Werds and wordes. Ah man, I can’t be at werka anyemore these agua dawts are getting to me, i think I took too manny…Intern come over and right these fore mee..
Busdriver and Daedalus at the Khyber (downtempo left field hip hop stuff that Casi G was way too into like 2 years ago and is trying to drag me out to, also Seg would love this but doesn’t remember them. Dude, its Ninja Tune isn’t that the holy grail?)
Saturday November 3rd, 2007 World Cafe Live played host to Lyrics Born on his current tour with Rue Melo as the opener. I’m going to be frank here and say that I left for the show a little bit late thinking that it would get underway late. Normally when you go to a show, the artist sits in the back drinking one more drink/shooting one more spot of dope/snorting one more line off the hooker’s boobs, and in my old age I’m sick of standing around listening to the ever increasingly drunk crowd gettin ornery. I made a mistake. I walked in the door at 9:15 PM and the show was over half over. I missed Rue Melo and exactly half of Lyrics Born set. I walked in when he was playing “2 Hot 2 Cold.” Lyrics’ band is tight. They are very tight. The sound at World Cafe is the best in the city. Also tight. His band is a guitarist, bassist, keyboard player and a drummer a long with his ever-present wife and vocalist Joyo Velarde. The second song I saw was Hot 2 Def and this is the “band intro” track. Everyone got their 15 minutes of fame here and it was well deserved. Not a single instrumentalist on stage was weak but most impressive of all was the bass player. Whoever he is, and I wish I knew who he was, is an amazing player AND a showman. A true entertainer. Lyrics ran through only his most popular tunes (from what I saw) and followed “Hot 2 Def” with ultra-funky crowd pleaser “Callin Out.” Joyo’s lead vocal chops get a chance to really sore on that hook and the whole crowd was singing along (or as best a bunch of poor singin’ folk can muster.) Another funk master was next with “Changed My Mind.” I believe it was in this song that LB decided to call out a table of people sitting off to his right of the stage for just sitting there. Excellent entertainer AND a ball buster. I like the way this guy rolls. He closed out the set with what might be one of his “hardest” tunes “Bad Dreams.” Short walk off…bring on the encore. “Love Me So Bad” is a duet. LB and Joyo have an “argument” during this song about the complexities of their relationship. This is one of my favorite songs to see live as they really show the chemistry between them as musicians AND lovers. The song peaks with them in each others faces singing/rapping their points simultaneously. The finale is “Do Dat There” and is LBs chance to show off his nimble flow. The tempo of the song appears to bounce up and down but it grows ever closer to mind numbingly fast. Which is where it ends; with Lyrics Born rapping faster than an auctioneer on Meth and Crack. It was so fast I went back in time and thought I was Joey Lawrence: “WHOAA!” Kinda upset I missed Rue Melo, her voice reminds me of early Esthero. I’ll watch for her return to the Philthy.
would no doubt have to include Lyrics Born. Lyrics Born, birth name Tom Shimura, is so good live he’s one of few MCs to successfully release a live hip hop album. Rolling Stone gave it 3.5 stars and Amazon reports it at 4 stars.
Check his myspace page and check out the killer “Pack Up Remix” featuring Evidence from Dilated Peoples and the one and only KRS-One.
World Cafe Live (one of, if not THE, best live places to hear music in philthy philthy, will be hosting Lyrics Born Saturday, November 3rd 2007. You can get tix here. He will most likely be touring with a live band on some live music realness. And he’ll no doubt have his BEAUTIFUL wife Joyo Velarde doing back up vocals.
if you skip just a lil into this video so that fuzzy crap sounds die out you can hear a pretty good montage of his jams….and note his killah charismatic flow. miss this at ya own risk.
Jenny killed last night folks. Seeing her up stairs at world cafe live is such a different experience then Tin Angel but it was on some super dope date shit. I bought Jenny a shot and she didn’t drink it and didn’t even make fun of me. Big shouts out to the girls who were playing rummy the whole time through both sets, I wonder who won? Thats almost as dope as the time I saw the girl knitting some socks at a show and I asked her to make me some gloves. Yo also to that lesbian couple making out at the bar I see you. Keep reachin for that rainbow.
For all the vinyl naysayers here is a quick wake up call. If an obscure female singer song writer with independent distribution is still pressing vinyl then shit still has a market. I kinda wanted to buy doubles of this shit so I could cut up and double up “Hot in Here”.
Holla! Devin the Dude is playing tomorrow with Del tha Funkee Homosapien at World Cafe Live. Devin’s Waiting to Inhale is one of my favorite albums of the year. I got to see him perform a short set earlier this year and it was incredible. Meanwhile, Del is legendary having recorded everything from his own projects to the Heiroglyphics to the Gorillaz to Deltron 3030 not to mention being Ice Cube’s cousin. I mean do I really need to mention any of this? If you know, you know. Tickets are 17 - 20 and can be bought directly from World Cafe box office which is open until 10 PM tonight.
