Article by Eric K. Arnold for the SF Weekly
Excerpt:
If you were looking for a short description of [Tom] Shimura’s more famous alter ego, Lyrics Born, this oughta do it: high-performance, low-key. Shimura always rises to the occasion onstage, whether he’s appearing in front of tens of thousands in a massive stadium or for a couple hundred at a small club. But offstage, he doesn’t draw attention to himself. Unlike many rappers, he doesn’t roll with an entourage, and if you see the half-Japanese, half-Italian performer chilling at a local bar, club, or cafe, he’s fairly incognito. . .
If you were looking for a short description of [Tom] Shimura’s more famous alter ego, Lyrics Born, this oughta do it: high-performance, low-key. Shimura always rises to the occasion onstage, whether he’s appearing in front of tens of thousands in a massive stadium or for a couple hundred at a small club. But offstage, he doesn’t draw attention to himself. Unlike many rappers, he doesn’t roll with an entourage, and if you see the half-Japanese, half-Italian performer chilling at a local bar, club, or cafe, he’s fairly incognito. . .
In 2005′s “The Bay,” Shimura paid tribute to the region, a place “where the people are intelligent, articulate, eloquent/Artistic, hard-working, and diligent/Both progressive and politically spirited/Definitely in possession of an ill-itant element/We hella independent.”
