Lost Angel Crew Soaring

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 are not only soaring on a brand new record deal but showing the biggest hearts any angels could have.

The Lost Angel Crew have been pitching their rhymes in the region since 2004 and have been garnering fans in Fargo as the interest in hip-hop has grown. They recently came to the notice of Cypress Hill Records and have inked a deal that many MCs could only dream of.

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.” 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 are a hot item. “Everybody in town is doing hip-hop,” says WestKoast. “Hip-hop right now is 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 back home that 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 MC s, 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.”

WestKoast and Lobes are also slowly bringing out family members to this region, offering them a taste of North Dakota honesty and Minnesota nice. Their cousin Deviate Minded sometimes performs with them as a trio of MC s.

While launching a promising career with Cypress Hill, The Lost Angel Crew is grateful for those who supported them. One important figure is Clay Otto, who by day works as a customer service rep for Multiband in Fargo, and by night performed under the name O2. A singer and multi-talented musician, O2 was in a group with WestKoast and Lobes called Common Link. They played Kirby’s and Foxes, and even did a gigantic festival, Julia Paloosa, where they opened for Atmosphere. Soon after, O2 split to do solo work and The Lost Angel Crew was formed.

Late last year, O2 was diagnosed with stage three Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. “He’s the most down-to-earth human being you’ll ever meet in your life,” says WestKoast. “He’s a gifted musician. There’s no other way to explain it, but his music is blessed. You could let your children listen to his album all day, every day.” But now 02 is fighting for his life and needs help with his growing medical bills.

On Friday, February 15, Grazies Italian Grill in Fargo will host a live auction, with all proceeds going to O2. Come out and meet O2 and the Lost Angel Crew. If you’re unable to attend but wish to donate funds, please mail them to: Multiband, Clay’s Cancer Fight, 2000 44th Street SW, Suite 201, Fargo, ND 58103.
Then check out The Lost Angel Crew’s next gig at The Nestor in Fargo on Saturday, March 1, at 9:00 pm. They will be sharing the stage with Negative One and New Rebelution.