Some of you out there may remember The Lost Angel Crew™ when they played here in the region. WestKoast and his brother Lobes may have felt that they were indeed lost little angels far away from LA, the City of Angels, when they started rhyming here in North Dakota. They scored a record deal with LatinThug Records and now their debut album, Hello My Name Is…, is finally here.

The first edition of hard copies are available only at www.thelostangelcrew.com or at a live show! This album features B-Real of Cypress Hill and Brevi in “The Harvest” and 2MEX of The Visionaries in “The Beat,” plus new artist debuts and Executive Production by one of the most highly regarded producers in the game Charlie Mizza of Charlie Mizza Productions™.

The Lost Angel Crew™ pitched their rhymes in the region for four years, beginning in 2004 and garnered fans in Fargo as the interest in hip-hop has grown. They came to the notice of Cypress Hill Records and inked a deal that many MC s could only dream of, but that deal was tabled and were picked up by LatinThug Records, which is a much better fit for them.

WestKoast was a battle rapper in high school back in LA, taking on any and every rhyming competitor around. “I wasn’t trying to make music or anything at the time,” he says. He continued to rhyme when he followed a friend out to North Dakota.

Then, he challenged his brother Lobes. “I was teasing him one day about it to see if he wanted to try and write some rhymes.” And Lobes did. “I realized he was kicking some serious verses,”says WestKoast. “I brought him out here with me for a couple of years and told him, ‘We’ll give it five years.’” He was counting on something serious to happen if they stayed dedicated to it.

They did a cut on B-Real’s mix tape on Cypress Hill, and thought that they could approach the company to help them with distribution of their own albums. During a conference call with the president of Cypress Hill, Fred Sherman, they were stunned. Instead of a distribution deal, they were offered a record contract and set the wheels in motion for them to work on kicking out a single that would grab national attention. “If we can make that big song,” says Lobes, “it will attract a lot of attention, get everybody’s ears going, listening, trying to figure out who’s the name.”

In our region, The Lost Angel Crew™ were a hot item when they last performed here in 2008 and WestKoast said back then, “Everybody in town is doing hip-hop, but right now it’s just barely being accepted here. It’s still not all the way there, but we’ve made a really, really big difference since we started doing hip-hop here….A lot of bars that you wouldn’t expect to allow hip-hop in love to have hip-hop there because of the crowds it brings.”

What these guys pump out isn’t gangsta rap or anything you’ll see on commercial MTV or BET, though they will admit they have some familiarity with it. “We come from gangland,” WestKoast says. “We grew up around the hoods. We’ve been around gangs all of our lives. We don’t like that stuff per se, but we know it and we’re familiar with it. So we can relate to some of that music. But what we’re trying to do is combine the two, combine the street smarts and the street credibility with a message, man. Because we both got kids, we’re trying to say something.”

They say they are fighting for the roots of hip-hop. “At the same time, we’re fighting for our whole family,” says Lobes. He and WestKoast come from a large extended Hispanic family. Lobes sees the message helping to elevate them. “Right now, we have people in LA hat are so happy for our success that it’s bringing everybody to a better space to be. We hope to help everyone in the future and help our kids as well.”

And their songs are indeed different. “We’re MCs, not rappers….We want to be more on the intellectual level when we rhyme,” says WestKoast. “We want to bring it back to its roots, to get it away from cat-pat-hat-rat-sat. That’s not intelligent. That’s not articulate. That’s not interesting. I read that stuff to my kids when I put them to bed. We’re adults here. Let’s be a little more intellectual about what we’re saying. That’s how we entertain people. We entertain them with the complexity of our delivery and our rhyme style.”

For a time, WestKoast and Lobes were bringing out family members to this region, offering them a taste of North Dakota honesty and Minnesota nice. Their cousin Deviate Minded sometimes performed with them as a trio of MCs.

To be sure The Lost Angel Crew™ and their music has not been watered down by their experience in this region. Back in LA now, they are standing up with the best and are always performing.

Currently, WestKoast owns an independant label, ILL-EGO Entertainment, and is looking to solidify his position as an entrepreneur and CEO in all genres of the music industry. Meanwhile, he and The Lost Angel Crew™ are enjoying their relationship with LatinThug Records. That label was founded in 2004 and is the recognized leader in West Coast hip hop and rap. Their initial launch was the Ghetto Therapy album from The Reyes Brothers, (real life brothers) Sen Dog of Cypress Hill and Mellow Man Ace, the godfather of Latin Rap. That album featured appearances by Snoop Dogg, Warren G, and even the Bishop Don “Magic” Juan. They have since released over 20 albums and spurred the re-launch of Latin Thug Wear clothing and are developing several television and film projects.

You can get your copy of Hello My Name Is… at the The Lost Angel Crew™ website, www.thelostangelcrew.com . It costs $11.99 w/free shipping. Allow 3-4 weeks for delivery and pay now via paypal/credit card. Get autographed edition for $20 (please allow 4-6 weeks for delivery on autographed copies) or if you are ever in LA, you can catch them live and get your copy that way. (The guys played the House of Blues in San Diego last summer!)

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 12th, 2009 at 12:58 am and is filed under December 2009, Issues. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.