Friday, March 19, 2010
Steamboat Springs — Hip-hop artist Lyrics Born never wants to make the same record twice.
The Bay Area musician, also known as Tom Shimura, taps into “new styles, new soundscapes, different subject matters, everything” to make sure his records keep evolving, he said in an interview Tuesday.
“It gets harder and harder as I get older. When you’ve done as many records as I have, that’s the challenge,” he said.
On Lyrics Born’s upcoming album, “As U Were,” there’s a song about betrayal, songs about being pulled in different directions and a song about prescription drug use. There also are songs about “absolutely nothing,” Shimura said. In every case, the songs have something to do with Lyrics Born — what he’s seen, experienced or felt.
“I think a lot of times it’s either triggered by something that I feel or something that someone close to me feels, and I try to combine the experiences just to make for a good song. … It’s real hard for me to write about something that I haven’t either witnessed or experienced firsthand,” he said.
Lyrics Born plans to play songs from “As U Were” during a free concert at 3 p.m. Saturday in Gondola Square. A five-piece band and Bay Area soul and hip-hop artist Joyo Velarde will join Lyrics Born for the show. Velarde’s debut solo album, “Love and Understanding,” came out in February. The Lyrics Born band will play some of the songs from that album during its Steamboat set, Shimura said.
The concert is part of the 11th annual Bud Light Rocks the Boat free concert series; reggae band Easy Star All-Stars opened the series March 13. Also scheduled for the weekly shows running through the end of ski season are soul band The Pimps of Joytime, hip-hop and reggae group The Dirty Heads and pop rock songwriter Donavon Frankenreiter.
Along with new subjects, Lyrics Born takes on new musical obstacles with each project. He described “As U Were” as funky and synthesizer-heavy with “a different vibe to it” that’s easier to listen to than to explain.
Lyrics Born has been developing his rotating cast of sounds since he got his start recording as a student at UC Davis. He started rapping in high school, and credits a first listen to The Sugarhill Gang as a kindergartner for his love of hip-hop.
“I knew from a very early age that I wanted to be an artist, but it wasn’t until I heard hip-hop that I decided what kind of artist I wanted to be,” he said.