tagged w/ visionaries
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For Los Angeles rapper 2Mex, prepping for a show is like studying for an exam. It’s not that he has a bad memory; there’s just so much to remember.
“I basically have to drill whole albums into my head,” he says. “A lot of my friends ask, ‘Why are you listening to your own sh*t all the time?’ I have to.”
For about 15 years, 2Mex has been an underground hip-hop staple as part of the group The Visionaries. But his output goes far beyond, spanning 35 CD releases and a long list of guest appearances and collaborations.
So if he needs to cram, you can’t blame him. That’s especially true right now as he’s readying to release a solo album on a big indie label.
Then there’s his current tour with the Look Daggers, a genre-busting project with keyboardist Ikey Owens, which will hit Republic on Friday.
Owens, a member of The Mars Volta, also leads experimental freak-out band Free Moral Agents, which will join the Look Daggers on Friday.
Both groups, though markedly different in sound, share some members and a spirit of creative cross-pollination linking Owens and 2Mex. Expect a jam session.
“It’s going to be the most exciting show,” 2Mex says, “just with the aspect of the improvisation in the music.”
Some of the Look Daggers’ set will come from their 2007 album, “Suffer in Style,” a fusion of rock and hip-hop that pitted 2Mex’s free-flowing lyrics to Owens’ free-ranging sounds.
“That project opened my eyes,” 2Mex says. “I had always recorded and played live with bands before. I did tours with Ozomatli and played with tons of bands, just improvising. But Ikey opened my eyes – he steered me away from sample-based hip-hop. That album was like a handshake between Ikey and me.”
The pair, both serial collaborators, loosely met in the early 2000s through six degrees of separation; 2Mex, who has toured through El Paso for years, was collaborating with Tony Hajjar of At the Drive-In (later Sparta), and Owens was in with the same crowd.
The two met formally years later in Long Beach, Calif., and came up with a three-song demo in 2006, which spawned the band and album a year later.
“He’s amazing,” he says of Owens, who also produced some songs on 2Mex’s new solo album. “He showed me that all you need is a keyboard and you can do anything.”
The rest of Friday’s Look Daggers set will be “50 percent (2Mex) standards, and 30 percent from the new album,” he says.
That album, “My Fanbase Will Destroy You,” is set for release on Strange Famous Records (SFR), the label of Sage Francis, a titan of underground hip-hop.
“He’s been really, really good,” 2Mex says. “Being associated with the real last strong indie hip-hop label, it does a lot for me. It’s like an arrow pointing our fans to one specific crowd.”
On the SFR website, Francis pledged to help make the “quintessential 2Mex album,” a definitive work that would help introduce new fans to a dauntingly expansive catalog.
“To this day, I don’t know if it’s a defining record, but I think it’s a good record that I took a little more time on,” says 2Mex, who adds about Francis, “We clash like people do – we’re both pretty stubborn – so it’s been an interesting but positive ride.”
2Mex, who organized a 15,000-drawing rap/ska/punk fest in California two weeks ago, says he’ll keep on writing and performing post-solo album. In 2011 he and Owens will get together for the next Look Daggers record.
“At this point it’s not about selling records, it’s about making art,” he says.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzSi7voW7HcFor Los Angeles rapper 2Mex, prepping for a show is like studying for an exam.... more
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HuffPost's Game Changers celebrates 100 innovators, visionaries, and leaders in 10 categories who are harnessing the power of new media to reshape their fields and change the world. With your help, we've picked 10 people who are changing the game in philanthropy. We honor and salute them.
Now it's up to you to pick the Ultimate Philanthropy
Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/29/huffpost-game-changers-wh_n_337128.htmlHuffPost's Game Changers celebrates 100 innovators, visionaries, and leaders in... more
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