In a democracy, the most votes should win. But on the internet, if you’re too good the judges might kick you out anyway. That happened to producer, beatmaker, and live streamer DJ Spell from Hamilton, NZ.

Winning his 3rd Kenny Beats battle with his classic West Coast sound, he got the most votes. But, Kenny said during the livestream, that Spell had already won two gifts in previous competitions, so he couldn’t go for a third.

“Take the W’s in the chat,” Kenny said in the live stream that Spell’s beat submission was “sloppy in a good way”.

Another judge said he would like to see Dom Kennedy on it. 

Kenny Beats has produced songs with Vince Staples, Rico Nasty and Freddie Gibbs among other big names. He started his Twitch livestream in March 2020 during the Coronavirus epidemic,

Kenny calls his studio The Cave, and beginning in March 2019, he launched a YouTube series of the same name in which he invites artists to rap 16-32 bars over a custom beat he creates during the video.

Usually, the artists are people that he already has experience with, or, is already friends with. The Cave is known for showcasing not only these artists’ lyricism but also their personalities.

A: It was pretty funny when he asked you ‘How are you British and you make music that sounds like 1998 in Compton’ on the livestream (Spell is from New Zealand). Let’s start off by talking about where you’re from and how that influenced your sound.

SPELL: Pretty much, the hood that I grew up in was on the West side of town, Huntly West WEST, and so all that we listened to and were exposed to was West Coast G Funk… Tupac, Snoop Dogg and Bone Thugs and Harmony were mega big. The bits and pieces that I was exposed to all came from kids older than us, going to mate’s houses and hearing what their older bros and sisters were listening to.

In 96′ I had three albums, Warren G’s Take a Look Over Your Shoulder (Warren G’s second album) and also Coolio, Gangsta’s Paradise. All the production on those two albums, that’s the sound that kind of stuck with me into my adulthood. The third album that I had was Fugees (The Score) so there were exceptions. That’s how I heard the East Coast sound, that album. Chuck it all together and ye, you get DJ Spell, pretty much. I was also exposed to a lot of funk music from the 70s, all the shit that Dre and them were sampling I was familiar with already, I thank my dad for that. And then all the dancing shit in my teenage years, breaking and poppin, ye that’s another story lol.

A: Why do Kiwis make such good west coast music?

S: It’s because we all grew up listening to that shit. Tupac was like, fucking Jesus Christ at my school… But it’s more just brown kids that were in the hood in the 90s, we were exposed to West Coast music, lol.

A: Shout outs to Kenny Beats. 

S: Ye nah shout out to Kenny fuckin beats.

Spell’s explainer video reached over 1.5m views with comments like: “Honestly, I initially was blaming Kenny for intentionally choosing an awful sample and then banning you for being good with it but now it makes sense. This submission was so much better than every single other one that if you entered with an actual serious sample there wouldn’t even be a contest.”

Watch the full video: