By Kaymaria Daskarolis

Nikos “NiVo” Vourliotis, MC and frontman of Goin’ Through, graciously took time to speak with NEO while in New York recently. For nearly two decades NiVo, in conjunction with his partner, composer and producer extraordinaire Michalis Papathanasiou, has been creating hip-hop music to inspire.

"I know something and I am very sure of it: hip-hop is an international language."

NEO: How did you and Michalis Papathanasiou choose a career in hip-hop without having a successful example of Greeks in the world of hip-hop music?

NIVO: Maybe we didn’t have any examples in the Greek market when we started, but we had many great international examples like Run DMC and LL Cool J. It was an influential period in hip-hop music – less entertainment and more politics. That was enough to make me feel that I wanted to make hip-hop music. I wanted to translate the hip-hop music I was hearing into my language and infuse it with Greek flavor.

NEO: Last November, you released your most recent CD, Veto. Tell us a little bit about what makes this album different from its predecessors.

NIVO: Maturity. We have been making music for 17 years. Now that we have more experience in life, the opinions we express in our music are more consistent. We feel safer expressing them now, too. This record, Veto, has more social connotations in the lyrics than our past records have. It is not always our target to be more social or more poetic; it comes naturally through the years and our experiences.

NEO: What do you hope to accomplish artistically and professionally in the next five years?

NIVO: I have already achieved much more than I ever dreamed of. I come from a very small, very poor neighborhood in Athens. Usually in areas like that, you are not allowed to dream. But I dreamt anyway and I worked hard in the direction I wanted to move in. I stayed away from many things. I believe that if something happened and everything stopped at this point I would still feel like I am a very lucky man and I had a great life. The most important thing is that I have had a way to express myself. That is the most important thing in life. If I had been working in a bank or somewhere else, I may not have ever had the opportunity to meet myself, to meet who I am inside. Of course there are many other ways to find and meet yourself, but not so deep as when you are an artist and you write.

"Maybe we didn’t have any examples in the Greek market when we started, but we had many great international examples like Run DMC and LL Cool J."

NEO: Goin’ Through is now the best-selling Greek hip-hop group of all time in Greece and Cyprus. In the U.S. and Canada, however, very few people other than those of Greek descent have ever heard of you. What do you think it will take for audiences in the U.S. and Canada to start paying attention to hip-hop music coming from outside of North America?

NIVO: I know something and I am very sure of it: hip-hop is an international language. You don’t need to understand what the rappers are saying. For example, I love French hip-hop even though I don’t speak French or understand a thing the French rappers are saying. Still I understand from the first moment – from the first note – if something is serious or not. It’s an instinct.

It’s not about language or lyrics. If you put three listeners from different countries – let’s say one Greek, one Portuguese, and one Japanese – in the same room and put on a hip-hop beat, they will all start bobbing their heads like this – that means that they all speak the same language somehow.

NEO: You recently wowed audiences in Greece with your first major motion picture appearance in the film Ι-4: Λούφα και Απαλλαγή (“I-4: Loufa keh Apallayi”). You must have been offered other film roles before; what made you decide to accept this one?

NIVO: The director. In the beginning they chose me because they knew I had the potential to attract a young audience to the theaters. For them, of course, it was a clever marketing move. After the audition and the initial rehearsal, though, they changed the script and gave me more lines in more scenes. The movie is about the Greek army and is the sequel of a very famous, commercially successful film called Λούφα και Παραλαγή (“Loufa keh Paralayi”), which is an expression we use in the Greek army when we try to get out of what we are supposed to be doing. In the movie I am a 30-something-year-old sergeant, very wild and crazy – I scream all the time at the young soldiers, and it is very funny because in the movie I don’t like hip-hop music, especially Goin’ Through. The reason I took this on is because it was a challenge for me and I am an artist who is not only a rapper – I draw, I sketch, and through my songs I am constantly playing a role. I feel like I am an artist in many ways. Of course acting in this film is absolutely a different endeavor, but there is something common among all the things I do: art.

NEO: Greece has gotten a lot of attention since hosting the Olympics in 2004. What do you think is something Greece is offering to the international community now? Why should other countries pay attention to what’s going on in Greece?

NIVO: I think Greece is an example to avoid. We are, as a country – especially politically – a magnificent example to avoid. That’s something. It’s a really good thing. For example, if I’m a father and I’m trying to feed my child and he is not eating, I will use many examples to try to get him to eat. My child needs the examples. Everybody needs examples, even examples of what not to do. Of course, what I am saying is not good for my country. I feel that there are two different countries: the Greece of civilization some thousands of years ago, and the Greece of lies that exists today.

"I come from a very small, very poor neighborhood in Athens. Usually in areas like that, you are not allowed to dream. But I dreamt anyway."