Last month, Lyrics Born released his latest solo album, Mobile Homies Season 1 (listen below), which comes off the back of his podcast series of the same name, as well as a career that has spanned more than three decades. Ever since he first made his mark on the scene as part of the highly influential Solesides crew, he has been one of the most innovative and prolific voices in rap. GingerSlim recently spoke with him about the new album, as well his allegiance with Solesides and Quannum, the subject of anti-Asian hatred in the US, and his burgeoning acting career.
The new album has just dropped and I was wondering, do you still feel the same sense of anticipation when you’re putting out a release, as you did in the early days?
You know, no. But only because it’s a different sense. When you’re putting out your first, or second, or third, there’s a certain set of emotions and baggage that come along with it. You’re still kinda wondering, can I actually do this? Or you can’t believe it’s actually happening. And I don’t mean to say it doesn’t feel as good, it just feels different when you’ve put out 12. So now the set of emotions is can I get to 20? Can I get to 30? But something that never goes away is the hope that people really like it. That part never goes away. And you really don’t know until it comes out.
I was quite impressed by the number of different styles and sounds that are at work on the record; a lot of variation between the tracks. Is that important to you to keep mixing it up like that?
It is and I don’t really feel like I can grow unless I’m able to experiment, you know? And I don’t really feel like I’m able to grow unless I can work with other people, who can help me get beyond my own limitations. Who can help me to think about music differently, think about songs differently and trigger new ideas… and so for both of those reasons, I don’t think I can do without making albums like Mobile Homies. I don’t have to stick to a theme, I don’t have to work with just one set of people – which is typically what I do on a studio album. If you look at my past five studio albums or something, it’s generally one producer as the throughline for the whole thing, and then maybe a few guest vocalists. But never to the degree that I did with this album! This album is 12 tracks and it’s 10 different producers. I think I have an average of 2-3 vocalists on each song… and I’ve never collaborated to that degree.
And how was that for you? Was it daunting at all?
I think it was necessary, given that most of these songs were recorded during the pandemic and I could tell from the response, that most of the artists felt the way that I did. We were dying at that point to collaborate, to get on tracks with each other and just interact. It was great, man. It was funny too because I would have conversations with people about the songs, where we’d talk about direction etc., and the actual conversation about the song would last a couple of minutes, but the conversation in totality would be an hour, an hour and a half. I think we were all so starved of human interaction at that point, that it was just necessary.
I mean, that was the reason for you starting the podcast in the first place, right?
That’s 100% correct. A friend of mine, Evan Leong, said we should do this. Everyone’s at home, everybody’s isolated; everybody needs that kind of interaction. Not just me and the guests, but everyone watching too – the audience, the fans. And that became really clear, early on. It was pretty amazing, the response we got, and I realised these were some of the best conversations I’d ever had in my life. These are all my friends, but you don’t really have time for these sorts of conversations. You see each other in passing, you’re on tour and you might see them backstage, but you’re always pressed for time; you never make the time to just sit and have a one-on-one convo. And they became really meaningful. Then I was like, well if this is a hit podcast series then there’s no reason it shouldn’t be a hit album series too, so that’s what we did.
Yeah I was going to say, because I loved the way you spliced corresponding clips from the podcast in between the relevant tracks. That was a nice touch.
Thank you. Yeah I wanted to tie it all in. I wanted it be consistent and cohesive with the podcast, so people could kinda see what the origin was, and see that there’s more context there.
Now for me, “ANTI” is clearly the most powerful song on the album and arguably one of the most powerful in your catalogue. I was wondering how long the track had been brewing in your mind for and why did you decide to release it when you did?
You know it was funny, because when all the anti-Asian violence began to spike about this time last year, I started getting calls, texts and emails from a lot of my non-Asian friends. They were like, “God when did all this violence start happening?!”, and my response was – 300 years ago. This is something we’ve lived with for our entire existence in this country, you know what I mean? And elsewhere where we’re not natives. It was a worldwide phenomenon for all Asians who weren’t in Asia. I’ve never known, my entire life, how it feels to be completely safe. I’ve never known what it feels like to not have an insult waiting for you just round the corner, or bias, or prejudice waiting for you round the corner. This is something we live with daily, it’s just woven into who we are unfortunately.
So when things started to spike, Cutso, who produced the track, he hit me up and said we need to do a song here. We need to respond to this because this is out of control. And it was really difficult for me to deal with at the time, because I had family members who were insulted, accosted… and it’s not just like you’re worried about being taunted on the street, you’re worried about being hurt or killed! It’s hard for people who don’t live that reality, to know what it feels like, so we had to contextualise that, while also living through a pandemic. Like I say in the third verse about how I could lose my job, I could lose my home, I could lose my family, I could catch Covid and die, and then there’s this extra layer on top, where I could just walk out into the street and be attacked or killed, just because I’m Asian. So when [Cutso] approached me about the song, it’s not like I had to dig deep for the material. You see what’s going on, it’s not hard to access those emotions, or what that feels like. So he approached me with the concept, we conceptualised it, wrote, produced and recorded it, shot the video, started a donation campaign to Stop AAPI Hate, all in 10 days. All that happened within 10 days, so that lets you know the urgency that we felt. It lets you know how important it was to get it out quickly, while we had this moment and while we had the world focused. I don’t ever remember hearing the words ‘Asian American’ on CNN until now, so we knew this was a special moment. We knew we had to take advantage to shine a light on this.
So, given that this is all so widespread within Asian communities, why do you think there is so little coverage in the media and so little attention paid to it by the authorities? Or is that a stupid question?
No, that is the question. And I would ask you, why do you think that is? That’s kinda telling isn’t it? It’s like I say in the remix – “A new psycho, swoops on a dude and his newborn / We’re still getting clipped like coupons, but the news cycle moved on”. We live in a very fast-paced culture and things only live in the news cycle for a very short period of time. I mean its absolutely awful what’s happening in the Ukraine now, but think about how even now Covid is on the backburner as far as the news is concerned. So that’s a great question and it’s sort of down to the world we live in. Which is why we felt the urgency we did, to respond as quickly as we did, because those of us who are in the media can see how quickly these things move. You really do have a limited window where you have people’s attention.
And do you think the song is simply a good way of raising awareness, or do you think that music is a legitimate way of affecting change?
Oh yeah. Look how’s it’s changed your life, look how you’re spending your free time with me today. I’m sure like most of us, you have a million things you could be doing, but it’s how you prioritise your time. And how you prioritise your time, directly correlates with what you feel is important in your life. So you and I have obviously made a dedication to music that has certainly changed our lives. And I don’t think I would be so involved in music if some other artist hadn’t affected me and inspired me to want to do this with my life. I feel like it’s one of the last places where you can be unfiltered and speak about daily life in a way that people respond to differently, than facts, figures, stats and metrics. There’s a reason why Bob Marley is Bob Marley; there’s a reason why Curtis Mayfield is Curtis Mayfield; there’s a reason why politicians tap up artists to come play their campaign, or they want to use certain songs in their campaign… and I’m not judging that, I’m just saying there’s a reason why.
In the same way that there’s a lot of artists who say no when politicians approach them. Now I want to go back to the start of your career, mainly because you guys had such a big impact on my relationship with hip hop back then. I think between Quannum, Organized Konfusion and Eyedea, you completely changed my perception of lyricism as an artform. Did you initially set out to be that innovative, or was it just you doing what you did?
No, I did. I never wanted to sound like anybody else and I still feel that way. It doesn’t mean that I don’t pick up on what other people are doing, it’s all useful information and obviously we all have influences. But I never wanted anybody to be like, “Oh that Lyrics Born sounds like so-and-so”, ever. And I think our identity is the one thing we have control over, if we take control. It’s so important to me and it’s something you really have to fight for. You have to fight to find your voice, to use your voice; you have to fight to maintain your voice, because it’s just difficult. We all have moments where we question who we are and I think that’s natural, but it’s vitally important for our own happiness that we maintain our sense of self in whatever it is we do, but also to add on to what everybody else is doing, in a meaningful way. Does that make sense?
Yeah, of course.
So I feel like since day one my voice, both figuratively and literally, is something I have fought very hard to find, develop and maintain.
Well you’ve succeeded, time and time again. I think Latyrx in particular blew my mind over and over. Did it feel at the time that you were all doing something special?
Yeah I knew we were doing something special, I knew we were doing something different, but there’s no way that any artist can gauge what the impact is, or what it will be. From the moment we did that first track, where we rap at the same time, because we were so immersed in the art and in the culture, we knew nobody had ever done that before. We knew that and that was the point. And that’s sort of how I’ve approached my career – I’m going to step back, I’m going to look at the landscape and see what’s missing. Where is the void? What are people not doing? And then I just insert myself there. What voices are we not hearing? What subject matter are people not tackling? And that’s not always possible, it’s difficult to do that album after album, song after song. So, if I do tackle subject matter that someone else has done before, then I make sure I do it with my voice, in my way. I try to approach it differently.
And again, that dates back to Latyrx. I think one of the beautiful things about that Solesides / Quannum era that I look back at with a lot of satisfaction and pride, is that as a crew we were trying to out-unique each other. I never wanted to sound like DJ Shadow, I never wanted to sound like Gift of Gab, and I’m sure they would tell you they felt the same way about me. And I mean that in a great way. So the underlying ethos was similar, but we were trying to express it in our own ways. I think that was one of the reasons that made it so great and also made it very contentious at times.
Yeah it was always fascinating to me how different you all sounded, but how similar you all felt, if that makes sense?
Yeah, thank you. That’s the point I was trying to make. I think we all had that same ethos, but it just showed up differently with each of us.
Lateef is on the new album, and you guys are obviously both still very much active, so does that mean we’re going to hear more Latyrx in the future?
I hope so! He’s a farmer now.
Oh really? [laughs] I had no idea.
He’s raising chickens now and livestock.
Oh man, he’s living the dream.
That motherfucker has quail. He’s still as active, if not more active, than he’s ever been. He’s putting out and releasing more music than I think I’ve seen him do in a very long time. It really makes me very happy to see.
That’s good to hear, man. You’ve been dipping into the acting world over the last few years, is that something you would like to concentrate more on?
Yeah, I love it. I feel like it’s always been in me, but I was always so consumed with establishing a music career and pushing that forward, that I never really had the opportunity to focus on acting. But in the last five years I’ve really had the chance to focus on it and I have a lot of great friends within the industry, who have really been looking out for me. So I’ve been really fortunate on the acting side that I’ve been able to work with my friends over and over again. It’s pretty amazing! [laughs] It’s a pretty unusual situation I’m told.
So you’re still engaged with the music, but do you think there will ever be a time when acting overtakes that?
I doubt it. I don’t think that I’ll ever… you know we live in this sort of binary world where people think it’s gotta be one thing or the other, but I’ve never lived my life like that. So I don’t think so. Music is my first language obviously, but I don’t think I’ll ever give up either for the other. I just don’t believe you have to do that. I don’t think I’d be happy if I did that, you know? And really that’s the ultimate gauge for me.
The album is out now, the podcast series is ongoing… so what’s next for you after that? Is there anything else on the horizon?
I’ll be touring the album pretty much all summer, and then I have another album coming out in the fall.
Oh wow okay. Is that continuing this series?
That will be a studio album. So that will be and… well there will be information to come on that, but we’re finishing it right now.
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Mobile Homies Season 1 is out to buy and stream now. Follow Lyrics Born on Twitter and Instagram.
Gingerslim has been a hip-hop fan since 1994 and has written for various blogs and websites since around 2006. During that time he has contributed to The Wire, style43, Think Zebra, Headsknow, Front Magazine and more. His main interests in rap are UK hip-hop and the underground movement in America, with a focus on Rhymesayers Entertainment and the once mighty Def Jux label. He lives in Bristol and has a beard. All other details are sketchy at best. Read his own hip-hop blog and follow him here.