Asia Born/DJ Shadow and the Groove Robbers - "Send Them" b/w "Entropy" (Solesides, 1993)
Latyrx’s
The Second Album is due out on
Tuesday. Their first album, appropriately titled Latyrx (The Album), came out a long sixteen years ago, and that
length of time apart has caused expectations to rise to unmatchable levels. The Second Album will almost certainly
disappoint simply because the memory of the first is so overpowering that it
makes considering the second on its own merits an almost impossible task. I’m
going to make things even harder for myself by taking the time to focus on
Latyrx’s early years over the next few days.
First
up is “Send Them” the debut single by one half of Latyrx, Asia Born, and the
first release on the amazing Solesides label. Solesides, which later morphed
into the Quannum Projects, was a rap collective and label that was founded in
1992 around UC Davis and the Bay Area. In many ways the weirder cousin of
fellow Bay Area crew Hieroglyphics, Solesides initially comprised of
Blackalicious members Gift of Gab and Chief Xcel, DJ Shadow, and Latyrx members
Lateef the Truthspeaker and Lyrics Born.[1] These
five used Solesides as the mouthpiece for much of their experimentation and
general weirdness, finding their own unique voices in the process.
