Rasar’s break from Sacramento gave him plenty to write home about
Words by Andrew Bell • Photo by Sonia Seelinger
When you’ve spent years as an artist getting the local media and venue owners to support you and you’ve built up a solid fan base that supports your music, what reason would you have to leave? This was the question staring Rasar (formerly Random Abiladeze) in the face almost a year and a half ago. On the other end of the phone was legendary beatbox innovator, and close personal friend, Butterscotch with an invite to Sin City that he couldn’t refuse.
When Rasar left for Las Vegas in December 2013, his path was unclear to a lot of his fans. It turns out this was because it was still a little unclear to himself. Trusting that path would lead him from being an usher to the ringleader of a renowned Las Vegas side show stage complete with aerialists, stunts and circus acts.
“It’s a long, crazy story of late nights, a $40 million budget, celebrities, a woman who shot an arrow with her feet and a man who could fit himself through two tennis rackets while dropping life-changing philosophy,” Rasar says of his time as part of the Vegas Nocturne show at The Cosmopolitan hotel and casino’s Rose. Rabbit. Lie. supper club.
After a stop at SXSW, and on the heels of his recent release of “Viral Video” on Youtube, Rasar is returning to a Sacramento stage for the first time in over a year May 9 at Harlow’s for Joseph in the Well’s release party. Before that, you can check him out in Davis on April 30 at Sophia’s Thai Kitchen. One can only imagine how Rasar’s already electric stage show has grown since finding residency on the Las Vegas Strip.
Offstage, Rasar is reserved and contemplative, more likely to talk about the destruction of Alexandria’s libraries than the latest club banger (although he IS the one who put me on to Lil’ B. Thank you, Based God). Yet in the time since we last spoke, he has become the centerpiece of a modern vaudevillian circus side show.
I caught up with Rasar to talk about his new band The Lique, the current cultural climate for hip-hop artists with a positive message, how Sacramento prepared him for Sin City … and of course, to get some gambling advice.
{Photo by Butterscotch}
How do you think Sacramento prepared you for taking on Sin City?
I’ve always said that Sacramento is a great place to hone your craft and move on, so it definitely prepared me for bringing the goods. I’m getting more into the local scene of Vegas, but I still say that Sacramento has a much more cohesive, growing scene with more talent per capita. There are tons of talented people in Vegas, but there’s just not nearly as strong of a series of movements among locals right now. I’ve been more focused on traveling the world than just being a local all over again, though.
On that note, Sacramento did not prepare me for the amount of opportunities that truly exist across the world. The downside of coming up in Sacramento is that you can get either too comfortable or jaded to realize it’s time to move. It was hard to leave because I had so many good things going there, why would I leave? Getting out of your comfort zone is essential to success. When you step your game up, you find yourself having to summarize over a decade of work into a 10-second elevator pitch.
No one cares much about what I did in my hometown two to 10 years ago. It’s all about what you’re doing now and what have you done that’s nationally or internationally recognized. I don’t like this part of the business, but it’s true.
How has Vegas influenced you as a performer?
Vegas influenced me to step up my showmanship. Everyone on the strip is awesome at what they do. You really have no choice but to set yourself apart. I actually stood out with a more refined approach than the loud insanity that everyone expects from all the bright lights, but I know to get the crowd going.
What’s the next move for Rasar?
I’m on my Cali Is Home Tour April 29 through May 16, 2015. I’m doing at least 13 shows in 17 days. No sweat. Joseph in the Well’s new album features me on “Happy Song,” which we’re soon shooting a video for. I have two duo albums produced entirely, yet separately by two Sacramento-area producers. Tesla Carver with Medl4 is an album I wrote last year and features Poor of Tribe of Levi. I just need to record.
The other album is the long-awaited album with Styles 1001 under the group name Mellow Nine. That album is called Divine Science. Nine songs never took so long. It will be well worth the wait. That album will feature Sean LaMarr of DLRN, Poor, Annie Jay and possibly another feature.
I just want to tour the world. I’m tired of staying anywhere too long. I need to be on the road.
You’ve always had a socially conscious message. Do you feel it is getting easier or harder to promote positivity in the current industry climate?
Speaking of Mellow Nine and our album Divine Science. Now that Kendrick [Lamar]’s To Pimp a Butterfly has opened so many eyes, our album will make even more sense. I think with D’Angelo, J.Cole, Kendrick, Janelle Monae’s Wondaland Records, specifically Jidenna, there is no question that people are ready for the real again and that being unabashedly black in your music, showing our humanity and sophistication alongside our struggles is currently hot.
I believe most people are humans still, but we need to step out of this post-race utopian lie where one’s ethnicity and genetic heritage should be swept under the rug to fuel some off-base false-hippie nonsense about color-blindness. Just because I love being black doesn’t mean I dislike others that aren’t. That’s what the music I rock with today is saying, and that’s what I’m feeling. I don’t have to make everything about race. I know people like to say it doesn’t exist but I’m not going to hide from it. The music industry is foul, point blank. It’s up to us to make a difference through embracing who we are, all walks of life, and seeing ourselves as world citizens who don’t have to apologize for living our lives how we want as long as it doesn’t directly hurt anyone else. I’m more into spirit than the material world, but I have to find a way to marry those worlds through my Word.
Tell me more about The Lique.
The Lique is a dream come true. My new band based in Las Vegas has come up quite nicely in just a matter of months thanks to their dedication and talent driven by my vision and incessant effort to expand the reach. I didn’t even ask for this directly. The guitarist, Sean Carbone, asked around for original lyricists and I had already put in enough work in the Vegas underground to be the first person recommended from a highly respected source in that scene, Rahmaan Phillip. We’re jazz-based hip-hop that extends into funk, psychedelic, metal and R&B. I even do Michael McDonald and James Brown impersonations during our sets. It’s funny, poignant and classy. Above all, it’s a soulful project. We mostly play my solo material and remix hip-hop covers, but we’re building our original material. The Lique is pronounced “leak” and I came up with the name based on a funny incident from touring Switzerland with Butterscotch last year.
Any last message for Sacramento upon your triumphant return?
Sacramento, it’s been a long time coming, but I’m so glad to be coming home! I love Sacramento so much and have learned to appreciate it so much more now that I’ve finally taken this musical mojo across the globe. I still keep in touch with many people there and I miss all the vegetation. I live in the godforsaken desert. You don’t realize how amazing it is to be surrounded by so much greenery. [Pauses] I don’t mean that kind! I can’t wait to see all my people May 9 at Harlow’s with Joseph in the Well and Ike Torres! Thank you for supporting me both as a local and now that I’ve left the nest. I always rep Sac Town on every single stage I hit no matter where I am in the world. 916 til the end!
Should I put my money on black or red?
Substantia nigra.
Rasar returns with two area performances. First up at Sophia’s Thai Kitchen in Davis on April 30, 2015 at 9 p.m. Tickets are $5 for this 21-and-over show. He will then play Sacramento’s Harlow’s on May 9, 2015, an all-ages show that gets underway at 7 p.m. Tickets for that performance are $10 and can be purchased through Harlows.com.
DLRN Release the first half of Neon Noir
Shit is about to get weird, folks—Fear and Loathing is about to descend upon Sacramento with a sonic boom reminiscent of the drug-induced adventures shared by a famed Gonzo journalist and his faithful companion.
No, Hunter S. Thompson hasn’t canceled his self-imposed exile from the realm of the living to wreak havoc on our City of Trees; rather, “Fear and Loathing” is the inspiration and title of one of the tracks off the forthcoming release from the hip-hop duo DLRN. And if you’ve checked out the video, a slick and sexy visual experience that includes plenty of booze, a hint of the drug culture that made Thompson so famous and the artists donning animal masks, the inspiration is clearly entrenched in the Gonzo spirit.
“I think, in context of this particular song, the vivid images from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and the really dark, abyss-like backdrop of [Thompson’s] stay there, helped me contextualize my own dark experimenting in that city,” says Sean LaMarr, DLRN’s vocal impresario.
Neon Noir, an LP segmented into two parts (part one of which is set to drop June 3, 2014 on the Waaga Records label with a limited-run cassette tape offering—yes, you heard right, that plastic rectangular mechanism for inducing eargasms—as well as a digital version for all of you who ditched your cassette players when CDs took over the music world), is the continuation of a narrative arc that LaMarr has been developing since the group formed six years ago.
“Neon Noir was a full album that got broken into two albums,” LaMarr explains. “In part because [of] Waaga—their strength is really electronic and electronica music, but they really gravitated toward our songs that were in that vein. So, [there’s an] A side and a B side of the project where one is more electronically charged and the other is more hip-hop.”
Forged in the fires of the electro-synthed-out vibe that seems to be permeating just about every facet of Sacramento’s musical landscape these days, DLRN’s LaMarr and production prodigy Jon Reyes are storytellers in the deepest sense of the word—often taking inspiration from literary legends like Thompson and Kurt Vonnegut.
“We have a great appreciation for the written word. Probably more than the spoken word,” LaMarr explains. “The line in Stevie’s hook [on “Fear and Loathing”] ‘Everything is beautiful and nothing ever hurt at all’ is a Vonnegut reference, too.”
“DLRN is really just a collection of both mine and Sean’s experiences, and our interpretation of what this world is,” Reyes continues. “From the movies we consume to the music we listen to, we put it all back through our art. Really it’s just an incubator of all of our ideas; trying to share with the world how we see things.”
The duo’s love for storytelling is also explored through their videos, the majority of which have been conceptualized and directed by Sami Abdou of Upper Cloud Media. He’s the mastermind behind the videos for the tracks “Dear Langston,” “Reset,” “Good Company” and “Fear and Loathing.”
“We take a lot of time and energy, and you know, really try to give the best product we can—visually and with the music itself,” LaMarr says. “Hopefully they complement each other the right way.”
While Reyes, born and raised in Sacramento, has relocated to the Bay Area, the hip-hop twosome’s love for Sacto is clear—local lyricists and vocalists Young Aundee, Leia Layus, Nami Ramo and Stevie Nader (who is also in the video for “Fear and Loathing”) also make guest appearances on Neon Noir. The visual exploration of their sound also provides a purview into the soul of Sacramento itself. Iconic Sacto landmarks are littered throughout the video for “Dear Langston”—the city’s skyline, and even the Old Ironsides sign, makes a cameo as LaMarr strolls down the grid’s streets, pouring his heart out in song.
“Sacramento—and we both feel this way—is an amazing place to curate and create art,” LaMarr says. “I think some of it is partially out of desperation, being like there’s not, at least when I was coming up, there wasn’t much to do until you were a certain age, so the outlet of creating and making art was paramount [to] my development as a person.”
The duo, who has known each other since high school, began their artistic journey as a part of an art collective that included dancers, spoken-word artists and graffiti writers. And while the collective wasn’t a formal organization, the close-knit group of friends who were collectively exploring their creativity in an interactive and supportive environment served as the catalyst for their current creative endeavors.
“When we first started creating music we were very into what would be considered alternative hip-hop,” Reyes says. “I think just the way music has evolved our sound has to evolve as well. I think with every project, we try to find different ways to put things together. I find I’m most creative when I’m learning new things.”
As LaMarr and Reyes gear up for the album’s release and a June 4 release party at Dive Bar as a part of a South by Southwest-inspired block party on the K Street Mall, their latest exploration of this narrative arc delves into that Gonzo sensibility, but keeps that hip-hop swagger.
“With ‘Fear and Loathing,’ [it’s] the story of me going on a friend’s bachelor party in Vegas and just my interactions with people in those moments, and walking down hallways and those beautiful hotels and feeling super lonely,” LaMarr explains. “It just was a moment when I was like, ‘Wow everybody comes out here on some sort of conquest and at the end of the day [we’re all] just wandering these halls.”
Dive Bar is hosting DLRN’s record release party during the Block Party on Wednesday, June 4. Show starts at 10 p.m., 21-and-over. Visit Facebook.com/DLRNmusic for more info.
DLRN: Awakenings Listening Party
Saturday, Aug. 4, 2012
“Play a throwback,” someone yelled from the balcony, to which DLRN rapper 5th Ave coyly responded that tonight wasn’t about that. The loft space behind Naked Lounge on 15th and Q streets was well-beyond fire department approved capacity. Attendees squeezing in on kitchen countertops, staircases, overflowing onto the back patio and leaning over balconies to sought space to see DLRN perform its new record. My thought: Shush, it’s a listening party.
Saturday Aug. 4, 2012 marked a dual celebration for Sacramento hip-hop group DLRN. At midnight 5th Ave, born Sean LaMarr, turned 28 and played his new album, Awakenings, in front of friends and industry acquaintances for the first time alongside producer Jon Reyes and vocalist Iman Malika. Now a trio, Malika joined DLRN officially this year after making guest appearances on the group’s 2010 record, The Bridge.
The final record in the DLRN trilogy, Awakenings delivers on the promises made at the end of the previous EP The Bridge. Observe the titles in succession (No More Heroes, The Bridge, Awakenings) to understand DLRN’s intentions over three years. 5th Ave mentioned a clue to be discovered in “The Promise,” during our 2010 interview in Submerge, but it was not until I listened to the track tonight that I unlocked the message in, “Somebody pinch me / Because I ain’t never been so close to my dreams,” as a hint to Awakenings.
To commemorate The Bridge, DLRN threw a party at Beatnik Studios with tequila tasting, free sushi and kegs of Miller High Life. The Awakenings listening party was an intimate, invite-only affair, but those in attendance–dressed to the nines and a gorgeous crowd–were left to their own vices and devices to mix drinks in the kitchen, plunge hands into snack bowls and pilfer beers and sodas from the coolers, all on the house.
A toast is appropriate. DLRN are skilled in the art of party, putting their creative noggins together to give us a good time beyond the release show formula of door charges, security pat-downs and over-priced libations. Three Cheers.
While, it’s faux pas to request a hit at a listening party, it’s excusable since Sacramento rarely throws such events. Among friends though, 5th Ave entertained the request in the name of good vibes, performing “Trill Cosby” and “Dear Langston,” which he apologized for forgetting the words to. It spoke of where DLRN is at these days, looking ahead rather than letting the past carry them. “Dear Langston” has aged well, but Awakenings is ripe.
Post-set I was pulled aside to be interviewed by 5th Ave’s wife Glenda LaMarr’s son on camera. The little man who was in charge of donations (and did a fine job), asked me to sum up the DLRN album in three words, to which I replied, “Moody yet uplifting,” or something to that effect. WhiIe I mingled and tossed back complimentary booze, in the back of my head, I questioned if my quick assessment had merit. The listening party triggered a few reminders from my home sessions, and I hoped I’d spoken with justice to DLRN’s body of work.
On “Fear and Loathing” (featuring Stevie Nadir), Reyes’ production places noir-electronic-pop synths atop thundering drum breaks, a binding thread heard throughout Awakenings. Malika sings, “We’re living that night life, watch it all fall down,” until Nadir chimes in with, “Everything was beautiful / nothing ever hurt at all,” a reference to either Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughthouse-Five or Christian rock band Breakfast With Amy’s debut album. Without slipping into goth chambers or inching too close to a reimagining of the Drive Motion Picture Soundtrack, Awakenings is an evening’s quest to greet the soft break of day. The daybreak comes in the album’s closer “Open Letter.” Over an ethereal beat, the vocals are at first chopped and screwed into a boozy grumble, but Iman comes in to lend the clarity, as Reyes’ production begins to rise from a clutter of red cups, blunt ash and streamers.
The album explores universal hang-ups among 20-somethings, the dedication made on “Homecoming,” but at the crux of the record rests a deeply personal song called “Good Company.” While performing “Good Company,” 5th Ave took a moment to make his wife, Glenda, blush front and center while she hugged her son. He got close, making eye contact and smiled at her through his verse. The track, clearly dedicated to her, bears a minor sonic kinship to Outkast’s “SpottieOttieDopealcious” as 5th Ave vibes out on the mic with refrains of, “Let the beat ride,” while Iman croons “baby baby”s to a space age funk track that could extend past the 10-minute mark and not seem indulgent. On “House of Matches,” 5th Ave hands over the keys to Iman and rides shotgun, a humble display for an MC. It speaks to DLRN being truly a group and not just rap bros who let a lady hang out and sing when needed.
Awakenings as an album in a Saturday night listening party environment with free liquor is a difficult sell. Awakenings is apropos for a Saturday night alone, drinking at first out of spite, and then falling deep into the music until you get a 4 a.m. urge to transfer it to your iPod and go for a walk to a vista to greet the sun to the build of “Open Letter.” 5th Ave might have found happiness, might feel closer to bringing his dreams to his waking life than ever before, but he’s not deserting the lost boys and girls. As the group explores label interest and management in Los Angeles, giving the record to Sacramento is DLRN’s first and foremost interest, as it always has been.
