, man. We're gonna go in and do some crazy fucking videos.I guess you've already involved a bunch of stuff about martians and galaxies and stuff – that's pretty weird.
What, having sex with aliens? Yeah, yeah it is. That’s a big part of it – shit just comes out.You know there's a brothel in Nevada where the girls are dressed up as aliens from different movies – the Alien Cathouse?
For real? I’ve always wanted to fuck that Avatar girl. That would be brilliant. But then, in reality, she'd be really tall and really blue, so it might get a bit too weird.Emma Watson's your perfect girl anyway, right?
Yeah! That’s so sick. Definitely. But she got me blocked on everything, like Twitter and shit. I’m blocked from every fucking Hermione and Harry Potter page on Facebook somehow. When I write stuff it just deletes itself.How did you get yourself in that situation?
I was just saying mad shit. But, like, funny shit, you know? Nothing fucked up. Just like, "Yeah, do you want to ride my broomstick?" Jokey shit.Gotcha. You're out in Perivale now, right? What's going on out there?
Oh my god. How can I explain it? It's in the borough of Ealing, which I've lived in for a while. But where I used to live had buildings and shit – this is just a big empty suburban place full of people who hate life. I feel like there's weird shit that goes on there that you don't see. Like I come out my house and there are crows doing some mad spooky stuff.Yeah, that sounds like a horror movie.
Yeah, man. There's mad seagulls there, too, for some reason. They aren’t at the beach, bruv, they're in Perivale.So there aren’t any battles in Perivale, or any nights you can play at?
No, no, nothing at all. But I think it's a good thing to come from somewhere shit – it gives you the incentive to do make sure your art is really, really good.Follow Jamie (@jamie_clifton) and Onoe (@onoecaponoe169) on Twitter
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Onoe Caponoe: It’s loosely based on the song, which is "The Return of Funky Mouse". There was another version just called "Funky Mouse", and this is like a prequel to it – it's, like, the mouse speaking to that earlier mouse and shit. Hopefully there'll be some more from him. I’m looking to bring some more animals in as well.What kind of animals?
I’m not 100 percent sure yet. I’ve got one tune called "Funky Caterpillar" and I can't even really explain it – I was so fucked doing it, bruv. I actually want to take that video down. But yeah, he might be making another appearance.Cool. I've noticed you seem to come up with a concept or a character and base a few songs around it before moving on.
Yeah. Within the music that I’m making there’s loads of different styles or ways that I write for different things, and the character or concept kind of depends on how I feel at the time. Or I'll plan it out in my head – so, like, 'Right, I’m doing a project and I want there to be a couple of tunes like this and a couple of tunes like that,' so I switch up concepts and stuff as I move through. I'm trying to bring all these different styles together, because you know when you've heard three or four of someone's songs and you know exactly what the rest of them are going to sound like already? That's fucking boring.
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Yeah, yeah, but basically without knowing. You see, with that shit it's like my own version. But all of that stuff has led to weird stuff – people come to my shows asking me to come to some weird shit. I don’t even know what it was exactly, but this chick wanted to me go to these, like, "black meetings". She wanted me give speeches and shit, but they were like trippy meetings just for black people.Trippy meetings? What does that entail?
I don’t fucking know, man. She says she was sharing my videos and shit so I dig that, but I don’t know. At first I was into it, but after a while I saw something on a flyer that was like, "This is a black only event," and I was like, that's a bit fucking stupid.But the afrofuturism vibe is your own complete organic creation? You weren't listening to George Clinton or Sun Ra, or anyone?
Oh yeah, I do listen to that shit. But the whole thing came from, like, 2008 or 2009 when a load of us went to some music festival and just got mad fucked up and saw loads of weird shit. And obviously what I do is rap, but I want to do something else on top of that. That's why we're always saying "funkadelic" in videos – that's the start of what that is, but we haven't even done that justice yet, man. We're gonna go in and do some crazy fucking videos.I guess you've already involved a bunch of stuff about martians and galaxies and stuff – that's pretty weird.
What, having sex with aliens? Yeah, yeah it is. That’s a big part of it – shit just comes out.
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For real? I’ve always wanted to fuck that Avatar girl. That would be brilliant. But then, in reality, she'd be really tall and really blue, so it might get a bit too weird.Emma Watson's your perfect girl anyway, right?
Yeah! That’s so sick. Definitely. But she got me blocked on everything, like Twitter and shit. I’m blocked from every fucking Hermione and Harry Potter page on Facebook somehow. When I write stuff it just deletes itself.How did you get yourself in that situation?
I was just saying mad shit. But, like, funny shit, you know? Nothing fucked up. Just like, "Yeah, do you want to ride my broomstick?" Jokey shit.Gotcha. You're out in Perivale now, right? What's going on out there?
Oh my god. How can I explain it? It's in the borough of Ealing, which I've lived in for a while. But where I used to live had buildings and shit – this is just a big empty suburban place full of people who hate life. I feel like there's weird shit that goes on there that you don't see. Like I come out my house and there are crows doing some mad spooky stuff.Yeah, that sounds like a horror movie.
Yeah, man. There's mad seagulls there, too, for some reason. They aren’t at the beach, bruv, they're in Perivale.So there aren’t any battles in Perivale, or any nights you can play at?
No, no, nothing at all. But I think it's a good thing to come from somewhere shit – it gives you the incentive to do make sure your art is really, really good.Follow Jamie (@jamie_clifton) and Onoe (@onoecaponoe169) on Twitter