
Performing on the Main Stage at 8 PM.
We are beyond excited to announce that Lyrics Born is headlining Left Coast Live’s Inaugural Main Stage.
One of the most critically acclaimed and best-selling independent hip-hop artists of this era, Lyrics Born is not the type to sit still. While recording his fourth solo album, completing new projects, and making decisions at Quannum Projects, he still averaged over 150 sold-out shows a year. He’s a whirlwind.
His breakthrough solo debut, Later That Day, was a huge indie seller and one of the top 5 most critically acclaimed American hip-hop records of 2003 alongside Jay-Z’s The Black Album and Outkast’s Love Below/Speakerboxxx. With the release of Everywhere At Once, rapper/producer Lyrics Born finds himself part of a new vanguard of hip-hop artists like Gnarls Barkley, M.I.A., and Kanye West who are pushing the edge with compelling yet instantly accessible sounds.
Although soul-baring songs have marked Lyrics Born’s career—think his 1996 indie hit, “Balcony Beach”, or 2000’s global smash “I Changed My Mind”—Everywhere At Once is also his most personal record to date. Songs like “Whispers” and “Skin I’m In”, he admits, are his attempts to come to grips with the passing of his best friend Benjamin Davis and his identity issues growing up Asian American, respectively. “I don’t think that people know a whole lot about my personal experience,” he says. “And as a people, Asian Americans are kind of like background music in this country. These are parts of my experiences so I just wanted to talk about it.” The album reveals much about one of the most beloved artists in the game.
Lyrics Born has been one of the most licensed hip-hop artists in the world, with placements on Diet Coke, Motorola, Nokia, and Vans commercials, TV shows such as “Entourage”, “Six Feet Under”, “What About Brian”, “Gossip Girl”, and “Gilmore Girls”, films like Michael Mann’s “Collateral” and Justin Lin’s “Fast And The Furious: Tokyo Drift”, and videogames by EA Sports, 2K Sports and Atari. He has had sponsorships with Puma, Adidas, Diesel, and Evisu.
“I came up in a tradition where you made records, then you toured,” he says. “I like seeing people having a good time. That’s how I feel like I’m moving forward, that things are in motion. I’m a performer—it’s part of who I am.”
Lyrics Born will perform on the Main Stage on May 15th, 2009.