Scarub avoids green, stays true to hip-hop scene

By Anthony Quinonez
Daily Bruin Contributor

While most commercial rappers today are only focused on the
green, Scarub sees his music in different colors.

“Colors can really change my moods and ways of
thinking,” the rapper said in an interview at UCLA.
“When I play songs in my head, I associate them with colors.
One song may be red, angry, and another song might be blue, cool
and calm, so I’ll put a song in between them that’s
purple.”

A product of Northeast L.A, Scarub has been a part of the
underground rap scene for years, along with his crew, the Living
Legends.

Scarub’s most recent release, “Heavenbound,”
is a vivid musical journey. Far from the “bling bling”
aesthetic currently popular in mainstream rap, Scarub’s third
solo release represents his maturity as an artist, tackling issues
such as relationships and sharing philosophies of life.

The album also features Scarub as producer on 10 of the 18
tracks.

“I had done a little production on the first album, but it
was just me playing with things,” the rapper said.
“That playing around made me find out I really liked it, and
I decided to do more of it on this last album.”

One word comes up several times while talking to Scarub:
quality. It’s an attribute that comes out in the music
because he truly loves it, yet it’s something he takes
seriously.

“At first music was something we did for fun,” he
said. “Once we realized that we could make a living from it,
we focused on it even more.

“I had a high school teacher who told me “˜find a way
to get paid to do what you love and you’ll never have to work
a day in your life,'” Scarub added. “I just apply
that to my daily life.”

This attention to making high quality music hasn’t exactly
translated into astronomical record sales among fickle hip-hop
fans. Nonetheless, it’s a role with which Scarub is
comfortable.

“I see myself as a small pebble with a lot of
potential,” he said about his place in the music
business.

For Scarub, happiness is not measured by money.

Like many underground artists, Scarub is well known outside the
U.S. but is a relatively obscure artist at home. This dynamic,
however, has its advantages.

“I kinda like it,” he said. “You can go to a
different city and get the key to the city, be the main attraction.
Then you can come back home and blend in with the crowd, walk
around UCLA with no worries.”

Scarub also noted the differences between hip-hop fans here and
abroad. “In Japan, people had me autograph their shirts, even
their Walkmans. In L.A., they’d be like, “˜Why are you
writing on my shit?'”

“Here people are more flashy, more material,” Scarub
said, acknowledging L.A.’s hip-hop scene. “But on the
whole they know quality. It’s just a harder crowd to
please.”

While Scarub won’t go out of his way to please anybody, he
is always trying to push musical boundaries. “I like making
things sound fresh,” he said. “I do my hip-hop thing,
but I also do other things. I’ve been experimenting with
different music lately. It’s not techno, or drum and bass or
jungle, it’s more of my own style.”

Along with his three LP’s (“Heavenbound,”
“A Fact of the Matter” and “The Answer 2wo the
Meaning”), Scarub has started his fourth album and is
finishing up a project called “Afro Classics” with
fellow underground hip-hopper Very. “It’s not Afro as
in ethnicity necessarily; it’s just classic things that
happen in the community.”

Exactly what Scarub will bring to the table remains to be seen.
One thing is certain, however: his future is bright.

“I see myself in a caterpillar stage,” he said.
“The metamorphosis hasn’t started yet.”

MUSIC: “Heavenbound” can be found
in local record shops or on the Web site www.llcrew.com.