Whenever Tae Matters revisits his debut project “ This Never Happened,” he has the same thought: It holds up. “It’s a classic,” the Milwaukee rapper says. “The level of clarity, the audio production, the beat production -- it’s an achievement. I wish it would have gone further.”
“This Never Happened” didn’t move the needle much, in part because it’s loyal to a style of rap that rarely does anymore. Though Tae’s flow could recall Kendrick Lamar and Tupac, at its core “This Never Happened” was a throwback to the jazzy, beats-and-raps spirit of ’90s conscious hip-hop -- a style that’s near and dear to many rap fans, but doesn’t do numbers like it used to.
In the five years since releasing that project, Tae has done some soul searching. He quit music, then returned to it. He’s toyed around with his sound, dabbling on and off with more contemporary and more commercial styles.
And, most noticeably, he’s changed his stage name. His early projects were released under the moniker KDS (his initials), and as of late last year he was still releasing some tracks under that name. He still waffles a little about which name he wants to continue recording under, but he likes the idea of a fresh start.
As reintroductions go, Tae Matters’ new single “Zero Lives Left” is a striking one. It’s faster, flashier and indisputably harder than the tracks he’s released as KDS, though no less lyrical. He hopes that’s a niche he can use to distinguish himself from other acts in Milwaukee’s very crowded rap scene.
“Essentially in Milwaukee you have the artists who are popping, like the Gwapo Chapos and the Lil Chickens, then on the other end you’ve got your Mike Regals,” he explains. “I’m somewhere in the middle."
"With this track, I just wanted to snap on everything that was going on as far as the Milwaukee music scene," he continues. "I wanted to show my voice. I wanted to do something hard-bodied that would get people’s attention. That’s what I mean by zero lives left. I’m done playing games.”
Tae says he plans to build on that track with his upcoming album, which he plans to release later this year. “I’m proud to say that I’ve found my sound and what I’m good at. Hopefully when people hear this sound, they’ll get it more: ‘Who is this guy? It’s KDS, but he’s doing something different.’ It’s definitely a reinvention, because now I can experiment with different sounds that KDS wouldn’t normally do.”