Artist Of The Week - Luckyiam

Luckyiam is a living legend, quite literally. He’s a member of the California rap outfit Living Legends as well as a myriad of other groups including Mystik Journeymen with Sunspot Jonz, The CMA with The Grouch and The Underbosses with MURS. He jokes “I’m in everybody’s band. I play tambourine with U2.” Thanks to the large number of people he works with Luckyiam has appeared on nearly two dozen albums and tomorrow he’ll finally be releasing his official solo debut, Most Likely To Succeed. After growing up on a musical diet that included everything from NWA and KRS-One to Duran Duran and Talking Heads Luckyiam took all of his influences and started running with other crazy like-minded artists, the result is an album featuring a wide range of guest appearances, from Slug to Mickey Avalon, and musical concepts. This week I caught up with Luckyiam to talk with him about Most Likely To Succeed, and to find out what makes him so lucky.

Adam Bernard: The first things I noticed about you is that you have a positive name, Luckyiam, and a positive album title, Most Likely To Succeed. How much of this is a reflection on your everyday outlook on life?
Luckyiam: I wake up in the morning, got a beautiful something lying next to me, I have reasons to be happy. I’m really positive, but for some reason people want to shit on your day, so I’m not the super happy go lucky, I’m a good balance of these things. I try to stay positive, though. It’s no fun being a negative Nancy.

Adam Bernard: For someone who’s never heard your music before how would you describe it, as well as your upcoming solo effort Most Likely To Succeed?
Luckyiam: It’s intelligent Hip-Hop that you can dance to, if you can dance. Dope lyrics and smooth beats that you can get into, get with, and it’s not too preachy and not on some cornball shit. It’s me. It’s the mixture of me. I’m like a cool nerd. It’s what made me who I am, being able to be in with all cliques, characters and whatnot.

Adam Bernard: Speaking of that, on Most Likely To Succeed you have some interesting collaborations, including one with Slug and Aesop Rock and one with Dyslexic Speedreaders. How have you come to be aligned with such divergent artists?
Luckyiam: They’re just my friends. It’s not something I sat down and plotted out like “yeah, I gotta have a song with these guys,” they’re just different circles I walk in. Like Lucky could be… oh I’m talking about myself in third person now. Uh oh, here we go! He’s talking about himself in the third person, watch it now! (laughs) One night I can be on some shit where I’m chilling with Murs and Slug and them and then I could be on some Hollywood shit with Mickey (Avalon) and Dirt (Nasty) and Andre (Legacy), just wilin out. It’s just different circles. I travel all around, traveled with people like Mickey and them. I was aware of them before they even started getting their MySpace gig. So doing stuff with them was natural. And for me, I wanted to help people get a view, or a look, into our scene because there are people in our scene that don’t know about them and don’t know how hilariously brilliant those guys are and they need to fucking get with it. The thing with them is you love it or your hate it, but I want to be one of those artists that works with people who are like that, who are at the point where they make you feel something, it’s not just another record, or just another artist, it’s a definite feeling, whether it’s love or hate, it’s strong and it’s something that moves you.

Adam Bernard: Being around so many differing artists, do you find it migraine inducing when people say there’s nothing good to listen to?
Luckyiam: When someone says that I don’t know what to say, or what to think. You gotta realize every person, their knowledge is limited to what they’re exposed to. A lot of people are afraid to listen to things outside of Hip-Hop music. There’s so much music out there. There’s so much music at your grasp that you can get a hold of. There’s no way you can say there’s nothing good to listen to. There’s no f’n way.

Adam Bernard: Finally, what’s the luckiest thing to ever happen to Luckyiam?
Luckyiam: Well lemme tell you how I got my name. I don’t know how lucky it is, but it’s the reason I have my name. Back in ‘97 we were in England playing some b-boy festival on the outskirts of London with my crew, Living Legends, Jurassic 5 and some other groups, including an old school Hip-Hop group called The Treacherous Three. If you know anything about b-boy festivals they’re fucking sausage parties, they’re all dudes. It’s getting a little bit better out here, but out there if you’re at a b-boy festival and you see a girl she’s somebody’s mom or somebody’s girlfriend and that’s it. So we’re all out there on the little tiny outskirts of this English town and there’s this one little pack of girls that was there and I scored one of them and one of the dudes, Special K from Treacherous Three was like “damn dude, how did you do that? You’re lucky! I’ma call you Lucky from now on.” I was like “OK.” That’s how I got my name. It was very poignant. I scored. Gooooooooooooooal!

For more Luckyiam check out myspace.com/luckyiam.