Trailblazing emcee, producer and Bay Area legend Lyrics Born has always had great taste in collaborators. Perhaps best known for the hit 2003 single “Callin Out,” the Japanese-born hip-hop head has worked with DJ Shadow, Blackalicious, Lateef the Truthspeaker and many others over the course of his 25-year career. His latest choice collaboration comes in the form of Rapp Nite, which he made with celebrated San Jose spinner DJ Paolo “Cutso” Bello. The final installment of San Jose Jazz’s “Do You Know San Jose?” concert series will kick off this year’s Pow! Wow! public art festival.

Lyrics Born & Cutso
Sat, 7pm, Free
320 S 1st St, San Jose

Tom Shimura apologizes for losing the thread as he weaves through heavy traffic. The 46-year-old rapper and producer is speaking over his car’s Bluetooth speaker system. It’s Pride weekend, and he’s just trying to knock out this interview on the way to his next engagement.

“It’s been a busy couple of years,” the man better known as Lyrics Born says.

Indeed. Last year, the East Bay emcee reissued two albums from his back catalog—2003’s Later That Day and a 20-year anniversary deluxe edition of The Muzapper Mixes, which he recorded as one half of Latyrx, a collaboration with Lateef the Truthspeaker.

In 2018, LB also released his fifth LP as a solo artist, Quite A Life. That same year saw the theatrical release of Boots Riley’s fantastical and comedic social commentary film, Sorry To Bother You. The movie, which garnered critical acclaim, was based and filmed in Oakland. Shimura had a small part.

Then there’s all the voice acting—one of many entertainment industry side hustles he has picked up over the years. “I work incredibly hard,” Lyrics Born says. In a region that’s as hard on creatives as the Bay Area, he has to. And he’s not the only one.

Lyrics Born dropped his latest effort, Rapp Nite, just last week. It is a collaboration with San Jose’s very own Paolo Bello, a.k.a. Cutso, who also knows a thing or two about putting in work.

Known for his prowess on the decks and behind the boards, Cutso is an integral member of local DJ and production crew The Bangerz. He’s been spinning at house parties and clubs for 20 years; he serves as one of three co-hosts on Wild 94.9’s weekly Rebel Pop Radio program; and over the past decade he has accumulated an arsenal of beats that he has only recently begun to unleash in the form of solo projects, such as 2017’s three-track Girls EP When They See Me.

Rapp Nite stands as a testament to the depth of both artists. For Lyrics Born, the set demonstrates his ability and his desire to step out of his comfort zone. I’m always looking for ways to get outside of myself.”

For Cutso, the collection is a calling card. Even though he is pushing 40, Bello says he still feels like a tenderfoot. “This is sort of my debut as a producer, as an artist.”

Funky, eclectic and fun, Rapp Nite plays like the best kind of bender—a blur of neon synths, ecstatic drums and squiggly bass that resolves in a pile of empty premium vodka bottles, an overflowing ashtray and zero regrets… well, at least none serious enough to send one looking for the nearest group meeting.

Some of the best lines on this album are all about delivery rather than lyrical dexterity.

“I killed that scotch then refilled that scotch,” LB rhymes on “Hit Number One”—“like I’m wearing a kilt in this ’iotch.”

And the simplicity of the chorus only underscores its self-assured swagger:

“I don’t do shit that I’ve already done,” Shimura explains in his blunted croak. “Except hit number one.”

The beat struts about with the confidence of rockstar as bits of overdriven electric guitar are clipped into jagged tatters and reassembled in a fuzzy mosaic. As the track fades out, it becomes easier to hear that the steady four-count hand claps are actually percussive, muted guitar strokes. The harmonic overtones of the metal strings ring out faintly and the whooshing, heavily affected intro of “Are You Experienced” comes to mind as Cutso seamlessly merges the East Side Boyz and Jimi Hendrix.

Shimura makes a point of praising Bello’s touch, noting that Cutso carefully selected the beats on Rapp Nite to jibe with the LB vibe.

“That’s the sign of a real producer,” Shimura says. “That’s the sign of a guy who really understands music.”

Rapp Nite
Lyrics Born + Cutso
Available Now
All Streaming Services

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.”

Jazz and funk share similar qualities, anchored by musicianship and the notion of utilizing musical space. Longtime Bay Area rapper Tom Shimura, known by his handle, Lyrics Born, overtly highlights this connection in his songs and live shows.

LB’s crew, Quannum, has producers of astounding influence and musicality; his live performances are internationally celebrated for their exuberance.
“My perspective on jazz and funk, especially from a hip-hop background, is that it’s the musicianship, plain and simple,” he says, relating his own output to his performance August 9 at the San Jose Jazz Summer Fest. “All I listened to when I was younger was music that was sampled and programmed. When I started to dig deeper and actually listen to what was being sampled, the jazz and funk aspects, of course, stand out. There is a concept of togetherness, cooperation, exploration and defiance. There’s also a rebelliousness to both.”

Lyrics Born emerged from a stable of college kids in the 1990s at UC Davis who went on to make some of the most adventurous and colorful hip-hop the Bay Area has ever produced.

Collectively known as Solesides (currently branded as Quannum, both a crew and functioning label) they shared a college radio show, dorm-room music equipment, and unyielding drive. They recorded songs together but their rep snowballed after branching out as individual artists and sub-groups. Key members, after all, include DJ Shadow, Blackalicious and Latyrx, of which Lyrics Born is a member with Lateef the Truthspeaker.

“It’s pretty amazing to think we were just all in a dorm room together and that’s all it took for us to turn this into successful careers,” Shimura says. “We’re all very fortunate. I look back now and I’ve been making records longer than I haven’t.”

There’s a certain sense of kismet to their intertwining histories, all of which are underscored by the Bay Area. LB is pictured on the cover of DJ Shadow’s Endtroducing, a gamechanging, instrumental record that transcended hip-hop, and where Shadow’s legacy will forever stem from.

Blackalicious’ wonderful Melodica EP was recorded and engineered by Dan the Automator, another Bay resident turned successful producer. And the catalyst for Solesides’ initial foray was DJ Zen, now most widely known as Jeff Chang, author of perhaps the most vivid and telling book ever written on hip-hop, Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop.

Hometown pride is especially poignant on songs like “The Bay” where LB rhymes: “We hold a certain love for our own, known as Bay-love. But if push comes to shove we won’t hesitate to raise-up.”

“I didn’t really see the way I grew up as unique until I left,” he says.

“Once I toured the world and other cities and came back, I really saw how special a place this was. I mean, growing up as an aspiring Japanese rapper wasn’t a big deal at all,” says LB, who started his career as Asia Born.

“I grew up seeing Japanese producers, African American rock bands, Filipino DJs, and everyone just doing their thing, so to me it wasn’t unusual,” LB says. “It’s this concoction of climate, culture, politics, art, and music; it’s a perfect storm of progression.”

Regarding the South Bay, LB is more of a native tongue than a native son. “Oh man, San Jose has the best Vietnamese food. You could put on a blindfold and point to a Pho place and it will be better than 99 percent of any place anywhere else. Forget about it. One thing I know I’m gonna do when I go to San Jose, I have to go eat.”

Another South Bay tie-in is his recent work with hometown heroes, The Bangerz. For the duo’s latest EP, Latryx used beats produced by the crew who, as comparatively younger rap cats, were understandably thrilled.

Says a humbled Cutso: “Working with LB was surreal at first, because this is someone I grew up listening to. It was also kind of intimidating, in a way, because he worked a lot with DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist, two of my favorite producers. When Lateef jumped into the sessions, it was like a dream come true.”

LB’s take on the experience working with the Bangerz is equally positive: “Man, those Bangerz tracks are some of my proudest recent recordings,” he says.

Lyrics Born headlines this year’s Summer Fest on Friday, lending his gravelly voiced rhymes to the energy of a James Brown show—complete with a live backing band and backup singers.

“The show is more of a fusion of rap, funk, and jazz,” he says. “We do both James Brown songs as well as mine but it’s more paying homage and mixing things up rather than a straight tribute set. Anyone who is a student of hip-hop recognizes that James Brown was the trunk of the tree. And when you think about it in retrospect, it was just perfect for Rap music; same groove, repeated over and over. Sparse yet visceral, simple and sophisticated.”

This year’s San Jose Summer fest just got a little bit funkier with the recent announcement of Friday’s headliners. Performing on the main stage will be 70s funk hitmakers Cameo, San Francisco dance-fusion ensemble Afrolicious and Bay Area rapper Lyrics Born, who will be doing a special tribute to Godfather of Soul James Brown with the Jazz Mafia as his backing band.

Lyrics Born, a frequent collaborator with the Jazz Mafia and local DJ crew the Bangerz, has been a fixture of the Bay Area’s hip hop since his days with Quannum Projects in the mid 90s with collaborators Blackalicious, DJ Shadow and Lateef the Truth Speaker.

Lyrics Born’s live shows tend to be closer to a live funk band experience than the typical MC, DJ and hype man setup at most Bay Area rap shows, so it it will be interesting to see what he brings to the stage this year.

Lyrics Born:

Cameo:

Afrolicious:

Also new for this year, Gordon Biersch Brewery on San Fernando Street will host a stage featuring mostly classic jazz sounds, with a few eclectic, fusion artists in the mix.

The complete Summer Jazz schedule:

FRIDAY

Main Stage
6pm Afrolicious
8pm Cameo
9:45pm Lyrics Born presents Continuum: a Tribute to James Brown

Adobe Blackbird Tavern Stage
7pm Gypsy Allstars: Bamboleo to Bollywood (Jazz+ concert ticket required; $10 advance & gate)
9pm The Clifford Brown & Max Roach Project (Jazz+ concert ticket required; $5 advance & gate)

Gordon Biersch Brewery Restaurant Stage
6pm Pandit Habib Khan
8pm Round Midnight
10pm The Commanders

Jazz Beyond Stage
9pm Miles Bonny + B Lewis
11pm Mark de Clive-Low presents CHURCH

Kaiser Permanente Salsa Stage
6:30pm Josh Jones Ensemble
8:30pm Louie Romero’s Mazacote

Swing Stage
6pm Swing Dance Lessons
7pm Sons of Jubal
9pm Swing Dance Lessons
10pm Top Shelf Big Band

Special Events
6pm Swing Dance Lessons, Swing Stage
9pm Swing Dance Lessons, Swing Stage

SATURDAY

Main Stage
12pm Mingo Fishtrap
2pm Rebirth Brass Band
4pm Artura O’Farrll & the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra
6pm Pink Martini

Adobe Blackbird Tavern Stage
12pm San Jose Jazz High School All Stars
2pm Raq Filipina
4pm Audiotrópico
6pm Laila Smith Quintet
9pm Yosvany Terry Quartet (Jazz+ concert ticket required; $10 advance & gate)

Bank of the West Next Gen Stage
11am Dixie Dominus Traditional Jazz Band
12pm Mr. Clifford’s Young Jazz Allstars
1pm Midnight River
2pm Monterey Jazz Festival High School All-Star Band
3pm Monterey Jazz Festival Honor Vocal Jazz Ensemble
4pm Folsom High School Jazz Choir
5pm SJSU Combo

Big Easy Stage
1:30pm Mitch Woods & His Rocket 88’s
4:30pm Zydeco Flames
7:30pm Frank Bey with Anthony Paule

Gordon Biersch Brewery Restaurant Stage
12pm San Jose Jazz Allstar Big Band
2pm Slide Madness
4pm Sammy Miller & the Congregation
6pm No Bones About It
8pm Dara Tucker
10pm Bebop

Jazz Beyond Stage
8pm Audiotrópico
10:30pm Full Crate & Mar

Kaiser Permanente Salsa Stage
12:30pm Futuro Picante
2:30pm Orquesta Soboricua
4:30pm Pa’l Bailador
6:30pm Edgardo & Candela
8:30pm Ricardo Lemvo y Makina Loca

San Jose Rep Stage ($10 per day)
12pm Dafnis Prieto Proverb Trio
2pm Grace Kelly Quintet
4pm Charlie Hunter & Scott Amendola
6pm Dr. Lonnie Smith Trio
8pm Ben Vereen (Jazz+ concert ticket required; $20 advance & gate)

Silicon Valley Stage
1pm Brian Ho Trio
3pm Joel Behrman Quintet
5pm Jim Norton and Brilliant Corners Play Bill Evans
7pm Primary Colors with Nate Pruitt: a Tribute to Ray Charles, Nat King Cole and Joe Williams

Swing Stage
11am Los Gatos-Saratoga Big Band
1pm Swing Dance Lessons
2pm Ron Gariffo Orchestra
4pm Swing Dance Lessons
5pm Millennium Sounds Orchestra
7pm NASA Ames Jazz Band
9pm Arturo O’Farrill & the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestrao (Jazz+ concert ticket required; $10 advance & gate)

YP Blues Stage
12pm Legally Blue
3pm Murali Coryell
6pm Tony Furtado Trio
9pm Rebirth Brass Band

Special Events
10am Latin Jazz Brunch Poolside, Fairmont Hotel ($25 sold at the door)
1pm Swing Dance Lessons, Swing Stage
1:30pm Big Easy Parade, Main Stage
4pm Jazz Mass, Cathedral of St. Joseph
4pm Swing Dance Lessons, Swing Stage
9pm Latin Jazz Jam with the John Santos Sextet, Bank of the West Next Gen Stage

SUNDAY

Main Stage
12pm Yosvany Terry Quartet
2pm Prservation Hall Jazz Band
4pm Javon Jackson with Les McCann and Special Guests
6pm TBA

Adobe Blackbird Tavern Stage
12pm Aaron Lington Quartet Plays the Music of Stevie Wonder
2pm Tammy Hall Quintet
4pm Derrick Hodge
6pm Transcendental Ensemble
9pm The Cookers (Jazz+ concert ticket required; $15 advance & gate)

Bank of the West Next Gen Stage
11am Monta Vista High School Jazz Combo
12pm Archbishop Mitty Jazz in the AM
1pm Kind of Blue
2pm Room 107 Vocal Jazz Ensemble
3pm San Jose Jazz High School All STars
4pm Synchronicity
5pm VCHS Jazz Combo

Big Easy Stage
1:30pm Lavay Smith & Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers
4:30pm Motordude Zydeco
7:30pm The California Honeydrops

Gordon Biersch Brewery Restaurant Stage
12pm Gordon Biersch Big Band
2pm Times 4
4pm Natalie Cressman
6pm The JurassiC

Jazz Beyond Stage
9pm Derrick Hodge (Jazz+ concert ticket required; $10 advance & gate)

Kaiser Permanente Salsa Stage
12:30pm Latin Jazz Youth Ensemble of San Francisco
2:30pm Carlos Caro – Vission Latina
4:30pm Pellejo Seco
6:30pm Wil Campa y Su Gran Union

San Jose Rep Stage
1pm Le Jazz Hot
3pm The Cookers
5pm Stacey Kent
7pm Preservation Hall Jazz Band

Silicon Valley Stage
3pm Touch of Brass Big Band
5pm Joe DeRose and Amici
7pm Sasha Dobson Duo

Swing Stage
11am Full Spectrum
1:30pm Swing Dance Lessons
2:30pm Footnotes Big Band
4pm Swing Dance Lessons
5pm South Bay Big Band Jazz
5pm Lyratones

YP Blues Stage
12pm Livia Jean Slingerland: Youth Blues Band Contest Winner
3pm Paula Harris & the Beasts of Blues featuring the Big Ass Brass
6pm Fountain Blues All Stars

Special Events
10am Gospel Brunch, Fairmont Hotel ($35 sold at the door)
11:30am Jazz Mas, Cathedral of St. Joseph
1pm Swing Dance Lessons, Swing Stage
4pm Swing Dance Lessons, Swing Stage

It’s been 15 years since Lyrics Born and Lateef the Truthspeaker recorded together as Latryx. But after performing on each other’s solo releases, they’re back in the studio for a new Latryx album, and they’ve signed on the South Bay’s most successful hip-hop crew the Bangerz to produce some of the tracks. Latryx will also be taking a break from recording to perform at the Pagoda in San Jose on April 28, with the Bangerz’s Paolo “Cutso” Bello opening with his first-ever solo performance.

The collaboration isn’t too surprising when you consider how many connections there were between the East Bay duo and the Bangerz. Some were more abstract, like DJ Mike Wong, aka Mike Relm. He has toured with both Lyrics Born and Lateef, and also directed the video for the Bangerz’s song “Devastating Stereo,” which featured the Jabbawockeez dance crew. It was their collaboration with the Jabbawockeez, of course, that originally got the Bangerz national attention, on the first season of America’s Best Dance Crew.

But the Bangerz also know Lyrics Born and Lateef from the Bay Area scene, and have opened for them. It got to the point, Bello tells me, where “Me and Lyrics Born made a connection after running into each other hundreds of times.”

Bello has been the main liaison for the Bangerz in the studio, recording and working on arrangements with Latryx, and then getting feedback and ideas from Dominic “Goldenchyld” Cueto and the rest of the tight-knit group. Bello says Latryx have been easy to work with and very open-minded (“it was like homies hanging out in the studio”), but everyone knows that a high bar was set by the group’s groundbreaking 1997 debut.

“I try to really get crazy with them, because we have a lot to live up to,” he says.

In 1997, Latyrx’s debut Latyrx (The Album) changed the very idea of what Bay Area underground hip-hop could sound like. Fifteen years later, Lyrics Born is still changing minds and waking up ears as a solo artist, and still working with the other half of the Latyrx duo, Lateef the Truthspeaker, who guests on his new mixtape, Variety Show Season Five.

Set to drop at the end of this month, Season Five is unlike any of Lyrics Born’s previous Variety Show mixes. All of the remixes are two-step and boogie, mixed by DJ Icewater. The Japanese-born, Berkeley-raised rapper revisits songs like “Later That Day,” “As You Were,” “Overnight Encore,” and “The Bay.”

Besides his former partner in Latryx, Lyric Born’s guests on the new one include Far East Movement’s Proh, Sam Sparro (their collaboration “Coulda Woulda Shoulda” is mashed up here with Teena Marie’s “Square Biz”), Trackademicks, Francis & the Lights and more.

Lyrics Born plays Club Fox in Redwood City on Thursday, Feb. 16, at 9pm; $20.

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