Lyrics Born (a.k.a. Asia Born) is Tom Shimura (b. 1972), originally from Berkeley, California, though through his childhood he lived in Tokyo, Japan, and Salt Lake City, Utah. He began his hip hop career while at college at UC Davis, where he was a DJ at the college station KDVS. He is a founding member of the group of artists known as Quannum Projects. He is also one half of the group Latyrx with fellow MC Lateef The Truth Speaker.
Gift Of Gab (Tim Parker) and Chief Xcel (Xavier Mosley) met at John F. Kennedy High School in 1987 in Sacramento, California and formed the group in the early 1990s. They released their first recording, "Swan Lake", on solesides records. The Solesides Crew consisted of the duo, as well as other friends of theirs they had met at University of California - Davis, including DJ Shadow, Lyrics Born and Lateef The Truth Speaker. The single was an underground hit, but label trouble prevented the duo from immediately capitalizing on their fame.
Equally inspired by Prince and 2Pac, Lil B is an eccentric, ambitious rapper who came up with the Bay Area's the Pack, a group that had a hit with the sneaker-loving track "Vans." After the group released its 2007 album, Based Boys, Lil B began to explore other opportunities by first partnering with fellow Pack member Young L for SS Mixtape, Vol. 1. New solo songs would regularly get posted to his MySpace site and then, in late 2008, he began to toy with the excessiveness of the Internet, storming the Web in a full-on blitzkrieg.
Go Sailor was a short-lived Berkeley based twee pop band. Its members included Rose Melberg of Tiger Trap and The Softies (guitar, vocals), Paul Curran of Crimpshrine (bass) and Amy Linton of Henry's Dress (drums). They recorded three 7" singles and a full-length CD on Lookout! Records in 1996, the latter of which collected the singles tracks and two compilation appearances. After their breakup their songs "Ray of Sunshine" and "Together Forever in Love" were included on the soundtrack to the movie But I'm a Cheerleader.