Lyrics Born/Skins & Needles/Nato Caliph

9 p.m. Thursday, April 14. 2720 Cherokee, 2720 Cherokee Street.

By Calvin Cox on Thu, Apr 14, 2011 at 4:00 am

Lyrics Born/Skins & Needles/Nato Caliph

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As a founding member of the Bay Area collective Quannum Projects, Tsutomu Shimura (better known as Lyrics Born) is a true hip-hop veteran. Since his debut in the early '90s, the Japanese-born lyricist/producer has toured the world while working with talents such as DJ Shadow, Jurassic 5 and Blackalicious. Lyrics Born's music carries an unmistakable classic-soul and funk influence, and his vocals tend to be melodious and sing-songy, a style he refers to as "em-singing." His music is best known to some for the various placements he's scored in movies, television and video games, including HBO's Entourage and the 2009 remake of Friday the 13th. Also on the bill is the DJ/drummer duo Skins & Needles and local favorite Nato Caliph.