Aesop puts lyrics to print

Aesop Rock is best known for his rapid-fire lyrics, which are packed with meaning and sometimes hard to understand.

He is definitely not a mainstream rapper, but his popularity is beginning to grow as evidenced by the increasingly large venues in which he performs.

He played the Sunshine Theater on June 22.

He said his new LP, Fast Cars, Danger, Fire and Knives is more accessible than his previous efforts such as Bazooka Tooth, but bases this statement on the opinions of critics.

"I never really care how something sounds," he said. "Then I read reviews and they seem to tell me how it sounds."

He hesitated to describe the sound.

"I don't know, you know, (expletive) is just hard to describe in words - what something sounds like."

He said he just does what comes out of him at the time.

The first 20,000 copies of the LP came with a 90-page book containing the lyrics to most of his previous albums.

"It was a pain in the ass," he said.

He said a few people asked him why he had never put his lyrics in print, and that was part of the inspiration behind the book.

"When it came time to do the record, some people asked me if I wanted to do a DVD or some sort of CD-ROM, this, that, and there was some other (expletive) that I wasn't interested in doing."

He decided on a book because he never uses the multimedia that comes with some albums.

Lyrics are seldom written down in hip-hop albums, but Aesop wasn't sure if they are necessarily neglected.

"I don't know if they're neglected or not," he said. "I do know that since I put the book out, a lot of people have thanked me. Maybe they do get neglected."

Aesop performed in April at the Coachella Music Festival alongside more mainstream acts such as Nine Inch Nails and Weezer.

"It was pretty bugged out," he said. "I did one once a couple of years ago and it was definitely a little crazier. Maybe people are catching on a little bit more."

He said it was the first time in a long time that he felt scared before a performance.

"I was on a bigger stage, and we were kind of a prime-time slot," he said. "It was the first show in a long time where I sort of like turned to (Mr.) Lif right before I went on just like, 'Man, I'm really (expletive) scared.'"

He said the whole performance is kind of a blur, but he recalled the sheer magnitude of a festival-sized crowd held back by 15-foot barricades, and the surreal quality of rapping in the desert at sunset.

"Very impersonal and very - just strange," he said. "But it was definitely an experience - pretty cool."

Though he enjoys large venues, he said he prefers to perform in smaller ones.

"It can be hard to interact with all the people and sort of get them in the palm of your hand," he said of larger shows.

He said he would rather do two small shows in a city, but scheduling won't always allow that.

Increasing crowd numbers notwithstanding, Aesop said he is somewhat weary of fame.

"If it got to the point where I couldn't walk out and get my own cigarettes in the morning, couldn't walk to the store, because if I was too big, that would be really lame," he said.