Loose Logic - Music

Loose Logic is an MC performing cutting edge hip-hop in Los Angeles, the hip-hop capitol of America's west coast. Let's face it, if you are trying to make it out here in the big, bad city you'd better be able to cut it because there are a lot of artists to choose from (I get hyperlinks to twenty-five new rappers every time I check my email) and nobody serious who is in the industry has time to listen to awkward amateurs or clumsy charlatans.

It's just that there's a lot of treasure to get to in the airwaves out here. Hip-hop has no shortage of raw, capable talent for discerning ears to mine on the west coast, where the surf meets the concrete. There's gold in the Hollywood Hills...and out in the Southland, or over near South Central, next to Compton and straight out of East L.A. All you have to do is look and listen.

Loose Logic has worked with a lot of gold. Whether it's DJ Rampage, DJ Ill Will, RBX or Ms. Toi, he keeps talented company. A native of the City of Angels, the young hip-hop musician grew up under the sun and on the streets, perfecting the angles his style of music operates from. With so many rapping about what has been rhymed about before, it's a relief to find someone who has an attitude that's exclusive and the talent to tell it in a new way.

"Toke," featuring Dee Murdock and produced by Prophecy, is a dedication to smoking that funk. Whether the media mainstream approves or not (depending on which corporate sponsor bought their honest opinion that week) any hip-hop artist who steps up to rap about such a controversial substance deserves respect. Winner of the Best Hip-Hop Song at the 2008 Marijuana Music Awards, it's a song that's as unconventional as it is honest, with the beats rocking steady while the back up vocals keep it cool.

I enjoyed listening to Loose Logic's latest album, Loosid Dreams Vol. 2: Awoken Orbits, because the whole album is unconventional in the best possible way. A sequel to 2010's Loosid Dreams Vol. 1, this LP opens up with the aptly named Machine Gun Funk, an ear-hooking intro that brings to mind the badass, wailing horn sections in the soundtracks of the film noir flicks that made criminals in the 40's look so cool.

"I was making huge changes in my life when I recorded this mixtape," says Ian Westbrook, aka Loose Logic. Not a light piece of pap with frosting on top, this new album is hard-edged with a lot of and philosophy psychology. "There's a lot of life examination on this one," Logic says, and there's plenty to prove it, from "Destroy," a bombastic song about hooking up heavy, to "Every Dark Night," a slick track about dreaming big when no one thinks it can happen but you.

Certainly not new to the scene, Loose Logic has a discography worth exploring. While he confesses to his fair share of musical parallels (what serious artist doesn't) there's more to his art than Tech N9ne or Bone Thugs-n-Harmony, two influences that have had a very positive effect on his music. Eminem and Tupac comparisons aside, this west coast-oriented, Los Angeles MC won the "Best Hip-Hop Artist of the Year" from All Access Magazine because his music can both rhyme and rock, and here's some gold for you to enjoy right here: