For some, cars are custom made, boats are custom made, even houses are custom made. For a rare few, Hip-Hop is custom made, as in the Los Angeles quintet Custom Made, which consists of Sinister Six, Bluff, Element, Skandalous Scoobs and Aneek. The five MC’s, who’ve drawn comparisons to the likes of Wu-Tang and Mobb Deep, have been creating a buzz in the streets of LA for a while, having moved over 100,000 mixtapes on the strength of the music and their own street savvy. With a fresh deal in place with indie powerhouse Babygrande Records, now is their time to make a national impact.Scoobs explains that the first order of business for Custom Made is to show people what LA is really all about. “We’re from Los Angeles,” he says with pride “and right now in Hip-Hop it’s a city that isn’t really represented. In the past they’ve always try to represent LA as either gang bangin’, or as Hollywood, something like that, movie stars. People never get a really clear representation of what Los Angeles really is and what I’m saying is this is one of the most grimiest cities in the whole United States and it really never gets a good representation.” One of the artists Aneek was especially mad at for the way he represented the city was The Game. One vicious diss record later, Aneek and the rest of Custom Made feel they voiced everything to be said, and as it turns out, it’s this record that serves as a shining example of both their battle abilities and their goal of a proper representation of their city.
Though it’s rare, sometimes being nomadic can help with a person’s roots and thanks to the five member of Custom Made constantly moving around, listeners will get not just a clear representation of one part of LA, but the entire area. “We’ve been all around LA,” notes Scoobs “we’ve bounced all around LA living in every area out here. It’s not like we’re coming from a specific area, we’ve lived in almost every city out here.” Despite all the bouncing around, four of the members of Custom Made, Bluff, Element, Six and Scoobs found their way to the same high school, a place where they met and started the group. Element’s first day of high school was an interesting one. Scoobs remembers “he came from Anaheim, I remember the first day he got there he was battling Bluff the first day that he got to the school.” They instantly became friends and Element became a part of the group.
Even the way these five MC’s met seems Custom Made, but the name of the group has a deeper meaning. “It’s something different,” explains Scoobs “plus the music we make, everybody has a different style, everybody’s doing something different with Hip-Hop.” Each artist is “custom made” in his own right…each reflects their own amalgamation of influences and style, contributing individually and collectively to the whole. This is where Custom Made, and their latest album, Sidewalk Mindtalk: The Best of the Custom Made Mixtapes, come into play. “This is Sidewalk Mindtalk, it’s something that’s street but is Hip-Hop at the same time. We’re bringing straight lyrics and it’s real hardcore, but…we’re not just getting on tracks doing some gangster rap.”
Sidewalk Mindtalk: The Best of the Custom Made Mixtapes is Custom Made’s first release on Babygrande. The album is a collection of the group’s best songs from their seven mix-CD’s with six tracks of unreleased material included for good measure. According to Scoobs “it’s hardcore lyricism, it’s good production and it’s an all around good project.” He continued, adding “it’s about bringing lyrics, something that’s fresh because everybody’s doing cookie cutter music, everybody does the same shit, everybody’s looking to make a single.” The album will also come with a DVD that will show people “what we do, how we live in LA and what we do on an everyday basis because we’re also real involved in the battle scene out here.”
Custom Made’s association with Babygrande came about naturally. The group had been working as independent artists for a number of years and Babygrande CEO Chuck Wilson took notice of their efforts. As soon as the group met Chuck, a mutual respect was born. Scoobs remembers “Chuck Wilson, we respected his whole work ethic and the way he was interested in the music and he really understands the kind of music that was make and I think he knows how to market our type of music. It’s really a good situation. We respect what they’re doing and he respects what we’re doing so you couldn’t ask for a better situation.”
Even though Custom Made is now signed, their goals haven’t changed. Scoob notes “it’s really about showing people what’s going on out here, that it’s something more than what the average person expects. A lot of people come at us like aw yeah, you guys sound so east coast. There are so many stereotypes in Hip-Hop, but we’re just trying to break stereotypes to show people that it doesn’t matter where you’re from, as long as you’ve got real lyrics and you’re talking about something that’s real life, something that people can relate to, that’s really what it is.”
Hip-Hop doesn’t need a shiny new set of rims, but it’s certainly better off being Custom Made.
Courtesy, Babygrande.com
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