Lyrics Born
One of my favourite artists from one of my favourite collectives has got to be Lyrics Born. Not only is he the founder of the Quannum crew (Blackalicious, DJ Shadow, et al.), he is also one half of Latyrx (the other half being Lateef the Truth Speaker). I will never get tired of listening to him in Latyrx's "Lady Don't Tek No", which is in my top-ten best-of list. Alongside Lateef, there is no other that can match how those two can change up their style and flow so easily, and so many times throughout a song (See Blackalicious - Do This My Way).
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Great interview from chopblock.com:
Reborn
Lyrics Born’s Later That Day is revived, revised, and embellished as his first remix album, Same !@#$ Different Day
BY MAXIMILLIAN MARK MEDINA WITH RENAN BALANGA
Tom Shimura, better known as Lyrics Born and part of Latyrx, is a veteran in the indie hip-hop world. Born in Japan and growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area, Shimura released his first single in 1993 as Asia Born on a split with DJ Shadow on the fledgling Solesides label—which later became Quannum Projects, one of the long-standing indie hip-hop labels. His music has recently been featured in mainstream films Abandon and Collateral, as well as a Coke commercial (the one with Adrien Brody). Here, the MC checks in with ChopBlock as he takes a break from his national tour.
TV commercials have become a popular vehicle to expose new music. What are your thoughts on “Callin’ Out” being used in high-profile ads for Coke and, internationally, for Motorola?
I love it. I’m an independent artist and my label, Quannum Projects, we don’t have millions of dollars, tens of millions of dollars, the corporate backing to get radio play, to get video play, to have access to all these traditional outlets that major labels have. So when my music gets licensed for these big commercials and you hear the music on a wider scale, and you see it in a context that is different than what people are used to seeing or hearing it in, it evens out the playing field for guys like me because I always knew that my music had broader appeal than what the numbers would suggest. Fortunately, my label is very good at drumming up business of all kinds. Whether it`s tours or licensing opportunities, assisting the artist in getting their careers going, I really give all the credit to the label there.
Talk about the freedom of staying indie with Quannum Projects. How has the indie music scene changed over the years?
First of all, Quannum is at this point is probably one of the longest lasting, longest standing hip-hop labels in history at this point. I think. One of them. We’ve been around for 15 years--that’s a long time. I can’t think of too many labels that have been around this long. As a result, just from trial and error, over the years, all the experience we had, it’s a great label to be on if you’re an artist because the music is what comes first. All the principals involved obviously are accomplished successful artists that have been down the road and know how to do it. It’s a very focused label. One of the things I hear about a lot of times from my friends is when they talk about their label, they don’t know how to promote their music, they don’t understand their music, they don’t care about the music, they have no idea what they are about as artist. I just don’t relate. I never have those problems. Ever. I think that one of the beauties of a label like Quannum.
How important is commercial success to you compared with artistic freedom and satisfaction?
I don’t think they are mutually exclusive. Case in point, LTD I never had anybody telling me how to make the album or giving me parameters or guidelines. “Callin’ Out” ended up getting used on TV commercials and being the number one song on commercial radio. I think that the two can be both achieved--I don’t think that it’s one or the other. I don’t think that it there has to be a situation where its 100% art or 100% commercial. I think that it is possible to make records that do make artistic stride and have integrity and it can also be commercially successful. And that’s what we strive to do. And that’s what we have succeeded in doing and i`m really proud of that.
The name Lyrics Born isn’t race specific. Is that an advantage in forcing people to focus on your music instead of your background?
I don’t know if I really think about it like that. When Maroon 5 was deciding to be a rap group, I don’t think it crossed their mind to be called German 5 or something like that. It seems like a question that only gets asked to Asians for some reason. I don’t know why. To answer your question, I think it important that focus be put on the artist’s work because all the characteristics of that artist will be there; culture, experience, their history, all that comes through the artist’s work in one way or another.
Has the hip-hop scene become more comfortable to be a part of with all the increased diversity of late? Was there ever any tension before that?
Not from my peers. Maybe from the industry as a whole. I never felt any anything from my peers, from the fans, other musicians, other rappers, other producers, and other DJs. [However,] I think the industry as a whole has a long way to go.
What was the motivation behind releasing a remix album?
It was something that I wanted to do while I was doing my 2003 release, Later That Day. I always wanted to do an album where I worked exactly the opposite of how I normally do, which is let a bunch of other people do the production, collaborate with a lot of people on songs. [On] LTD, I didn’t really collaborate with anybody. Ninety-five percent of the music was written and produced by myself in a bubble. While I was doing it I realized how much I missed working with other people. I needed to do LTD that way, I needed that challenge to write and produce by myself. At the same time, when you work with other artists and other producers, you step outside yourself a little bit and make decisions that you normally wouldn’t make. As an artist--at least myself--its like you’re a shark, you can never stop moving, because you’re in constant search for inspiration. You constantly need to feel and experience new things, so you’re in constant motion trying to do that. I felt like that I needed to be in unfamiliar territory. I needed to be pushed in directions that I normally wouldn’t push myself necessarily. Ultimately all that it leads to is artistic growth. That’s really what I was looking for.
Was there anybody you hoped to hook up with the remix album, but couldn’t?
The only guy was a reggae producer named Bobby Digital [aka Bobby Dixon]. Legendary dance hall reggae producer. We talked on the phone a couple of times. We just weren’t able to connect and weren’t able make it happen. I still really want to work with him. All in all, I’m really happy on how the whole album turned out.
When can we expect new material?
Probably next year sometime. I’m going to start working on it in the fall. I’ve been on tour for the past couple of months and I’m going to be on tour for pretty much the rest of the year. And I’m producing [my wife, singer] Joyo Velarde.
What’s your musical relationship like with Joyo? Do you throw ideas of each other? Or do you do your part, she does her part and then you put it together?
It’s a little bit of that. If I’m producing a song, I’ll give it to her and ask her what kind of melody ideas she has. If it’s one of my songs, maybe I’ve already got it written and I run it by it by her, and she’ll sing it out. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn’t. Then we’ll just refine it till it works. It’s a very organic thing. It’s great. We got good chemistry. We know where each other is coming from. It’s a great working relationship.
What’s your take on the San Francisco Bay Area hip-hop scene?
It’s coming back. It’s diversified. The music scene in the Bay Area in general kind of died down in the mid to late ‘90s, up until early 2000. But it’s coming back. And I feel like with everything going on around myself, Quannum and the new Hyphee movement and the new Bay stuff, I think it’s definitely making a comeback.
Hyphee movement?
I would compare it to the Bay Area version of crunk. With everything going on there, myself, Dan the Automator, Del, Blackalicious… I think that everything is on the up and up.
What is your ultimate goal, and what drives you to it?
I think my ultimate goal is to just be the best artist I possibly can. I definitely don’t want to leave the game with one album or two albums. When I leave the game, I want to leave the game with the body of work that occupies a place in music history.
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Learn more:
http://www.mtv.com/news/yhif/lyrics_born/
Check out some in-studio performances, back in late 2003:
Windows Media
CallinOut.wma
BadDreams.wma
DoThatThere.wma
Interview.wma
Real Media
CallinOut.rm
BadDreams.rm
DoThatThere.rm
Interview.rm
posted by Pauly @ 9:15 a.m.
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