LYRICS BORN: JACK OF ALL TRADES

By: Chris Pacifico

Lyrics Born

Lyrics Born is a true visionary. As a musician, he’s expanded the boundaries of hip-hop by mixing a stew of various grooves with his untouchable word flow. No other emcee out there has been able to match his style of rapidly stacking verses like an advanced level of Tetris.

In the early ’90s at UC Davis, Lyrics Born (aka Tom Shimura) met a kid named Josh Davis who would go on to become DJ Shadow, Gift of Gab and Chief Xcel of Blackalicious and Lateef the Truth Speaker, with whom LB eventually formed Latyrx. These meetings provided the spark that ignited the extended crew and label known as Solesides that eventually evolved into Quannum Projects.

His 2003 debut, Later That Day, tore holes in dance floors. 2005’s Same Shit, Different Day made the concept of a hip-hop remix album more than just a disposable entity designed to shake a quick dime with bland re-hashes. Same Shit let fans hear the tracks in a different light with an emphasis on artistic vision.

The sound of chirping crickets is what you hear when someone asks what the last great live hip-hop album they heard was. Live hip-hop albums are usually blander than a boiled steak but LB’s Overnite Encore: Lyrics Born Live! (released 10/9/06 on Quannum Projects) was able to show how picking the right crowd in the proper setting can bring the live experience right through your speakers.

Hard at work on his much anticipated new studio release, Lyrics Born took a break to give us the lowdown on his roots, cutting a proper album and why the land down under is near and dear to his heart.

JamBase: At what point in your life did you aspire to start rhyming?

Lyrics Born: I think from the real real early age of like four or five years old I knew I wanted to be some sort of performer or artist, but it wasn’t really until I heard hip-hop at like six when I moved to the Bay Area when I really realized what type of artist I wanted to be.

JamBase: Were there any artists that gave you a spark or influence?

Lyrics Born

Lyrics Born: The rap songs I heard was stuff like Sugarhill Gang and “Double Dutch Bus” by Frankie Smith, and some early and mid 80’s funk stuff I heard when I was a little kid. That’s kind of what got me going. Later on, when I was in grade school and junior high is when I started hearing artists like Kool G Rap, Ice Cube, Boogie Down Productions and Eric B. and Rakim.

Let me ask you about Same Shit, Different Day because a lot of people tend to view remix albums as just something for DJs to lay down when they’re either spinning at a party or making a mixtape. But, it’s noticeable that a lot of people seemed to embrace the album as a whole. Were you meticulous when you chose who to remix the tracks?

I definitely was because when you talk about what you’re first perception of a remix album is I was trying to avoid that. I didn’t want people to look at it like “Oh well, this is just a bunch of shitty songs that were put together in an effort to sell records.” I wanted to make an album like Same Shit Different Day feel like a new album. When I did my first album [Later That Day] there were a couple of outside producers but for the most part I did it entirely myself. I didn’t want it to feel like that. I wanted it to feel like there were a lot of other influences involved because Later That Day was not that way. So yeah, I was very selective about who I got to remix it, and very selective about whom I wanted to work with and what vocalists I wanted to work with on the album. It needed to feel a little less conceptual than Later That Day but still feel like a whole cohesive album.

Was the process of sequencing something that you also took into play?

Lyrics Born

That’s a great question. Rarely do I get asked about sequencing. I think it’s one of the more important things about putting an album together. You can have a lot of great songs but for an album to feel like a great album it needs to flow well, and that falls entirely in the hands of whoever is sequencing it. I think there’s an art to it, there really is. The songs can be great but if they’re not put in the right order then it just feels choppy and doesn’t flow.

Totally. It has to have that ebb and flow. I’m a compulsive vinyl collector and I just love that Side A, Side B feel.

Exactly.

We try to sign artists that have their own identity. I don’t even want to sign an artist that sounds like any other artist on Quannum, let alone another artist that’s out there in the world… I also want to sign an artist that I feel I’m going to be inspired by. -LB on signing artists to Quannum

Be it with your more recent solo albums and the stuff that you did back in the day with Latryx and whatnot, it’s pretty transparent that your music kind of goes beyond the domain of what is merely hip-hop. It’s kind of like this Old School meets New School of funky grooves, R&B and soul dynamics.

Lyrics Born

I would definitely say that is accurate. I really do wear my influences on my sleeve, and I’m a hip-hop artist at heart but I think that sometimes I make soul music and R&B and funk music. For whatever reason, that’s what I’ve ended up doing, fusing all those things be it funk, soul, rock, hip-hop or R&B. As long as it’s good from whatever criteria I have for what a good song is – if it’s meeting those things – then it’s time to put it on an album and put it out.

When you play live, you, and the whole band really, get the crowd moving and the asses shaking. You’re in some way whipping the audience up into frenzy and feeding off of them. Is that accurate?

Absolutely. You don’t want to feel like you’re playing to a wall. I think that our live show is as interactive as it should be. Any artist that plays live will tell you that the best shows are the ones where the crowds go nuts because it’s sort of a circular feed. You feel like you’re giving the crowd something that’s making them go crazy and them going crazy is the gratification for what you’re doing. So it goes back and forth and it’s the best feeling.

You’ve played in many corners of the globe, and I’m not going to ask you if one place is better than the next, but is there any place where the reception is kind of special to you?

LB poster by Christopher M. Raleigh

I like Australia a lot. That’s where I recorded Overnite Encore. From day one they’ve always been very supportive, and it was the first foreign country that I went to where they really lost their minds. That has always stuck with me, so I have a soft spot for Australia.

Speaking of Overnite Encore, throughout the whole history of live albums, the vast majority of them basically suck. Any concert where an album is recorded is most times a fun concert to actually be at but getting that feeling on tape is a feat that eludes most live records. Yet, Overnite Encore actually captured it. Did you choose Australia to be the place where it was recorded for that specific reason?

Yeah. Like I said, they’ve always been so supportive and enthusiastic. I didn’t want to do a live one in San Francisco or New York just because it’s been done before, particularly when you’re talking about a hip-hop record. I can’t think of too many hip-hop albums, even live hip-hop, that have been recorded abroad. I can’t think of too many live albums period that have been recorded in Australia. So, I think that’s what I was trying to do, as well as knowing historically how great the crowds in Sydney and Melbourne have been. It made a lot of sense for me to do it there. It also shows listeners the blitz and scope this music has. A lot of people think that hip-hop is just a regional thing or a national thing but it’s not. It’s a global thing and that’s really evident when you listen to the album. They know all the words and they’re halfway around the globe.

The album was from a two-night stand, right?

The main set is in Sydney and the encore was in Melbourne.

Of all the years that you’ve been with the Quannum crew stretching back to when it was just Solesides, would you say the artists that were a part of it influenced each other creatively?

Lyrics Born

I think so. One of the things we do is try to sign artists that have their own identity. I don’t even want to sign an artist that sounds like any other artist on Quannum, let alone another artist that’s out there in the world. That’s first and foremost, and I also want to sign an artist that I feel I’m going to be inspired by.

With a lot of your songs you have this knack for telling a story and really getting deep with these very in-depth, intricate details.

Generally, I try not to tell a story that’s been told before because you really want to give people a unique listening experience.

Word has it that you got a part in an upcoming movie. Are you getting a bit of the acting bug?

That was fun. It’s called Finishing the Game and it’s mockumentery about the casting call for Bruce Lee’s movie Game of Death. It was really fun. I played a restaurant owner. Meanwhile, there is a serial killer on the loose and the restaurant owner’s business has been affected by the killing.

Any plans on the horizon to get into more acting after this?

I definitely would like to try more. Absolutely. I had such a great time and it was so inspiring. It’s like using a different part of your brain.

How are things going with your eagerly anticipated next album?

I’m working on it now. I’m somewhere about eight to ten songs in, and I think it’s going to surprise a lot of people. It is different than Later That Day, Same Shit Different Day and Overnite Encore. No title yet. I got a few that I’m throwing around.

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