Those still looking to get hyphy after Mac Dre Day on the 5th can’t do much better than seeing San Francisco underground rap legend and Mac Dre collaborator Andre Nickatina—the killa whale—bring the party to South Side SJ’s Branham Lounge. Often spoken in the same breath as both the Thizz Entertainment founder and E-40, the artist formerly known as Dre Dog has been steadily releasing West Coast underground classics for the past three decades, and even rapped over a sample of “Juicy” a year before Biggie. He might be “The Most Hated Man in ‘Frisco,” but he’ll be feeling the love in San Jose.

Andre Nickatina
Thurs, 8pm, $40
Branham Lounge, San Jose

So far there is exactly one great San Jose anthem of the new millennium: “The Hometown” by Rey Resurreccion. Spitting on top of a heartstring-tugging banda beat from DJ Cutso, Rey makes the case for all the golden grains of the Valley of the Heart’s Delight: “Barbeques, fairgrounds, go karts, taquerias / pho noodle, Music in the Park, and fly senoritas.” On new album Tiger’s Eye, Rey gets to flex his considerable chops as a producer, dropping ten instrumentals inspired by the hypnotic stone, “said to keep you focused, grounded, and centered, even when surrounded by chaos.”
‘Tiger’s Eye’ Album Release
Fri, June 4, $7.77

San Jose-based emcee Cola—not to be confused with the San Jose-based indie rock outfit, Cola— is preparing to release a new mixtape, titled House Shoes. No firm date has been given for the release, but his publicist says it should drop in mid-December. That’s the album’s art work up above.

Check out the video for “Californication” below. The Red Hot Chili Peppers-sampling track finds Cola, neé Anthony Mastrocola, wrestling with the darker angels of his nature and past decisions and finding a silver lining in the gloomy clouds that hang overhead.

Joowan Kim wants to pioneer a new kind of American art music. He derides concert hall compositions as either reheated European classics or cultural appropriation pieces, like “Tibetan yak herding songs,” which he compares to wildflowers ripped from their native field and put into an expensive vase. After emigrating from South Korea at the age of 20 to attend the Berklee School of Music, Kim began combining orchestral techniques with hip-hop, a genre he hadn’t heard up until that point.

“I’m almost like a future-generation American, because they will recognize hip-hop as much as jazz,” he says, predicting that one day most will view early hip-hop artists as “great forefathers of American culture. And they’re going to create this kind of shit that I’m doing right now. So I’m creating a prototype of new American culture.”

Kim’s vision of hip-hop’s future isn’t limited to music. True to the multi-pronged roots of the cultural movement, he’ll be showcasing graffiti artists and breakdancers at his Future of Hip-Hop Summit at Art Boutiki. The event foreshadows his desire to host events in concert halls where patrons walk among the three simultaneously performed arts—an exhibition akin to the underground parties in the early years of hip-hop. Kim plans nothing short of cultural revolution.

“I’m going to fucking destroy all the symphonies” he says. “I’m going to destroy all the operas with this new idea. So this is basically the Uber of the symphony orchestra.”

Among his commissions, Kim has composed reimaginings of “C.R.E.A.M.” and “California Soul” with his Ensemble Mik Nawooj (EMN) which includes a cellist, wind instrumentalists and a soprano opera singer, along with two emcees capable of rapping at whatever tempo tickles Kim’s fancy. The songs aren’t so much covers as they are deconstructions, where Kim twists the original sound and message of well-known source material into something new. For example, on the Wu-Tang classic that champions an all-consuming chase of paper, rhymesayers Do D.A.T. and Sandman spit bars decrying the callousness of capitalism.

He melds “compatible” features of the rarely combined genres into a fusion that isn’t classical or hip-hop, but instead the first steps toward a style he thinks will be the next wave of music to come out of conservatories. He believes that we are now in a moment similar to the early days of jazz—when the genre leapt from “jungle music” to being recognized as America’s most significant gift to the world.

“Jazz has Ph.D. programs now,” he says, anticipating that the same will soon be common for hip-hop. “We’re just giving a slight nudge. I saw it in advance. Not even 20 years in advance, I’m seeing it like five years in advance.”

Among the other panelists, there’s Ernest Doty, a former street graffiti artist who began getting commissions for murals after he was busted for vandalism and his name landed in New Mexico papers. Also, Oakland-based dance groups TURF Inc. and the all-female Mix’d Ingrdnts will showcase their breakdancing moves.

All the artists are united by the usage of sampling. Doty blends psychedelia with cultural critique, such as his depiction of a teeth-baring great white shark wearing a business suit. And Jenay Anolin from Mix’d Ingrdnts started as a ballet dancer who became attracted to the “larger canvas” allowed by hip-hop.

“There is this hip-hop aesthetic,” Kim says. “You take something out of context and you put it into your own context and it becomes new art. It used to be not as respected, but now it’s undeniable how powerful that is. It’s so powerful. So that’s hip-hop. For me, it’s a way of thinking.”

Kim started on this idea as a way to stand out from his contemporaries and make works that felt true to his identity and his adopted country. But after reflecting on the “poisonous division” that has characterized America during this election, he sees his fusion of African American and European music as a way toward a more enlightened future.

Future of Hip-Hop Summit
Oct 22, 7:30pm, $10-$15
Art Boutiki, San Jose

The child of Ethiopian immigrants, Lavish is a young San Jose emcee with big aspirations. The up-and-coming rapper was raised in the Santa Teresa neighborhood and first took an interest in hip-hop in middle school, where he and his friends would spend their free time (and class time) engaging in rap battles with one another.

With influences including 2Pac, J. Cole, Mac Dre and Meek Mill, Lavish recently released a video for his song, “San Jose,” which honors the city he calls home.

Check it out here:

thouDirtbag Dan bustles about his high-ceilinged studio in an industrial block just outside of San Jose’s Japantown. He points out a psychedelic mural of a shark by a local artist on one wall and mismatched grey curtains stapled to another. The latter serve as the backdrop for his battle rap podcast.

It is here bongs modified for cannabis wax sit next to microphones.

He leafs through a box of vinyl records with a Bach album on top, then settles into a squeaky swivel chair sitting next to a DIY recording booth made of white laminated wood.

The space is in a state of disarray. Soon, all of Dan’s equipment and decor will be shipped to a new workspace in another part of the city. His former studio will be transformed into a blandly stylish condo for an upwardly mobile couple. A homegrown talent, Dan has watched his surroundings morph from sleepy and semi-rural to jam-packed with sprawling development—all of it built to support the ever-expanding ranks of the tech industry.

“What used to be a farm is Netflix,” Dan says, reflecting on the change he’s seen. “I think that’s a rare thing for a city that has a million people. San Jose is a new city in every sense of the word. There’s not the history of art like there is in [other] cities in the Bay Area—Oakland, San Francisco, Berkeley, even Vallejo—where artists came up 30-40 years ago and laid the groundwork for the guys that you hear on the radio.”

Born Daniel Martinez, the 32 year-old may be moving, but he’s not leaving. He rides in the vanguard of his city’s earliest efforts at national hip-hop and battle rap recognition. As a teenager, he started battling when studio time became scarce and, a little while later, performed in the very first West Coast acapella showdown uploaded to YouTube. According to Dan, he’s in the top 20 most-viewed of English-speaking battlers on the streaming video service.

“Maybe it takes a little bit more physically and mentally to be a top-level ballet dancer,” he muses. “But, purely mentally, nothing is as gnarly as battling, because it’s being a comedian, a musician and a poet all at once. Plus you gotta do it right the first time. Plus everyone wants you to die.”

In battles, contestants trade foul bars, built upon shame-inducing personal details gathered from social media. They can prepare their attacks beforehand, but flub or falter and your opponent will tear you to pieces while the crowd howls in approval. Dan has performed this superhuman feat of mental toughness at the highest level of competition roughly 75 times over the last decade.

“I’ve been more scared at battles with 100 people there, than shows with 10,000,” he says. “But there’s something about those moments when you really put the knife in, or you look at your opponent like, ‘You’re fucking dead. I beat you.’ And you see the defeat in their eyes. That is unmatched.”

Battle rap trafficks in truly heinous subject matter, and those who wish to excel need thick skin. But participants earn (at least) a grudging respect from their peers if they are bold enough to test themselves in this ludicrous crucible. The community hasrepresentatives from every race and region, including battlers like No Shame from Texas, an openly transgender performer. Though insults are the antithesis of political correctness, battle rappers don’t really mean their nasty remarks and contestants often exchange daps and hugs before leaving the stage.

When rapping in the studio for his proper albums, Dan wipes away some of the unchecked vitriol of the rap-battle arena, revealing disarmingly sincere and unpretentiously deep sensibilities. On 2014’s DBDLP, he expounds upon a scorched-earth social theory on “F@#k That,” portrays the highs and lows of dream-chasing on “Thinking of a Master… Plan” and talks about his divorced dad’s descent into meth addiction on “Suburbanites.” He spits with sneering twang over full-bodied beats built from deep-crate samples by pals Skylar G and Ichy the Killer. He eschews “half-assed” routes of backpacker martyrdom and falsely extravagant braggadocio for raw honesty that encapsulated his then-self.

“The hardest thing to do as an entertainer is be honest,” he says. “If I wrote that album today, it would be different. I’ve learned a little bit more, I feel different about certain things. That’s interesting for me as an artist to play shit back, and be … like, ‘I don’t believe that anymore.’”

Like his city, Dirtbag Dan is in transition. Recently, he starred in what might be his last battle. Citing a waning desire to demolish his opponents and a complacent comfort with the craft, Dan says he’d rather oversee and aid the scene than directly participate. He wants build up his already popular podcast, and begin performing more stand-up comedy, where he balances freewheeling filth with layered introspection. He’ll be participating in Jokes Over Bars, the first annual battle rapper comedy showcase on January 12. When he goes onstage to tell jokes, he’s nervous like he used to be in his early career, but not that nervous.

“I feel like a dick when I say it to the other comedians, but [their] job is fucking easy,” he says. “Walk in the fucking park. You tell the same jokes over and over and over again, and get better at them, and add things to them. You know how many fucking punchlines I fucked up? That I didn’t even get to get out right? Let alone refine and master.”

Dan’s comedy foray in turn benefits the San Jose battling community. He will be the gregarious host and organizer of the fifth Battle of the Zay, an annual battle rap extravaganza that lands on January 9. For the first time in the event’s history, he won’t be battling because he no longer feels the need to perform to give the event legitimacy. He ceded his spot as the Zay’s foremost representative to his buddy, the viciously verbose Caustic.

“I won’t really realize until the day of the battle, but I feel like it’s going to be fucking amazing,” Dan says. “You don’t want to be battling top-ten dudes while you’re throwing the event. Now, I can step back and focus on making it a crazy card. We’re trying to be the minor leagues for the majors. We want to create battles that are unique to us, and build up new cats.”

For BOTZ5, Dan has assembled a battle royale, where six of the best-known spitters will unleash their hottest minute-long bars in a random ping-ponging order. In the head-to-head match-ups, he pits up-and-comers against veterans so they can gain exposure in viral circles. But online devotees don’t always translate to real-life fame.

“It’s not like back in the day, when if you were on MTV everyone knew who you were,” he says. “Nowadays, you could have millions of views on YouTube and you can go to the grocery store and no one will know who the fuck you are. You have crazy weekends, then you come back to real life. Like, I’ll be in Toronto at the same event as Drake, but clearly Drake’s life is different on Tuesday than mine is.”

Dan’s diverse hustle plugs many holes for San Jose. He’s a visible viral representative, a booster for new talent and a link between the area’s hip-hop and comedy. As his city evolves, so does he, tackling new challenges to reflect his updated motivations and goals. He keeps constant only his stage name and his motivation. He grinds both as a means and an end.

“Whether it’s comedy or battles or hosting or music, I’m doing a job,” he says. “And honestly, really, really, I don’t give a fuck about money that much. I do, but I give a fuck about money like I give a fuck about air: I cannot live without it, but I don’t think about it unless it’s not around. I’ve been fortunate enough to rap for a living for over a decade. Dope.”

East bay rapper Opio has gray hairs winding through his twisty locks. The tenured spitter has been a pillar in the Bay Area underground since the early ’90s, operating on his own and with the Souls of Mischief as part of the hallowed indie hip-hop collective, Hieroglyphics.

With his most recent project, Sempervirens, Opio is announcing he isn’t content with retreading the same old path. The record finds him teaming with progressive producer, Free the Robots, to blend his vintage flow with vanguarding beats.

“There is just an infinite amount of cool shit going on,” Opio says. “But I’m trying to go beyond that, beyond the plethora of artists, and step outside of anything that anyone is doing. I’m trying to be futuristic and retro.”

The album’s title comes from a species of atmosphere-brushing sequoia. It means “always flourishing.” These woodland giants surrounded the studio in the gut of the NorCal mountains where Opio’s silky bars blended with Free the Robot’s astral synths, pregnant 808s and slinking snares. The duo sought the woodsy air for the monastic clarity it provides.

“It was just a way for us to decompress and really get re-energized and into that creative spiritual space,” he says. “Watching the waves roll in, or being in the middle of the forest or right next to the river, that shit has always been something that I’ve grown up with and been around. But the canvas doesn’t reflect that. It’s not like I’m saying, ‘Yo check out the ill redwood tree.’”

Opio first heard hip-hop in kindergarten. In 5th grade, he started rapping at local battles of the bands, eating pizza backstage with musicians twice his age. In Oakland, a hub for the burgeoning genre, Opio spent Christmas money on studio time, but also DJ-ed, sprayed graffiti and joined in breakdancing circles with supportive elders.

“Everybody that I looked up to in my neighborhood was into hip-hop,” he says. “The culture itself had just this magnetic aura about it. It was also purely youth culture at that time. It was just for the kids. Your parents didn’t have any idea what the hell all this hippity-hoppity stuff was.”

In high school, the Souls of Mischief congealed. On the title single of their first album “93 ’til Infinity,” Tajai, Phesto, A-Plus and Opio trade verses. It’s like a million smiles laid over crackly boom-baps and early electro echoes. The sage teenage crew stretched the West Coast sound in new dimensions, forsaking the gangsta mojo of N.W.A., et al, and pioneering a pot-mellowed hippie vibe. They toured with De La Soul and A Tribe Called Quest, breaking ground for the experimental, subterranean West Coast scene.

“We were just being ourselves and articulating that naturally in our environment,” he says. “We had a very universal ear for the history of black music. We were really into Miles Davis, James Brown, Curtis Mayfield, the list goes on and on. It was a combination of all those experiences that helped us create something original.”

Souls of Mischief is a subset of the broader Hiero crew—which also functions as a record label and is home to Del the Funky Homosapien, who joined the collective after chafing under the limited scope of his cousin Ice Cube’s production team. To Opio, group recordings magnify creativity as ideas ricochet from brain to brain, but the surplus of creativity can lead to a glut, which is why, he says, it’s nice to work solo.

“The vibes can be thick and it’s a good feeling,” he says. “But that means ideas that I have are not able to come into full view without everyone else’s approval. There’s just not enough time in the day to do everything that we might think of. So it’s good to step outside of that.”

Over his prolific career, Opio has burrowed into many niches within his genre. He can be silly like on Mark It Zero, a mixtape built from quips and soundtrack snippets from The Big Lebowski—or contemplative, like on the latest Souls of Mischief project, There is Only Now, a layered narrative that sprawls from a near-death experience. He peppers all his acrobatic stanzas with calm wokeness that never veers into sheeple-preaching.

“Music just has to sound good,” he says. “I’ve heard conscious music that sucks. I’m just being realistic. Shit could be fucked up all around you, but you still want to have fun. You can still enjoy yourself without being blind to what goes on in the world.”

Opio plays on Dec 16, 9pm for $10 at BackBar SoFa, San Jose.

The Bay Area earned the begrudging respect of the East Coast rap elite back in the early- and mid-aughts, with the undeniable impact of the hyphy movement. That respect, however, never seemed to rub off on San Jose, where Dave Dub has been grinding since the early ’90s with the aim of putting the South Bay on the map.

“I think that San Jose is it’s own power, without a doubt,” he says. “You got fools that have toured nationally. You got Kung Fu Vampire. Peanut Butter Wolf went to L.A. and made a whole lot happen. And you got dudes like myself who are in a different lane. We’re the underdogs of the Bay Area, nobody expects something quality to come out of San Jose.”

To showcase the area’s prowess, Dave Dub has organized Monster Balls 3, a semi-annual hip-hop concert designed to highlight lesser-known talent. Many of the artists hail from Isolated Wax, Dub’s independant San Jose based-record label.

“When we come out the woodwork, it’s a major event,” he says. “Or at least to us it is, because we get all the grimy-ass rhymers that nobody is fucking with. It’s gonna be like a mini-festival of genius, underground rappers. It’s gonna be a crash course for the uninitiated.”

One of those grimy rhymers, Opski Chan, agrees with Dave Dub, but highlights the added accessibility of the rap game today, in comparison to when the pair of them spent their days skateboarding, freestyling breaks and keeping an eye out for people with beats and studio time to offer.

“San Jose has definitely got a rich history in underground hip-hop,” Chan says. “It’s a lot more populated than it was. It’s a lot easier to get your foot in the door. Back in the day, you had to know a producer, it wasn’t as DIY friendly. Now, everybody raps. Everybody’s a producer.”

These days, with the power and reach the Internet provides, Dave Dub predicts a shift in hip-hop’s sound—a shift that will turn away from the semi-homogenous club rap that proliferated, when the labels had all the control.

“Rap has gotten so complacent, I think we’re going through our glam rock stage,” Dub says. “Instead of the headbands, it’s the chains. And that’s cool. That’s always been a part of rap music, but when that becomes the norm, it’s just a matter of time before that gets shattered.”

Dub deals mostly in reflective bars, spit in wavy flows that burst with energy and bend with a little E-40 twang. In the video for “Superfly,” he rails at the camera with praises of the underground, while trashing a strobe lit apartment, dressed in a kimono.

Though Dub’s style is more fit for the fringe, it is unquestionable that rap is the predominant music today. It’s a genre that is easily accessible considering the permeable membrane around the style that accepts and gives influences.

“I think it’s gonna keep meshing with every other genre,” Chan says. “If someone’s a fan of jazz, and they recognize a sample, they’ll be more willing to hear a new take on that type of influence. And that goes for rock or classic country music. Rap will always be relevant. It’ll always have a place. It took over.”

The wide-spread roots of the music have produced all shapes, sizes, and colors of rappers. Especially in a melting pot like the Bay, beefy white rappers with beards, like Opski Chan, are no longer a rarity.

“There’s always gonna be someone to categorize a rapper by their ethnicity,” Opski says. “Then they’re gonna question that person’s genuity, but it doesn’t make as much difference as in the past. A lot of people have broken ground, from Asian rappers, to Latino rappers, and white rappers. It’s definitely better than it was.”

Chan’s latest track, “Very Serious” features a staticy, boom-bap beat, a crisp funky bassline, and dozens of double entendres like “I’m sick as they come/only contagious when bit.” Hot lines like these are what Dave Dub hopes characterizes South Bay hip-hop.

“Lyrically, in San Jose, there’s a lot of thinkers,” Dub said. “If this is the turf that dictates where technology is going worldwide, then our music is obviously gonna have complex rhyme schemes, and anti-establishment shit. If we’re gonna be on the cutting edge of technology, you got to be on the cutting edge of music.”

Monster Balls 3 is June 3 at BackBar SoFa.

It’s fair to say that Lyrics Born (a.k.a. Tsutomu “Tom” Shimura) felt the cultural void when he left Berkeley for UC Davis in the early 1990s.

A hip-hop head stranded in a rural college town, he made the most of his time by going on late night walks through campus with nothing but his portable radio/CD player to accompany him. Tracks by Main Source, Brand Nubian and A Tribe Called Quest were his soundtrack. Then one night, he stumbled upon a like-minded soul.

“I hear this guy on (the UC Davis station KDVS) in the middle of the night once a week playing real hip-hop,” Shimura recalls. “He was too advanced for the area.”

The program’s host was Jeff Chang. Then going by DJ Zen, Chang has gone on to work for the likes of Vibe, Spin and Mother Jones, and has written three acclaimed books on the history and culture of hip-hop. Shimura was eventually invited to the station after he kept winning Chang’s radio contests.

What began as a few hip-hop fanboys nerding out over breaks in a sleepy college town, eventually became the celebrated record label and collective, Solesides—which put out albums by Blackalicious and DJ Shadow. It’s now known as Quannum Projects.

“I went to college in Davis, Shimura says. “But that’s really where I got my education—in that radio station, going through those stacks.”

In the years since, Shimura has emerged as a solo artist in his own right, with releases ranging from funk to boogie and boom-bap. It’s that diversity that’s allowed him to sustain a career over 20 years in the making.

Next up is Real People, out this week. A funky, organic release that openly pays respects to the influence New Orleans and its musicians have had on Shimura’s life. The album features collaborations with a who’s who of contemporary Crescent City talent, including the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Trombone Shorty and Dumpstapunk’s Ivan Neville. Galactic make an appearance on both sides of the boards; band members Robert Mercurio and Ben Ellmen produced the album.

Taking an immersive approach to the recording process, Shimura rented a cottage in New Orleans and removed all distractions.

“From 10am to 3pm, I would go [to a coffee shop] and drink a gallon of café au lait, then take a lunch break and eat pho about a block away. At about 3, I would go to the studio,” he recalls. “From there we’d just record. No phones. No car. I don’t even know if I brought my laptop.”

As teasers like “$ir Racha” and the album’s title track reveal, there’s an undeniable energy to his latest collection. The musicianship of his supporting cast is superb, but it’s always clear Shimura is the one setting the musical tone.

Asked about the inspiration behind the record, Shimura points again to the role KDVS played in shaping his musical tastes. It was in those archives that he tracked down songs by NOLA groups like the Meters, who were liberally sampled by his favorite rap artists at the time.

Though the album arrives in stores on May 5, Shimura admits he’s already well into his next project, a collaborative release entitled Rapp Nite with his tour and San Jose native, DJ Cutso—a member of local DJ crew the Bangerz.

Cutso says the two officially met in 2009 at Voodoo during Left Coast Live weekend, though their creative collaboration began in earnest when the Bangerz produced closer “Gorgeous Spirits” on Latyrx’s 2013 album The Second Album.

Shaping up as a more future-forward record than People, Shimura says Rapp Nite has been “so different and outside of what a Lyrics Born album might be, but it’s specific to what we do, which is great.”

“The influences are very apparent, but it’s also a modern take on what we came up on and what we learned,” adds Cutso. “It’s a mish mash of everything.”

Shimura will celebrate Real People with a handful of Bay Area shows, including a headline show May 15 at the Independent, before heading out for festival dates in Michigan and Washington this summer.

While life on the road can be unforgiving, he notes that’s the price he pays for following his dream.

“It’s grueling. You get a lot of time away from home and family,” he says.  “It’s not an easy life at all, but I love it. I really think I’m doing what I was put on this Earth to do.”

It’s been almost two decades since he and his Living Legends crew helped usher in a new era of DIY in hip-hop, and Scarub is still doing things his own way. In fact, he’s doing everything his own way.

After releasing his first solo effort in eight years, Want for Nothing, in November, Scarub is preparing a major tour in support of the album—and he’s doing it all by himself. That means scheduling dates with promoters, booking hotel rooms and plotting his route across the country, which will drop him in San Jose this week, when he headlines the Friday the 13th Monster Jam at Back Bar SoFa.

And while the additional work might be a hassle sometimes, Scarub, a.k.a. Armon Collins, says the freedom he gets in exchange makes it all worthwhile. Being his own tour manager and booking agent ensures that he can visit the special places and people he has come to know and connect with since he began performing back in 1998.

“It’s not like I have to fight for a seat or time table with whoever else is on the tour who wants to do other things,” he says, referring to the complicated logistics of attempting to keep the entire crew of rappers in line and on time. “I get to move at my own pace.”

Doing things on his own terms has helped get Scarub to a place where he is more at peace than he ever has been—a state of mind that is reflected in the title of his new record.

“It’s a play on words, on both sections—light and dark,” he says. “Hustling until you achieve it, or caring less about it and freeing yourself of those desires or obsessions. I’ve always worked with mottos. At my age, I’m at a point where I want to want for nothing. I want to be comfortable in my skin, and no one else can do that for me.”

Being comfortable and working at his own pace also means that the emcee won’t be worrying about pushing out new music at the speed of the Internet. He plans to stick to emphasizing quality over quantity. He particularly notes the output of De La Soul as a point of inspiration. “They put quality time into it, and that’s what I’ve done,” he says.

Scarub says he wants his fans to take their time with his music—to notice album through-lines and reprised motifs that will reveal themselves upon repeated listens. That attention to detail may explain why Scarub is still able to tour while plenty of his contemporaries are long gone.

“I think you need to give people more time to listen to music instead of giving them more and more and more music,” he adds. “At the end of the day, I think if someone has five potato chips versus a whole bag of potato chips, they’re gonna savor those five potato chips.”

Released this past November, Want for Nothing is Scarub’s seventh solo release, his latest since 2011’s The California EP. The album builds on a number of sounds, from the bluesy guitar lick on “My Moment” to the head-bobbing bounce crafted from a shuffling drum beat that accents the spare, contemplative keys of “Go.”

For the latest exposure to what he’s still capable of lyrically, check out his video for “Get Out!” where dancers respond to the beat as well as Scarub’s elastic flow, which shifts from elongated syllables to rapid-fire cadence. Once the double-time hi-hats appear, injecting a new-found energy to the beat, Scarub unleashes a lyrical barrage. Thankfully, lyrics appear on-screen to help the viewer keep up. It’s a great example of the studied nature to his cadence and the effortlessness to how he switches his delivery from one line to the next.

Asked about the crew that helped launch his career—along with the careers of Murs, Grouch and Eligh—he both confirms and downplays much of what has been said about Living Legends of late.

It’s true that both Murs and Grouch no longer associate with the Los Angeles and Oakland hip-hop collective, and yes, what’s left of the group hasn’t been nearly as active as it was at its peak, but that’s just life, Scarub says.

“We’re no longer in our teens or our 20s,” he says. “We’re in our 30s, man—so people have mortgages. People have bigger responsibilities.”

And while cracks seemed to appear within the Living Legends camp after the departures of Murs and Grouch, Scarub is quick to insist that “the energy’s still good” among all of the group’s members. He doesn’t rule out more Living Legends releases in the future.

“There is no hate.”

Scarub plays Back Bar SoFa on March 13 as a part of the Friday the 13th Monster Jam, which will also feature supporting performances from Cannabidroids, Pariah and TOAST. More info.