Deltron 3030: An Oral History

The story of interstellar, Cali-Canadian supergroup Deltron 3030 started just in time for the millennial paranoia in 2000 – or, in the year 3030, that is. Comprised of turntable whiz Kid Koala, Hiero overlord Del Tha Funkee Homosapien on the mic, and Dan The Automator on the beat, Deltron 3030 can rightfully be regarded as a gathering of some of underground rap’s most creative minds.

The band’s debut album Deltron 3030 is a bonafide milestone of the alternative rap spectrum, taking the afro-futuristic trajectory from Sun Ra to Rammellzee and transformed it into one dystopian rap opera circling around the story of Del Zero’s guerilla war against the governance of future multinational corporations. Dan The Automator’s knack for cinematic soundscapes and narratives arches provided the perfect basis for Del’s graphic style of rhyming and Kid Koala’s turntable chaos, all of which triumphantly returned with 2013’s epic Event II. In this oral history – excerpted from their recent interview on RBMA Radio – the trio remember the genesis of the group, the recording of the debut album, and reveal a few unexpected fans of the Deltron sound.

Dan The Automator

I think it all started during the first Handsome Boy Modeling School record. I had Koala and Del as guest artists on there, and we’ve all been working together since then.

Kid Koala

The first time I remember a conversation about this project was at Tibetan Freedom Concert. We were on tour together as Handsome Boy Modeling School, it was Prince Paul, Dan, myself and Del was the guest MC.

Del Tha Funkee Homosapien

I used to be into anime and video games, manga. I used to like this game called Mega Man, and I know that they had a game called Mega Man X. It was basically the same Mega Man, but with souped-up graphics. Just futuristic. I just tripped off that and played with that same concept with myself. Still Del. But set in a futuristic world. Better raps. Souped-up raps.

Dan The Automator

Del had the very vague idea of Deltron Zero, just the character, and he wanted to go explore it, and he came to me about fleshing it out, seeing what we could take it to.

Kid Koala

He created this character through which he could talk about his view of what the future will be like if we continue on this path that we’re on.

Dan The Automator

It was kind of like a futuristic romp, I guess, but it really actually wasn’t. There was more political stuff than we had noticed.

Kid Koala

It’s quite a bleak outlook.

Del Tha Funkee Homosapien

“Virus” is, I think, the first track we did. I remember feeling like, “Is Dan going to like this song?” Because the way I wrote it was unorthodox for a rap song. He didn’t say nothing. He was like, “Tight.” He didn’t say nothing. Automator, he unflappable.

Dan The Automator

Del’s always been really into computers, and, when he wrote “Virus,” I kind of had an idea of what he was talking about, but as years have passed, it’s become much more clear. Which is kind of exciting, actually, to see something like that go. But “I want to devise a virus to bring dire straits to your environment / Crush your corporations with a mild touch / Trash your whole computer system and revert you to papyrus,” is just prophetic. You hear it and you’re like, “Wow, he actually broke it all down.” That’s where people people don’t understand the genius of Del.

Del Tha Funkee Homosapien

I’d be at my Del shows, and people would be coming up to me like, “Deltron, Deltron!” In a frenzy or something. I don’t know how to explain it, but some people just be crazy. Thinking I’m prophesizing something literally. They’ll start asking me questions about the future like I’m some kind of guru.

Kid Koala

Some of the stuff that he’s talking about, which was just projections at the time, have actually come to pass since then. I’m not saying he’s a prophet or anything, but there was an Orwellian style of writing this, where he just connected the dots, synthesizing everything he was seeing on the news and reading about.

Del Tha Funkee Homosapien

To me, that’s how things work. That ain’t never going to change. As long as you got people in power, usually they’re going to abuse power in some way. It takes a special person to be able to have that much power and not abuse it or it not go to their head.

Dan The Automator

It’s not like we’re clairvoyant or something. It’s like, the nature of man is the nature of man.

Del Tha Funkee Homosapien

A lot of people listen to it like they looking for something, like I got the answers or something. I’ve tried to recognize that, too, and put that there. At the same time, I’m trying to keep it to where it’s entertainment. That’s the bottom line. If it’s not entertaining, nobody going to listen to it. I’m not trying to sit up here saying I got all the answers.

Kid Koala

Yeah, it’s pretty bleak. It’s not a happy record by any means, but there’s hope in it too.

Dan The Automator

On the first record, I was going for electro-bleakness.

Del Tha Funkee Homosapien

I think that’s just my manner of looking at stuff. I’m just a dark person, I guess. Dan was the person that was like, “You getting too dark. Let’s have something over here that’s a little bit lighter, something over here to pick it up a little bit.” If it was me, I wouldn’t care. Just straight to hell. Heavy metal. Dan offered that other little balance, and Koala did too.

Kid Koala

I remember when it first came out, it wasn’t like people just got it right away or anything.

Dan The Automator

That’s just how it is, because you’re giving them something that they’re not used to. You’re in the music world, and you know everything has to be categorized. And once you do something that’s not categorized, it messes people up, it trips them up.

Kid Koala

We finished that record, we did a ten city tour, I think, but we were all literally coming off of other tours, so we just stopped it at that. A few months later, Gorillaz came out and just super-nova-ed.

Del Tha Funkee Homosapien

When it first came out, wasn’t nobody tripping like that. Of course, I knew that ahead of time. Nobody’s going know when it first drops. You got to give it time for people to listen to it and figure out what it is. It was some years.

Kid Koala

It took three, four years before it found its audience and then that audience just kept multiplying somehow. The record was being passed around to people. I guess it became a little bit of a cult classic in a sense. It was odd how excited people got when I would even mention Deltron, or that we were working on some new material.

Del Tha Funkee Homosapien

I think the first time I really peeped that was I was in the South, and there was this little kid. He was probably 11, 12. He was just spitting my raps faster than I was even saying them on the record. Like, “do do do do do do do.” He’s like, “Yo bro, Deltron 3030, my favorite out of anything. There’s nothing better.” Just this little kid. I’m like, damn, OK.

Kid Koala

I was on the set of Looper, because I did some music for the director Rian Johnson, and he introduced me to Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who asked me, “Hey, you guys ever going to do another Deltron?” I was like, “What?” I also met Macklemore a few months ago, and he was like, “That first Deltron record got me through college.”

Del Tha Funkee Homosapien

The reason the second one took so long to come out? Me. Basically, me. They gave me the music. They was ready years ago.

Kid Koala

Del hadn’t figured what he wanted to say, exactly. And it wasn’t until a decade had passed and all this reading and research into everything from quantum theory to politics and social, economic trends. That was all stewing in his brain for a while.

Del Tha Funkee Homosapien

I seen a lot of sci-fi fans getting into it, so I starting thinking I need to study how to write sci-fi to satisfy these fans. I don’t want people to be thinking it’s just technobabble.

Dan The Automator

It’s funny, because I’m not even into science fiction, and I have two space albums under my belt, basically, between this and Dr. Octagon.

Del Tha Funkee Homosapien

I was looking at Star Wars. Got every Battlestar Galactica comic from back in the day. Actual tutorials on sci-fi, how to write sci-fi. Sci-fi encyclopedia that got all the terms and different forms. The dystopian future. Once I peeped that, it was easier to write.

Kid Koala

I remember going to Oakland once, and we had played him some of the tracks we were working on, and he says, “OK, wait a minute, all right, I got it. Just loop this part.” He had all three verses written in under 20 minutes. He’s a savant that way. When it comes time to recording, he’ll always nail it, one take, two takes, he’s like that.

Del Tha Funkee Homosapien

It took maybe a week to record the new one.

Dan The Automator

With this new record, we got some backlash in the very beginning, and it all turned around about four months later. I’m like, “That’s exactly what you guys did with the first record.”