Artist of the Day: Omid (Beneath The Surface)

Born in Chicago, living in Iran from age 1 to 7, then moving to Los Angeles right after the Iranian revolution, Omid has seen a lot, and is influenced by it all. Growing up in Los Angeles, Omid got first turned on to Hip Hop by listening to KDAY, L.A.’s first all Hip Hop radio show. Learning early on that rapping or breakdancing was not for him, he did realize he had a fascination with the beats. In junior high, Omid started his first musical experiments, trying to create his own beats by using his only piece of equipment: a tape recorder. Using the record and pause buttons, plus his many tapes of jazz and soul that he taped off of local radio station KXLU, the first Omid beats were born. It wasn’t until freshman year in highschool that he borrowed a simple sampler, the Korg DSS-1, that he was able to make real beats. Though what started as a hobby was soon taken more serious.

Attending an open mic in Los Angeles called the “Goodlife” in the early 1990’s was a pivotal moment in Omid’s life. A safe haven for positive, artistic, and innovative poets and musicians, Omid was inspired to take his bedroom beat experiments more seriously, in order to be part of this thriving music scene. At the “Goodlife,” the artists were encouraged to be cutting edge and innovative, if they didn’t want to get the legendary “Please pass the mic!” reception. Already a scene with great producers, Omid knew right away would make him stand out: his roots. This inspired him to research and collect music from Iran and the Middle East, along with the usual jazz, funk, rock, etc. that is the root of hip hop. One day Omid showed a Goodlife producer named Ebow his music. Ebow liked what he heard and together they released a home-made beat tape that they sold only at the Goodlife, entitled “Beat Stampede.” Soon, Omid’s beats caught the ears of the local talent and the collaborations began.

In 1998, Omid produced “Beneath the Surface,” a 14 song compilation that brought many unknown talents from all over Los Angeles together for one album. This album was also the first official release of many who went on to be L.A. favorites. Omid produced all the songs, tailoring each beat for each dynamic MC, forging collaborations with artists that had never worked together before. Omid originally released the album by himself, and it was re-released in 1999 by Celestial Recordings. Although this album was done strictly for the love, it won Omid critical acclaim in such publications as The New York Times, Spin, and URB. “Beneath the Surface” gave Omid the courage to pursue music as a career full-time. This album was also one of the first, if not the first, to include Persian/Iranian samples in a “hip hop” record.

Since “Beneath the Surface”, Omid has produced 2 solo albums, “Distant Drummer” and “Monolith” (Mush Records), plus collaborated with countless cutting edge artists, such as the Beastie Boys, Aceyalone, Buck 65, Sach, 2mex/OMD, Scarub, Murs, Pigeon John, Slug, and many others. Movie soundtracks have also been a big influence on Omid, so it is not a surprise that his music has blended well with film (Last.fm, 2010).

You can listen to Omid's music at:
http://www.last.fm/music/Omid



Released Albums:
Omid - Distant Drummer
Omid - Monolith
Omid - Beneath the Surface
Omid - Afterwords 2 and 3
Omid - Instrumental Selections From Sach 5th Ave.

Reference:
(2010). 2) Omid. Last.fm. Retrieved from http://www.last.fm/music/Omid

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Artist of the Day: Ras G

Ras G guides a deep space exploration of music’s ancient history and rich future. Working thru obsolete tools to reach back in time and pluck out the essence of groove, Ras G's music is rich with space-funktified rhythms, fog horns, natty chattin, subterranean bass lines, colossal percussion and glorious highs.

Ras G has been a fixture on the underground hiphop scene in Los Angeles since the early 90s. He is a proud South Central LA resident. Ras along with Black Monk and Ron Stivers are the founders of the Poo-Bah Label.

This is the music that people will be playing in the ghettos of Mars in the year 3014 (Poo-Bah).

Feature:
Ras G: Into The Outer Reaches

An L.A. jazzhead launches FlyLo’s Brainfeeder imprint into the outer reaches.

Somewhere at the interstellar crossroads of Sun Ra, DJ Spooky, Strata East, and Lee “Scratch” Perry lies the incomparable musical mind of L.A. native Ras G (né Gregory Shorter, Jr.). Though he often affixes the group moniker “The Alkebulan (or Afrikan) Space Program” to his name, Ras G (a composite of his first initial and a testament to his belief in Rastafari) is the sole captain and crew of this spacecraft. Along with a 21st-century moxie, his collective influences make up what he describes as ghetto sci-fi—an extraterrestrial soundwave transmission of dub, white noise, glitch, off-kilter boom-bap, and sound bites. Incorporating healing tones (specific sound frequencies that are purported to have profound effects on the spirit and body), modal jazz, and ancestral inspiration, Ras G has managed to concoct a sonic brew that defies conventional musical categorization. “As opposed to riding trends and waves, I try to bring forth the music that I really feel,” he explains. “It’s my offering to the world.”

Tracing his fascination with the art of beat-making back to a relative who owned an E-mu SP-1200 drum machine/sampler, Ras G began gravitating towards other area hip-hop hopefuls for inspiration in the late 1990s. Most times, his passion was unrequited. “A lot of them weren’t into the music and the gear as tough as I wanted to be,” he remembers. “Or they were producing music on quality gear and the music wasn’t sounding as good as I thought it could sound. I felt like I could do something better with that stuff.” And with his influences in tow, his present-day cosmic creations can be interpreted as drum & bass being sucked into a black hole (“In Coming”) or celestial binary code (“Desert Fairy”).

In 2005, underground L.A. music scene impresario/producer Carlos Niño helped to launch Ras G’s career as a producer by tapping one of his productions for legendary jazz vocalist Dwight Trible’s acclaimed experimental album Love is the Answer. “That was like the lift off,” Shorter recalls. “But it was all kind of weird to me, because that was like one of the fifth or sixth beats that I’d ever made.” Remarkably, Ras G had only just purchased his first beat machine, an MPC-2000XL, the year before. Capitalizing on the buzz surrounding the Trible record, Shorter increased his output and began moving in a new circle of kindred spirits at a monthly soundclash safe haven called Sketchbook at L.A.’s Little Temple Bar.

“Flying Lotus, Georgia Anne Muldrow, Dibiase, and everybody who’s doing it right now on the L.A. scene used to gather there,” he reflects. “We would play beats, b-sides, and crazy stuff. So I used to make beat CDs for the parties so we would have something to listen to when we were outside smoking.” Since then, he’s been featured in the documentary Secondhand Sureshots and has released a slew of albums and EPs for Poo-Bah Records that have garnered him a devout following from Japan to the Netherlands. And since being inducted into FlyLo’s L.A.-based artist collective/label Brainfeeder, which Ras G dubs “the X-Men of future music,” it’s apparent that he’s bound for the exosphere.

“Everybody loves Brotha From Anotha Planet, but that’s something I did last year in the summertime in my kitchen,” he reveals about the creation of his latest album. “So the vibes of that kitchen were recorded on that project.” And though Ras G has enough recorded material for two full-length releases, he’s wary of predicting what vibes his next album will transmit. “Ain’t no telling where we’re going with this music. The inspiration changes quickly—that’s the Afrikan Space Program. We just do it" (Washington, 2009)

You can listen to Ras G's music at:
http://www.last.fm/music/Ras+G



Released Albums:
Ras G - Beats Of Mind
Ras G - Overcast78
Ras G - Day and Night Ep
Ras G - Ghetto Sci-Fi
Ras G - Brotha From Anotha Planet
Ras G - Destination There Ep
Ras G - El-Aylien Part 1

Reference:

Washington, R. (2009, June 30). Ras G: Into The Outer Reaches. Retrieved from 

http://www.xlr8r.com/features/2009/06/ras-g-outer-reaches

Ras G. Poo-Bah. Retrieved from http://www.poobah.com/rasg

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