You may not think you've heard San Francisco native MC and producer Lyrics Born, but chances are you have -- and that's pretty epic to be able to say about an independent artist. His song "Callin' Out" was featured on commercials for Diet Coke and Motorola, and snippets of "Love Me So Bad" and "Do That There" were included on episodes of Kevin Hill and Gilmore Girls. HBO even showed him some love by including "I Changed My Mind" on Entourage and Six Feet Under. So far this year, he's earned spots on blockbuster festivals like Coachella, Bonnaroo and Lollapalooza.
Through his mad touring schedule and the good future of licensing deals, Lyrics Born is finally getting the national respect he deserves. He's been touring every jive juke joint with a halfway decent sound system for over a decade, spreading his intense, analytical rhymes. And by pulling from a musical spectrum as unexpected as fusing peanut butter and Pop Rocks, Lyrics Born creates solid, fluid beats from the most unlikely of combinations.
For Lyrics Born the success has long been in the making. In 1990, as a freshman at the University of California - Davis, Lyrics Born met five people with whom his life would be inexorably linked -- Chief Xcel and the Gift of Gab, who would later form Blackalicious; a young Josh Davis a.k.a. DJ Shadow; and an aspiring MC named Lateef the Truth Speaker. Forming the now seminal label Solesides, their inaugural release was a double-A 12" with DJ Shadow's "Entropy" on one side and "Send Them" by Asia Born, as Lyrics Born was known then, on the other. Solesides' DIY attitude had, by this point, already trickled down to other California artists, and soon other labels like Hieroglyphics and Stones Throw were formed, marking the true beginning of the underground scene.
