MC born to bust boundaries

When Tom Shimura was a kid, rap music put him in a trance.

Today the MC known as Lyrics Born is traveling the world and hearing his own rap songs in Diet Coke commercials.

For Shimura, having his music in commercials worldwide is a good thing.

"Things like that even out the playing field for guys like me," he said.

He said he has trouble getting his music played on commercial radio.

"It's frustrating, because you know your music is good enough," he said. "You just don't have the resources."

The veteran rapper has been in the game since 1990 when he was a freshman in college at UC Davis. He hooked up with five other guys and formed the Solesides.

DJ Shadow, the Gift of Gab, Chief Xcel and Lateef the Truth Speaker were the other members of the crew. Later, they called themselves Quannum and added other artists to the label.

He said from day one they wanted to break boundaries.

"The goal was always to take it as far as we could with the music we made," he said. "It's been the biggest challenge. I've always known that the music I was making had broader appeal than what I was actually seeing."

He said it wasn't until recently that things started to really catch on.

For his latest album, Same !@#$ Different Day, Shimura put his production skills to rest and hooked up with other artists on the production side. He said for his previous album, Later That Day, he did 90 percent of the production. This time he did about 10 percent, he said.

"Prior to Later That Day, I needed to prove to myself that I could hold my own and produce my own record."

For Same !@#$ Different Day, Shimura said he didn't want the pressure and got back to working with others.

"When I work with other people, it gives me an opportunity to grow."

One of his partners is Joyo Velarde, a soul singer whose vocals can also be heard alongside his in the Diet Coke commercials.

"I met her right around the time I met all the other guys from Quannum," he said. "I think she helps me add so many more dimensions of music. I'm a rapper. It's not something that's classically trained. She helped me understand certain properties of music that I didn't know before. She pushes me to be better artist."

Shimura and the rest of Quannum take touring seriously.

"The best show is the ones where people are actually prepared," he said. "It's just a matter of rehearsal, really. It's common sense, but you'd be surprised at how many people go out on the road with no game plan."

He said just like a good album, artists putting on live performances should weave together a comprehensive and interesting story, with a beginning and an end, climaxes, breaks and detours.

"Hip-hop is not really a novelty anymore," he said. "Every year it becomes more difficult to please."

So each year, he said, he steps it up a notch and reinterprets his shows, whether they're in Europe, Japan or Brazil.

Last year Shimura went on tour with The Roots and De La Soul, as well as rock groups Franz Ferdinand, The Killers and Modest Mouse.

He said touring with groups outside of the hip-hop genre was cool.

"I found over the years that's what's so unique about hip-hop - it's so universal." he said "It's adaptable in any kind of environment."

Lyrics Born

Saturday at The Pit

Free