K-os ready for whoopee at Warped

What's a nice guy like Kheaven Brereton, also known as K-os, doing on the Warped Tour?

After all, he's a chilled, literate MC - a Jehovah's Witness. His poetic socio-spiritual musings and elegantly orchestral reggae-informed hip-hop seem radical contrasts to Warped's hyper-giddy Alkaline Trio and Philly's the Starting Line - the latter whose new Direction drives young'uns batty with speed-punk road bumps and harsh-mellowing lyrics.

"I think I've got different sides," says K-os (pronounced chaos) with a laugh. "Besides, for all that the name connotes, Warped's the safest, water-bottle-drinkingest tour I've been on."

Plus, the usually serious K-os needed a release. "Be conscious, flex the intellect, wax poetic, OK, but I need to party, too."

See, K-os has always been a fish out of water. For better or worse, the dub and acoustic guitar-flavored Joyful Rebellion of 2004 and richly layered Atlantis: Hymns for Disco of 2006 made K-os a potent oddity; a hip-hopper whose multidimensionality was not easily marketable.

"My albums are schizophrenic. But did Dylan or Marley fit?" K-os asks. "De La Soul? The guys I look up to weren't just different. They wanted to take their soul and get it out to people."

K-os credits going his own way to his religious beliefs. "You get to celebrate yourself. That's what an artist should do."

One thing this artist did on Atlantis was "Crabbuckit" - a smart, chipper song that winnowed all of K-os' ideas into one crisp beat-driven track that's winning new fans unfamiliar to his dense grooves and denser lyrics.

"It says everything that I want to say but in a playful way," says K-os, who just rereleased "Crabbuckit" and other previously released tunes and new mixes as Collected. "I've been doing this for a minute, you know?" K-os teases. "It's nice having these kids come up to say, 'Aren't you the singer in K-os?' "