Kottonmouth Kings about more than themselves

"He’s one of our artists on Suburban Noize Records,” Brad X said with a note of pride. "We’re producing a couple of tracks for him.”

Indeed, Big B is just one of 29 artists on the Suburban Noize label, an independent imprint founded by Brad X himself in Burbank, Calif., as an alternative to the major corporate labels for artists laboring in the West Coast underground hip-hop scene. More than 10 years later, the indie label is thriving, and so are the Kottonmouth Kings, celebrating the release of their 10th studio effort, "The Green Album,” with a tour that brings them to the Diamond Ballroom in Oklahoma City on Monday night.

With more than 2 million records sold, the Kings have never regretted their departure from Capitol Records, the label that introduced to the world the band’s musical hybrid of hip-hop and punk rock in the late ’90s.

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"Our model was definitely more of a do-it-yourself, self-empowerment kind of thing,” the Kings’ singer said. "We own our own clothing company, our own record company, and we produce all our own records. Some bands are probably better suited to a big record company, having them do a lot of the work. For us, we just kind of like to be in control of our own destiny. We’ll go that extra mile to make it happen for ourselves.”

But the Kings aren’t all about themselves. In addition to growing the careers of other artists, they’re making things happen for several worthy causes.

A percentage of the profits from "The Green Album” will go to several environmental movements including the SurfRider Foundation, an organization dedicated to the enhancement of the world’s beaches; Ward 57, which aids wounded military personnel returning from Iraq; and the Life Rolls On Foundation, which helps people whose lives have been affected by spinal cord injuries.

"With this album we’re hoping to raise public awareness about using clean energy, wind and solar, and all the gifts that the creator gave us here on Earth that we could be utilizing to break our dependency on oil in the Mideast, and all the other dependencies that seem to be doing so much damage to the climate and the planet.”

So Kottonmouth fans who buy "The Green Album” can feel good about giving as well as getting, and what they’re getting is 21 prime cuts of what the Kings call "rip-hop.” And Brad X thinks it represents the band at its best.

"I think it encompasses everything that Kottonmouth Kings is about,” he said. "There’s good-time, there’s party songs, there’s hip-hop songs, there’s more melodic freedom songs, and the kind of classic rock/hip-hop style that we’ve kind of stumbled upon.”

It’s a musical mix that seems to appeal to the Oklahoma City audience, which keeps the Kottonmouth Kings coming back here quite often.

"We always have a good time in Oklahoma, made a lot of good friends over the years,” Brad X said. "The Taxman, who is one of our members and sets our stage, he’s from Oklahoma. His family always comes out, and we have some home-cooked meals and barbeque when we come out there. So, we have a good time.”