Published: Friday - June 20, 2008
Words by Jay Casteel
Lunch (Photo: Homeless Nation)
Meet Southern California rapper Lunch. He's not a gangster rapper from L.A., and he's not a backpacker from the suburbs. He's his own man, and he's repping an area that rarely gets shine -- the I.E. For those outside of Cali, the I.E. (aka the Inland Empire) is an area east of Los Angeles that'd you drive through on your way to Las Vegas. It's hot, barren, and desert like, but is also full of life, culture, and of course, breeds its own music. Lunch is just one example.
The rapper is currently getting radio burn with his single with Ray J called "Get Em Girl", and recently leaked a new track with Akon, but he's a tested indie veteran whose been putting out his own albums for over 10 years. While some may not be familiar with his name or music, you can do your research and find out that he's built himself a solid fanbase over the years, helping him move 100,000 units on his own.
So as Lunch prepares for the release of a new album titled Heart Of A Lion, BallerStatus caught up with the I.E. King to talk about his struggles over the years, making it in a non-industry area such as the I.E., and why he feels he's got the heart of an animal known as being the king of the jungle.
It's Lunch, and he's serving food for the streets.
BallerStatus.com: You've been in the game for over 10 years. Tell me about when you were first coming up, and what kind of struggles you been through over the years.
Lunch: I wasn't your typical west coast gangster rapper, so they used that against me. That was one of my struggles. From there, I just put out my own music -- me and my crew. We just started doing a demo, but do a whole album and sell it to get my buzz going. But we were shopping it too. We were doing that all at the same time.
BallerStatus.com: You mentioned that your style is different from your typical west coast gangster rapper, so how would you explain your style.
Lunch: Well, my style is raw and uncut. That's what I call it. I'm very influenced by gangsta rap, and also underground rap, but I never gangbanged. Being from the west coast, in order to be a gangsta, you had to gangbang. You had to either claim red or blue, Crips or Bloods. I never claimed either one. I had family members very much involved in it and homies and friends, but me, I never was. That was the difference right there, to separate me from that. My marketing scheme is more geared toward street orientated music, all the way to underground hip-hop.
I'm very versatile. Of course, I'm still doing street music because we still on the same court. Like similar to basketball, you've been hearing music all these years from the center's point of view. The center's gonna be able to block and grab the rebounds, but now I'm giving you a point of view from a point guard or a 2 guard where I'm shooting the jump shot. I'm going to the rack, getting fouled hard. It's just two different perspectives.
BallerStatus.com: And your name, Lunch... That's pretty unique. What's the idea behind that?
Lunch: It started off as a joke. My cousin accidentally called me lunch meat when I was younger. He said "I'm having everyone call you 'lunch meat.'" So as I got older, I became my name. I took the meat off, but it's like I'm serving cats. It's like I'm food for the streets. Everything is a service in life. It's a service for me to give BallerStatus an interview. It's a service for me for BallerStatus to even interview me. So Lunch is here to serve everybody, serving everybody something to eat (laughs).
BallerStatus.com: Your label is Homeless Nation, that's unique as well. I know you have a philosophy behind the name...
Lunch: When I was coming up, I was in a crew called the Orphanage. From there, we branched off into other groups and it evolved into Homeless Nation. The reason why, it goes back to our style of music. We had no home for our style. Cats wanted to put us into a category of gangsta, then underground, so it was like our music was homeless. So that's our mentality like we're homeless in that sense. It's like, we took that and made that a hustle. Like if you're a homeless person, you gotta be a hustler. If that's the way you live, you gotta collect cans to survive. That's where the crew came from. It's a power. We come in numbers.
BallerStatus.com: I understand you've sold over 100,000 units on your own since you started. Being an indie artist, those are crazy numbers. Then also being located in Cali's I.E. is even crazier. So tell us about the grind in doing that and how you were able to build a fanbase.
Lunch: When we first started off, we pressed up 5,000 units. We hit the streets with that. We learned. We got the money from the amount we sold and pressed more up. Then we'd do another album. So we kept flipping our money sort of like the drug game. Instead of applying it to something negative, we applied it to something positive -- CD sales.
We was going to Venice Beach. We was hitting all the L.A. spots, all the I.E. spots, and from there, we got distribution. This was in 97, 98. At the same time though, we was in the streets selling them, while they were in the stores too. It went from 5,000 pressed up, to 10,000 pressed up, to 15,000 pressed up. Once I learned the game and the system, from there I just kept flipping it, and my name just became more and more popping. Then we started shipping [all over the country].
BallerStatus.com: Wow, that's impressive.
Lunch: Yea, it's crazy. But what gets me is that cats out here in the west try to act like they don't recognize us. All these cats know who Lunch is. They all know who Homeless Nation is, but they try to overlook us. That's why I dropped that one street song, "They Don't Like Me." I feel as though, if you're trying to overlook me and you not saying my name when it comes to grinding on this west coast music... When it comes to independent, we been doing this for years. There's OGs on the west that was asking us "How do you do it?" But when it comes to the shine, they don't mention my name. So I feel as though, they don't like me. I'm the rapper with the chip on his shoulder. I'm raw and uncut, coming straight from Moreno Valley, California, and that's what it is.
BallerStatus.com: Right now, you got the single with Ray J, "Get 'Em Girl." It seems to be doing real well for you. Talk about coming up with that track and how Ray J got involved.
Lunch: First, the original track was in the club, and all these females were dancing to it. I kept saying "Get 'Em Girl," and just kept saying it. It became catchy in my ear. So I was like "If it's catchy in my ear, it'll probably be catchy in everybody else's." I brought the concept back to Fingazz, he created the beat, and me and him collaborated on the hook, I wrote the lyrics, and there you have it. The original version, it pleateau'd out. It was dying down, so we had to do something. I met with Ray J in the Bay. We wanted to do something. So when we got back to Southern Cal, I holla'd at him and we made it happen. Now it's a hot track.
BallerStatus.com: And Fingazz is really killing em with the beats over the last few years. Do you feel he's underrated?
Lunch: Fingazz is very much underrated. Our whole camp is. Fingazz is doing hit singles. It's like they don't wanna show love. This west coast mentality is to do it by yourself, and cats don't wanna show as much love, but it's all good. We got no leadership on the west coast. You can't go to someone for guidance or advice. I ain't complaining though. We gonna get ours.
BallerStatus.com: You're from the I.E., which is really somewhat in a shadow since you're so close to Los Angeles. What was it like trying to come up out there?
Lunch: It's very hard to break. You try to go to these different record labels, and they don't know what the I.E. is. They don't understand the market. It's a sale out here. At one time, we were the second biggest market in Southern California buying records. We had less to do, so we buying records. It's also the two biggest counties in the nation. Riverside Country and San Bernardino County are the two biggest counties in the nation. I'm the king of the I.E. So anybody that can't see that is no business man. It's all good, in due time, it's all gonna make sense.
BallerStatus.com: What's the music scene like out there?
Lunch: The music scene, we influenced by a lot of sounds. We influenced by the gangstas, we also influenced by the Bay Area, and we also making our own sound. Like you said, we have no history, so this is history in the making right now. We need some type of leadership where it can form a sound and form a scene, but it's evolving to that now. It's a scene, but you got to know the people who bring the scene. There's no spots where everybody's gonna go to, so we gotta make that spot. It's also because we so spread out. I'm in Riverside, but San Bernardino is split up from Riverside, and it's two different worlds, but it's also one world. Slowly but surely, it's coming around. I know one thing, there's a big market out here for us -- record sales, single sales, and all that. Once I pop off, then everybody gonna see the I.E. scene.
BallerStatus.com: Since you're so close to L.A., do you feel the I.E. is overlooked a lot?
Lunch: Yea, definitely because that's what they're comparing our whole situation to. We different from that though. Even though we go back and forth to L.A. a lot -- most of our family members are there -- we're our own thing. We got our own thing going. The industry is followers though. They wait for one person to start going, then they jump on everybody else's tip.
BallerStatus.com: So as far as your album, Heart Of A Lion, can people expect more stuff along the lines of the single?
Lunch: Like I said, I've a diverse artist, so it's going to be a diverse album. The single is what it is, a single. It's called "Get 'Em Girl." It's for the ladies, it's for the clubs, but that's not the whole album. You're gonna hear my life struggles of going through it in the I.E., and the industry, and learn about me as a person and my personal struggles. That's why it's called Heart Of A Lion because you're gonna hear everything I've gone through, and how I'm still here surviving and still moving forward.
BallerStatus.com: What does Lunch have the Heart Of A Lion?
Lunch: One thing is because of the I.E. to L.A. thing. We have so many artists here who have failed, I've failed so many times, it became my strength. Like you might take another cat, they fall on they back and you never see them again. With me, I might fall six times, but I'll get up seven times. Anybody that can do that has the heart of a lion. That's where I'm at.
I also got a song on my album called "Heart Of A Lion" explaining my situation of how I almost died four or five times and how I'm still here to even talk about it.
I'm the evolution of west coast hip-hop. Me and my crew Homeless Nation be putting it down, so you guys better watch out because there's a new sheriff in town.
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