lofiction.
pictured left to right: Semcity Chris, NimSins, ovrkast., joviul, and Keese Sama.
Last November, I met NimSins and ovrkast. at a cypher event that some folks in the dance community had organized for Black and Brown Lives. the event went down at the Lake Merritt Pergola. that day, it was pouring rain. we seriously had to *attempt* to dry the dance floor every five minutes. regardless of the less than ideal weather conditions, they came through to play live beats and spit freestyles, infusing the event with a raw energy that spoke for itself during the performance.
A few months later, I had the privilege of interviewing a few of the folks in their crew, lofiction. enjoi.
artisintheyes: what’s up everybody i’m here with lofiction crew.
first off i wanted to thank ya’ll for doing this. as ya’ll know this is my first interview, and your first time – but not like that though (ha ha). can everybody introduce themselves?
NimSins: so first off we dont got everybody here, we got 5/11, we missing chef lee, dutch, 4d, eighty9s, dephkhan, and jimmy. We started off as 13. I’m NimSins – I’m from East Oakland, i grew up on Seminary but my family not from over there though.
Semcity Chris: I’m Semcity Chris, I’m from East Oakland, CA – Seminary Avenue and grown up there my entire life.
Keese Sama: I’m Keese Sama, grown up in East Oakland, CA – I wasn’t born in the East, I was born in Berkeley but i was raised in the East.
ovrkast.: i’m ovrkast. from lofiction. I grew up on 72nd and sobrante park.
joviul: my name’s jovi, joviul, jovi for short. Born and raised in oakland, grown up in east oakland.
artisintheyes: In breaking (bboy/girling) the idea of crews of is an established idea, but I feel like having a crew of 11 producers is still a relatively new concept. back in the day you had some crews like Soulquarians where there was more than one producer, but yeah. at least to my knowledge it’s a relatively new thing. ya’ll all make beats right?
NimSins: it’s 11 of us. me and chris are the only ones not making beats, but we gonna start producing soon. I’m lightweight cattin’ off right now but Ima get on it. This basically how we came together. I known chris my whole life. i met ovrkast. one day when he was comin’ back from school. i asked him, “ay you rap, you tryna come over to this cypher we havin’?” he was like “i dunno maybe so” and he never showed up.
(everybody goes “awwww”)
ovrkast. : I told him I made beats and NimSins was like fasho. lemme explain why I never showed up! first I didn’t really go places so I didn’t really be outside like that. but we met up again like a year later at 1st fridays and we were tryna find places to kick it after that. I met joviul because we went to school together. I knew keese cause’ keese made music with joviul.
joviul: my cousin keese sama, I been knowin’ him basically my whole life. my cousin has always done music and we’ve gotten it from our ancestors, my uncles, my aunties and such. I used to look up to him when he would freestyle in my auntie’s living room. it always inspired me but I was always afraid to do music. basically ovrkast. brought it out of me. but I had always wanted to do music. I had a little program that I had done at the boys and girls club and it always interested me. keese and ovrkast. brought it out of me.
NimSins: so fast forward, at this point it was late 2016. we all were all making music personally. cause’ ovrkast. and joviul had a group called KinFlk. I was making music too and I hella fucked with them so we got into the studio together and booked some studio time at this studio on Solano called nexus studio (shout outs nexus). we all would link up at first friday and then joviul brought keese and then we would do freestyles and shit. but how did we start going to the gallery?
ovrkast. : one day for the OG Beat Meet we went to see vertiqua play music at the gallery and we got linked up with chef lee so I got connected with them. they told us that we could come through whenever and rap and freestyle so we started goin’ there and postin’ up. that’s where we meet chef lee, dephkhan, and eighty9s. everybody would just come to the gallery.
NimSins: yeah so we had two other members, they used to come through too.
joviul brought keese. I’d bring sem city chris cause’ me and chris lived on the same block our whole lives. we’d be like “what we gon’ do today” and make our way downtown. I started rappin’ in 2009 so i’d go downtown sometimes cause’ i used to tag and i’d see the music scene.
Keese Sama: what’s so crazy about lofiction before it came together was that I was like, “I swear man I need to be around other artists and other creatives who wanna create” and it came maybe like 3 weeks later. that’s something i thought was really special.
ovrkast. : what was crazy is that we’d meet there on a monday/friday and be there cyphering like literally 8 or 9 pm outside with a portable speaker rappin’ and vibin’ – it was so crazy.
NimSins: basically what happened was that we’d be going to the gallery and i decided to put everybody in one group chat and asked everybody when they were going back to the gallery. the name of the group chat was broccoli gang for a coo minute.
(everybody laughs hella)
shino (not in group anymore) and dutchmastered (not in group anymore either) were like we should come together as a group and keese had had a vision for making a crew and it came together like overnight. they were throwing around names for a minute but Semcity Chris wasn’t rappin’ as long as all of us so you gotta tell em’ how you got into it.
Semcity Chris – well I wasn’t always a rapper. I started out cookin’. I worked at this restaurant, a juice factory downtown. they made organic juice. it was chill, it was my 1st job, i wasn’t trippin’. the lady also had a catering company and seen that I was cooking and didn’t wanna make juice and told me that she’d take me in as a trainee to get experience. I did that and I was with nims. I grew up with him, and I used to wake up with this dude in my house cause’ my mama had a daycare. shoutouts to ma dukes. pretty much I started rappin’ because nims started bringing me to the gallery. I thought this rapping shit sounded coo and I started rappin’ and he told me I was ass bruh. after that I was like all right I’m destined to prove your ass wrong.
artisintheyes: how did ya’ll get your artist names?
Keese Sama: when i was in kindergarten i used to look at stuff about lil bow wow. like he was a young sensation. he made me wanna rap at a young age and on top of that my mama was a rapper. her name was Ms. Kill, but she kept it to herself.
artisintheyes: did she ever put out any albums or anything?
Keese Sama: she made tracks but she pretty much kept it to herself. she did it for the love.
I made my first rap in kindergarten with her help, and i still got the physical rap in a composition notebook. I gave it up after that but started in middle school, then stopped again but got serious in high school but I was making turnt up music at the time. trey pound, and SK helped me be formed as an artist. “sama” comes from my love of anime cause’ sama is an honorable title given to a person in Japanese culture.
Semcity Chris: my name came to be because of the rapper philthy rich. philthy rich’s nickname is sem city money man. I like that sem city part. I’m from seminary too so I said Ima just make that part of my name.
NimSins: so basically it’s kinda like keese’ story, my dad used to rap, my dad trash tho, he always been trash. in the 90’s he used to rap and he wasn’t a school dude so he used to try to do his street thing. my uncle booby used to have a studio in the deep east. my dad used to get finessed out of studio time, so the songs he used to write, a dude named gangster disciple from oakland would take my dad’s lyrics and rap em’. they was rappin’ and spendin’ money. they didn’t know about licensing and all that so that’s how it happened. the first hip hop group I liked was hot boys – lil’ wayne, lil’ turk, BG and all them. my ma used to buy those CDs for me and he used to say the hot boys was trash and he showed me how he used to rap. he had this drum and me, him, and my sister used to rap to the beats he used to make. then in 2009 i was in a graff crew w/ my patna darryl. in 2009 we used to get hella high and roast bruh and be laughin’ for hours. one night he came over to the house and was like, ya’ll not bout’ to roast me no more, and would start rap battling us. I was like hell no I’m not bout’ to let him rap at me like that so i started writin’ raps. in 2011 I got serious and got into this program at East Side Arts Alliance called Beats and Flows and started a group called One Mind. it didn’t work out and was doing my own thing. NimSins because my name is nimrod and I used to tag so people would put a 1 instead to be more original. then some other artist I never heard of, named Nimone was trippin’ off of that so I added the sins cause’ of this company i got called sins, but that’s a another story.
ovrkast. : I was always listening to hella different music. in middle school I was into techno and metal and so much stuff, had wide ears. when I was young I listened to whatever was on the radio. in middle school I had my bro’s Ipod and would listen to Green Day and techno and play it all the time. people made fun of me but I didn’t care. in 8th grade I heard odd future and got put on. it was hella weird and I fucked with it. I got back into rap and started discovering people like Joey Bada$$ and Pro Era. they put me onto hip hop and I started looking up old 90’s shit. that’s how I got into beats. there was this one beat that Joey rapped on by Knxwledge called “who cares”. I googled it, found Knxwledge’s page and was in school just playin’ em’ for 2 months and that’s how I found lofi hiphop. In 2015 I switched schools and went to this high school called Bunch and they had a studio. this dude was like, “you wanna make beats?” and I was like yeah. I’d put beats on Soundcloud and somehow Godsconnect found em’ and put em’ on his channel. eventually my following started growing. I like overcast weather so that’s where the ovrkast. comes from.
joviul: so my grandma and mother have always been artists and painters and I’ve always wanted to follow them. in kindergarten I started drawing and I’ve always wanted to create something. I’ve always loved music and my mother has always told me not to just listen to something that’s given to you and to go find it yourself. my ma put me onto kanye in 4th grade. in 5th/6th grade I was going to the boys and girls club on High Street. they’d just built a studio. when I was 13 they had finally let me in the studio. my eyes was glistening and I’d look at the turntables and at first I was gonna be a DJ. my DJ name was DJ Vixen and I don’t know where that came from. fast forward to high school time. I’m touchin’ rhymes, it’s turning out trash. I’m lookin’ to my cousin’ he been doin’ it for years, trash. I left oakland high ended up at Bunch, and started gettin’ heavy into writing. silas started showin’ me the way in Fruity Loops. I was rappin’, we had ovrkast. , and I joined a group called KinFlk and I was followin’ silas. my first rap name was sunshine. I thought we’d have a group called sunshine and ovrkast. and it’d be a duo. then I got out of it and changed my name to joviul after they gifted me that name.
artisintheyes: do ya’ll have a particular era of music that you love the most?
joviul: so many diff. eras, but if I could play one song it’d be Flying Lotus – Fall In Love.
ovrkast: for era I don’t really know but, the J Dilla instrumental Won’t Do is one of my all time favorite beats. I like it cause’ he samples Isley Brothers in the most crazy way.
NimSins: my favorite era … we all fuck with the old soul because everybody granny/mama listen to Curtis Mayfield and Gil Scott Heron. I was born in 95′ but my favorite time in hip hop would be 95′ because a lot of the west coast music was tight. I loved the production. Luniz dropped Operation Stackola then you had people like Seagram and of course Too Short was makin’ music. On the East Coast Das Efx dropped Hold It Down in 95′, Mobb Deep dropped some shit in 95′, and Outkast probably dropped some shit in 95′.
Keese Sama: for me I don’t really wanna box myself in because I know there’s still a lot of learning that I gotta do. It’s a huge ocean so it’s kinda hard for me to really pinpoint. there’s a lot of different aspects that I like in each one. my favorite album is Ab-Soul’s Control System.
Semcity Chris: my favorite era of hip hop is the hyphy movement. Mac Dre, E-40, Keak the sneak, and Mistah fab. I was inspired by HD, Joe Blow, and Philthy Rich.
Keese Sama: I looked up to J. Cole and Kendrick, they really put on for our era.
they can’t really say that we got trash music with them around. I’m really inspired by them and the people in the bay like E-40, Short, Scary X, Dangerous Dame – I like they music.
NimSins: when I first really got introduced to hip hop it was east coast stuff that I liked. It’s easier to find east coast music online than it is west coast. for east coast shit, Method Man, ODB, Cornmega, and Nas for me. I like Keith Murray. for the west coast there’s Seagram, the Luniz, and Too Short even though he born in LA. when I grew up I was listening to all the E-40 shit, One Love – we grew up listening to I Got Five On It. my biggest inspiration for hip hop has gotta be Seagram from 65th village. RIP Seagram cause’ he was in the hood and he told intricate stories.
ovrkast. : inspiration for beats -Knxwledge off tops and Tuamie. for rappin’ I don’t know.
joviul: like me and silas said we always been open musically but the 3 people that stuck out to me were Schoolboy Q, Goldlink – i love the groovy funk sound, and ODB – I was a big ODB fan, and maybe Busta Rhymes.
Keese Sama: we all fucked with Wayne when we were kids. when he was doin’ the mixtapes like Drought 3 – GO DJ THATS MY DJ, that was how my rap life started. it started with listening to the stuff my aunties was playin’. Hot Boys, we was listenin’ to that and as I got older I got to the solo Wayne, the Carters and all of that.
artisintheyes: what’s lofiction working on right now?
NimSins: right now we workin’ on the lofiction group tape so that encompasses all the rappers. then joviul and ovrkast. rappin’ too. we got dephkhan, eighty9s, and dutch beats in there too, but it’s primarily the rappers with beats produced by joviul and ovrkast. we got a lot recorded but we just gotta mix stuff. we building a studio in my backyard. by the end of next month we gonna have a frame of the studio up. we got a couple tracks recorded so far.
ovrkast. : im workin on a rap album called Therapy and three beat albums.
joviul: I was working on a big project that got pushed back so now I’m doing some smaller projects. one w/ NimSins and another one called Speak that’ll consist of 5-6 beats that’ll be dropped with other singles so ima try to put out at least 12 songs before I put out my album.
NimSins: on some funny shit, joviul and I got a techno beat that we gonna collab on. I got an EP I’m doing with ovrkast. called Me vs. Me.
Keese Sama: I got a few projects. we got the group project, one w/ dephkhan, and then also my own EP called Millenial Hippy. I been working on it for a minute now, about a year.
Semcity Chris: I got a lot of tracks recorded right now. I’m not dropping anything til’ after the lofiction tape. No L’s video comin’ soon feel me. lofiction bout’ to take over this summer, that’s all i know.
artisintheyes: I feel like being involved in music has brought me hella memorable experiences, do ya’ll have any to share?
Keese Sama: one good story was from when we was at first friday and we just seen some fans. they was really shoutin’ us out like, “lo fictionnn”. I had dropped a single and there was some people showin’ me some love and I got to take take pictures with them and stuff.
NimSins: the funniest experience was probably in the studio cause’ there’s hella of us and that makes some bullshit always happen. we recorded, “You Lose” at Chabot, good ass studio (shoutouts KC and Jeremiah). we took hella long recording the song. like people was messin’ up they verses, it was hella hot. we took like 3-4 hours recording that song. we found out we needed to re-record verses. joviul was like, “bruh you don’t even got a pop filter on the mic.” jeremiah was like, “aw we been doing it wrong the whole time!!!” so keese is sweatin’ like “bruh im not doing this shit no more”, chris went to go eat. on top of that, when we did finally record it, jeremiah left the group (no hard feelings), so we had to re-record the whole thing AGAIN without his verse!
ovrkast. : my funny memory was at the orange radio party. demahjiae had a girl grindin’ on him. there was a girl in front of the girl demajiae was with. I went behind that girl and we ended up grindin’ for like two seconds. they ended up bumpin’ heads, looked at each other and left. but my all time favorite was the video for, “No L’s”.
joviul: me and Chris always had this little slap boxing rivalry. I was like all right we gotta go toe to toe. I’m slappin him, he’s slappin back. I’m runnin backwards. I fall backwards on my ass and in the video it looks like he just two pieced me. Keese and them went to do a performance. I told Chris, we gotta go again. I pieced him up and somehow he just folds over like some paper in the wind. he flipped, and I was just like. “you trippin”!
Keese Sama: that shit got posted on Facebook. I ain’t even gon’ lie Chris.
(everybody busts out laughing)
Semcity Chris: It was funny because joviul was like, “how much I got in my bank account?” I guessed $65, but it turns out he actually had -$65. long story short, he roasted me pretty bad. but we don’t take it too personal. it’s all love.
artisintheyes: what’s next for the crew and do ya’ll have any last words to share?
Semcity Chris: I know lofiction is goin’ all the way to the top. it’s like a different force. we are a unique group of individuals. we’re gonna change the game. our lyrics and beats are so eccentric that you can’t even categorize em’. that’s how I know we goin’ straight to the top.
Keese Sama: I feel like lofiction is very unique in what we do. we’re not just musicians, it’s producers, it’s designers, it’s people who wanna be film-makers. we all got our own style and our own approach. we’re all different. we’re a group of creatives out of practically different worlds.
NimSins: the approach we have to music is true to our roots. most of us based out of the East Bay but we want our approach to be more global so we have an impact on everybody. we wanna bridge the gap between music and the society of today. we’re not tryna rap on some corny shit like, “kids stay in school”. that is our motive, but we wanna make shit that even your grandma can understand. we want it to be accessible to everyone. we wanna make music for people who are in school, people doin’ the right thing, people doing the wrong thing.
we wanna be able to take this music anywhere. my last words are related to unity. my goal for kids and whoever’s listening are to always learn. everybody’s always a student so never stop learnin’. for black kids of today, take a spanish class in middle/high school. after you learn spanish, you can learn french, and after you learn french you can learn arabic. latino kids, and southeast asian kids and pretty much any minority group, take an african american studies class. all oppressed people should know each other so we can come together better.
joviul: that was some strong and powerful words comin’ from Nim. I think I can do anything I want to. it’s all willpower. with anybody in the group thinkin’ that, nothing can stop us period. it’s whatever we want it to be. that’s it.
ovrkast. : I want lofiction to be represented as a group of individuals who set the boundaries to do whatever you want and not be restricted in any box and just be free as an artist. cause’ we listen to any genre from ODB to playboy carti.
Keese Sama: I wanna say that I really believe that we can conquer the world if we do it right.
joviul: I thought of a quote on our way here. you gotta love to live and once you love to live you live to love.
NimSins: shoutout dephkhan, shoutout eighty9s, sela, 4D, chef Lee, and Jimmy cause’ most of the pictures and videos you see from lofiction are from jimmy. Jimmy work for the Raiders too so he always busy. eighty9s and dutch live in Frisco and sela live in Vallejo so shoutouts to everybody.
(while NimSins is finishing his last sentence, a slap battle between Semcity Chris and ovrkast is goin’ down)
Semcity Chris: my last words is stay blessed stay humble no matter what you doin’. I done had so many hardships but I had my karma come to me. I’m in the process of transformin’ myself not just musically, but also as a person. never forget where you come from, never forget what you can do. never let nobody tell you that you can’t do nothin’, because you can do whatever you wanna do.
NimSins: ya’ll kids better stay out them streets! here’s my political stance. race is a social construct that affects the reality that we live. depending on how you look dictates how you gonna get placed in society and how you gonna live. if you go to Haiti, people revolted against oppression and their country is poor. Venezuela, they’re dark, they speak spanish and there’s no food out there. my message would be for people to always learn, stay on top of it because there’s a lot of that’s happening in the world that’s out of our control. it all starts from understanding. it’s bigger than you. we live in america in the hood but we got heat, we got running water at the house, and enough money to get food from the store so that’s really what it be. it’s a whole world out there, don’t get stuck at all.
Keese Sama: man, fuck these brands. for these young kids man these brands mean nothin’. you can make your own. that’s why i mess with Lavar Ball and Alonzo Ball. He’s a guy who goin’ into the NBA with his own shoe. in my opinion I don’t like the way the shoe look but I respect the hustle. that’s what the “american dream” is about, creatin’ your own. and that’s what we doin’. that been on my head for a long time.
artisintheyes: word, thank you everyone for sharing. again, I wanted to thank everybody in lofiction for comin’ out. I’m hopin’ we can get this series off to a good start. I’m looking forward to seeing what’s to come for lofiction the future.