L-BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEZIES!!!!
2010 is nearly upon us and, as always, it's time for our annual year-end wrap up.
2009 has been a HUGE year across the board.
Kicking off the year was the inauguration of President Barack Obama.
LB discussed his part in the Obama campaign (including his work at local Bay Area campaign events) and also gave his overall thoughts on the President elect via LBTV;
January also showcased LB's track with Australian rapper, Al Bino; "It's A Beautiful Day (For Cancer)".
The track and its video stirred up the media in both Australia and the US resulting in mentions on Fox News in the US as well as Australia's major news channels.
Produced by Lyrics Born and Asa Taccone, and Executive Produced by Jonathan Pease (Australia's Next Top Model) the song was recorded as a benefit track for the Cancer Society to warn people of the dangers of skin cancer -- which is very high in Australia.
LB also teamed up with major electronics company, LG for the release of their Chocolate 3 phone. Asked to come up with an original song focusing on the Number 3, LB put together the track "Make It Good" for the viral campaign which featured Lyrics Born, Goapele and Bitter:Sweet.
All 3 artists recorded exclusive video performances for the phone's website in a unique marketing campaign which can be seen at:
http://www.chocolate3bylg.com/ Australian group The Bamboos chopped it up with LB this year as well on the track, "Turn It Up" which is so good LB decided to include on his new album.
2009 also saw the Reebok/Quannum collab which resulted in not only some exclusive in-store performances by both Blackalicious and Latyrx, but some dope kicks co-branded and designed by the Quannum Crew.
As always, Lyrics Born was on the road throughout the year performing with Joyo Velarde and The Lyrics Born Re-View, DJs, other artists and even took some time hosting and MCing.
All in all, totaling over 70 shows, 2009 saw LB performing locally, nationally and abroad.
LB hit the festivals hard this year with appearances at the Playground Weekender festival in Australia, Jazzfest in New Orleans, Rothbury, Mile High Music Festival, Far West Fest, Left Coast Live, Starbelly Jam, Earthdance, Waterfront Indy Fest for the 4th of July and also made some special guest appearances with Adam Deitch and Break Science as well as a sold out show in Fort Collins, CO with Pretty Lights.
Other notable appearances included San Diego's Asian Film Festival and the Asian Heritage Street Celebration in San Francisco.
LB was also a part of Adam Theis' 'Brass, Bows & Beats' concert at the prestigious and historic Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco where he shared the stage with many, many Bay Area artists from all genres of music including a 50-piece orchestra. This super group of musicians performed a variety of original music and even executed a couple Lyrics Born tunes including "Hott 2 Deff" and the sultry "Over You".
The live performance highlight of the year however came on July 26th when Lyrics Born and the entire Lyrics Born Re-View (featuring Joyo Velarde and The Jazz Mafia Horns) headlined the highly coveted Stern Grove Festival in San Francisco, CA.
LB performed to a crowd of 10,000 people who were treated that day to superstar guests including Lateef the Truthspeaker, The Gift of Gab, Pigeon John and Trackademicks.
SF Weekly's own Eric Arnold had this to say about LB's appearance at Stern Grove:
"Mr. LB showed, once again, why he's got to be considered one of the top live performers of his generation. His set was, simply put, flawless in every respect."
Fall 2009 once again had LB on the road, this time as Host and MC of the now infamous, Deadliest Catch Tour.
Featuring Chali 2na, The Gift of Gab, DNAE Beats and Mr. Lif, this superstar bill hit the west coast and Midwest hard with stops including Cali, Oregon, Montana, Colorado, Canada and Washington.
The tour kicked off with 2 shows in The Bay Area featuring a sold-out appearance at The Independent. During the next 3 weeks the Deadliest Catch Tour continued to sell out venues up and down the west coast.
LB finishes off 2009 and kicks off 2010 with a 3-week long run in Australia including performances at Falls Fest and Field Day. LB, Joyo V and the Lyrics Born Re-View will be in full effect, performing brand new songs off the forthcoming album, AS U WERE with a special New Year's Eve show in Melbourne.
It was a big year for LB licensing as well. The new 'FRIDAY THE 13th' film became the #1 movie in America its first week out and features the LB smash hit, "I Like It, I Love It".
The track is featured for over 2 minutes in the film and drew in a gang of new LB fans. The same track was also featured on the CW's new 90210 TV Show.
The campaign for the forthcoming new Lyrics Born record, AS U WERE, has been ongoing throughout 2009.
We kicked things off in January with a sneak peek of "Funky Hit Records" via LBTV and then dropped the single and video at
LyricsBorn.com as free downloads on March 17th.
The song was instantly a hit and started getting unsolicited play on Australia's Triple J Radio. Later in the year it went on to hit the #1 spot on both
RapAttackLives.com and Rap Network Record Breakers.
The video was directed by LBTV's own Justin Berger and Lyrics Born himself and was featured on YouTube, getting over 200,000 views in less than a week.
With the momentum of "Funky Hit Records" still resonating with fans, bloggers and the internet in general, LB launched a second single, "Pushed Aside, Pulled Apart" on August 25th.
Produced by Jake One and LB, "Pushed Aside" featured the long-awaited reunion with Quannum/Latyrx co-conspirator, Lateef the Truthspeaker.
Premiering on
URB.com, the "Pushed Aside, Pulled Apart" video was directed by Ra LaMotta from ApSci and featured cameos from a roster of Bay Area fam including Zion I, Trackademicks, DJ D-Sharp, Kat Ouano (who also appears on the track), Joyo Velarde and more!
The AS U WERE campaign continued on November 3rd when the third single from the album dropped exclusively on LBFM, LB's online radio player. The track, "Oh Baby", features Stanton Moore from Galactic on drums.
AS U WERE, set to drop in early 2010, includes Sam Sparro, Jake One, Trackademicks, Gift of Gab, Lateef, Joyo Velarde, The Lyrics Born Re-View, Stanton Moore and many others.
In addition to the new singles, THE LYRICS BORN VARIETY SHOW SEASON PHO, sponsored by VTECH, dropped digitally this summer and features remixes, mashups, guest appearances and more. The mixtape quickly became LB's best selling mixtape to date & includes guests such as Gift of Gab, Lateef, Kasabian, Dan the Automator, Clyde Carson, Trackademicks, Joey Guila, Joyo Velarde and many more!
The physical version of the mixtape came out soon after and spawned the internet hit, "Block Bots" featuring Clyde Carson and Trackademicks. The song had the internet all abuzz and made its way on to San Francisco's own KMEL.
2009 also featured the release of Joyo Velarde's first music video for her single, "Take You Home", off of her debut EP which dropped May 26th on iTunes as a digital download.
The video was sponsored by
Myx.TV, directed by J Santos and includes cameos by many Quannum and Bay Area fam.
The track is also from her full length debut, LOVE & UNDERSTANDING, coming soon from Quannum Projects featuring production from LB, Jake One, Jumbo the Garbageman, Bobby Digital and more.
This year was also the launch of LBFM, Lyrics Born's first ever official online radio station.
Featuring exclusive mixes, content and the world premiere of the latest LB single, "Oh Baby", LBFM took center stage at
LyricsBorn.com with interactive controls and the ability to have the player embedded anywhere. With plans to showcase new music, interviews and more, LBFM is the #1 place for new Lyrics Born audio content!
Also, in its 3rd straight year, LBTV kept the internet buzzin' with exclusives, behind-the-scenes, live footage, interviews, video blogs, contest winner announcements and of course AskLB.
With new episodes every Tuesday, LBTV kept it goin' all year long with exclusive footage from Stern Grove, video shoots, AS U WERE studio sessions and interviews with Mike Relm, Zion I and much more!!!
Look for more exclusive content on LBTV in the new year -- and as always -- new episodes every Tuesday at
LyricsBorn.com.
LBTV 2009 Wrap Up:
Continuing his voiceover work with Cartoon Network for their #1 Friday night franchise, YOU ARE HERE, throughout 2009 (and continuing into 2010) LB was also tapped for an exclusive radio ad campaign for the California Academy of Arts and Sciences. The spot ran on Bay Area stations KMEL, KMVQ, KITS and KNGY for weeks.
Seattle radio station KEXP also featured Lyrics Born as one of the performers in a special broadcast they did live from the Bay Area. LB was joined in-studio by Joyo Velarde and DJ D-Sharp for an exclusive interview and performance for the station.
Contests are one of the best way to interact with fans and we here at Team LB always strive to make them fun and interesting.
Early 2009 featured a meet n' greet contest for LB's show at The Mint in Los Angeles, CA. L-Beezies just had to leave a comment on LB's Myspace or Facebook telling us what their favorite Lyrics Born concert experience was.
Soon after, in tandem with the launch of the single and video for "Funky Hit Records", we gave fans the chance to remix "Funky Hit Records" with the winner getting the chance to have their mixes featured on the new Lyrics Born mixtape.
Hella people entered and after much consideration LB chose DJ Erb and The Goodwill Projects' mixes both as the winners. The two mixes were featured on the physical CD version of The Lyrics Born Variety Show Season Pho.
A second remix contest for "Pushed Aside, Pulled Apart" was held in tandem with the single's release. Sponsored by Sutro Vision and hosted by Mix Match Music, the entries poured in by the dozens.
The Grand Prize Winning Remix was from the Swingset Committee.
Of course the biggest highlight of the year for LB and his wife Joyo was the arrival of their son. LB Tweeted about the experience via his Twitter account and kept family, friends and even fans informed on the events as they finally welcomed their first child into the world this past September.
Well, that's a wrap, people! It's been one helluva year and we're very excited for 2010 -- especially with the release of the new LB album,
AS U WERE.
LB wants to give out special thanks to:
God, the whole Team LB: Jesse @ Madhouse, Velour, Roger Cramer & Selverne and Co., Icewater, The Lyrics Born Band and Re-View, my Road Crew, my Studio Crew, Joyo Velarde, , Hi-Fi, DPluck, my main dude J-Beezy for holding down the fort and especially my L-Beezies who make this all worth while. Thank you for supporting me and keeping me inspired.