By Aaris A. Schroeder
Editor-In-Chief
January 28, 2013
San Francisco, CA-based hip-hop producer and emcee, BOAC has his life laid out before him, mainly due to his humbleness and skill-set in the music industry which is mainly self-taught and D.I.Y. Blending his experience as a child playing and recording music on his SK1-Casio back in ’86 and early days with hip-hop group, “The Earthlings” along with a treasure-trove of life experiences, BOAC has landed himself an album with Sunspot Jonz of Living Legends in a group called Skywalkers.
Also from the Bay Area and Los Angeles, Sunspot Jonz, member of hip-hop group Mystik Journeymen in which Living Legends were born from, made up of Luckyiam PSC, The Grouch, Asop, Bicasso, Eligh, MURS and Arata has been making it happen for over 20 years in the game and now teamed up with old friend, BOAC of whom he booked for his “Pre-Paid Dues” festival, “Hella Broke Summer Jam.”
“Me and BOAC used to run through the building to see who could sell more tapes than the other,” says Sunspot Jonz about meeting and performing with BOAC years ago.
The story behind BOAC and Sunspot is full of tour adventures, random acts of playing DJ and fun times producing and engineering sick beats. To really understand the story, one would have to take it back to Earthlings; where his heart of hip-hop lies.
BOAC is a founding member of The Earthlings, a hip-hop collective of sorts that was started with DJ Bootleg. The first album released in ‘98 was “Modern Originalus” on 2B1 Records. BOAC had graduated Tamalpais High [Tupac’s high school, worth mentioning] and teaming up with DJ Bootleg, whose father is an accomplished Saxophone player by the name of Boots Houston.
The group grew to be a strong hold and with shows lined up for The Earthlings, things were looking on top of the world. The crew puts out a lot of its own solo work but also is currently working on a project together. Now BOAC mainly produces music which “took over [his] soul” and because of personal issues going on in his life, he became a recluse. Sunspot was introduced into his life.
“[I Was] not in a good place in my life. Sunspot helped me to get focused and back into production,” says BOAC. Sunspot was collaborating and cheer-leading BOAC into working on beats, backup vocals and then opening for him and releasing albums together. BOAC still felt a bit stuck but things were starting to look up. Between the two, 90-100 songs were recorded. They decided on the final songs and created the first “Skywalkers” album.
Back in the day, Mystik Journeymen through a bunch of underground shows, the other members of Living Legends came along the way through friends. The guys met Bicasso through mutual friend, 427 when they did a show in Humboldt. Grouch met Eligh at Amoeba Records in Oakland. Sunspot says MURS and Luckyiam grew up on the same street in LA and he became MURS’s “guardian” of sorts while he was attending college at University of Berkeley. Sunspot met Arata while selling his “Unsigned and Hella Broke Magazine” in Berkeley. After touring with Luckyiam and taking some of the guys with them; when they could afford to go, Sunspot came up with the name, Living Legends because of their travels and adventures while on tour. The name stuck and so did the group in the history of underground Cali hip-hop.
This will be Sunspot Jonz’ fifth time performing at Paid Dues and he is excited to have teamed up with BOAC on their new album to together. Last year Sunspot hosted Paid Dues.
A new video has been released for Sunspot Jonz and BOAC’s new album, “Skywalkers,” March 13; “Go.”
“Sometimes it can be hard working with friends and easier to work with people you don’t know. Life can be a mind[-]fuck sometimes. Not in this case, [BOAC] allowed me to see that [I should not ever] give up on friends,” says Sunspot.
BOAC is not new to the game however he has been brought to the forefront in indie hip-hop where he belongs. His collaborations and production work with Bored Stiff, Z-Man and Equipto is a testament. Now he is the newest performer to be added to San Bernadino, CA-based tour, “Paid Dues,” an amazing accomplishment. Between touring with acts such as Blackalicious, Fishbone, X-Men, Z-Trip, Hieroglyphics, Living Legends and Atmosphere for the Vans Warped Tour … and staying on the “Dirt Hustle,” a term coined by Living Legends, life is beginning to look really sweet.
