This weekend seems to be all about some good underground hip-hop! Cool Hand Luc’s is kicking it off tonight with Ronin King, Liquid Lifeformzz and St.LowKey all performing live. See our interview with Ronin King Here and the event page Here.
Andre and LeMieux remixing their tracks live
Tomorrow night is the second in TwoThreeNine’s series of Saturday night shows at the Smiling Dog, and it’s a showcase for the Payup! Game label/movement, featuring Mouf Milly, Bang Boogie and Andre vs. LeMieux. The latter answered a few questions for us, so here we go…
239: How did you get your start in music?
LeMieux: I first became interested in playing guitar when I saw a KISS concert on HBO with my mom. She gave me an old acoustic guitar she had laying around and I started to teach myself how to play guitar…this was around age 9-10. I was always involved in school band until freshman year. I played clarinet in elementary school and then moved on to percussion–doing everything from snare, bass drum, xylophone, etc. I quit band after freshman year because i hated my instructor and wanted to move onto other things.Then in high school, around freshman year, I decided I wanted to record this metal band that I was in at the time called In Alcatraz 1962….so I started learning everything about recording and producing bands. After that I transitioned into making electronic music including hip hop beats.
Andre: I started out a fan like everyone else really. No crazy story there. Eventually I just started writing music and teaching myself how to format a song.
239: How long have you two been working together?
L: We actually met a little over a year ago through a mutual friend. After we met we immediately started working on music a couple of weeks later.
239: What is PayUp Game?
A: PayUp is a family before anything else. You can kinda pick up on everything we’re about by listening to our songs and watching what we do. We wanna include everybody in the lifestyle though, man. If you’re about the same thing that we’re about then feel free to yell ‘PayUp!’ at anytime. Haha.
239: Do you write lyrics and beats together or separately?
L: Definitely separate just because i don’t write lyrics. There are days where I’m writing a beat and it inspires Andre to write lyrics but when that happens he’s always working on lyrics and i’m working on the beat. We do give each other feedback on our own parts though. He’ll tell me he doesn’t like the feel of a kick loop or a synth part and i’ll tell him to change up the way he says the chorus but that’s about how far it goes. We stay pretty much in our own fields of expertise.
A: But then there’s situations that are pure destiny. The other day I wrote a verse and LeMieuX made a beat and we met up after class. He played me the beat and I rapped my verse and it was a perfect match. So, we just go with whatever happens.
239: What projects do you have in the works?
A:We’ve been working on a project since pretty much the day we met. It’s untitled right now, but it’s coming along well. We’ve been performing cuts from it recently and getting a good response from some dope crowds. I can’t wait for it to be out.
Payup Game Showcase, April 16th!
L:Andre and I are currently working on his latest mixtape. It’s been in the works for over a year now but we’re pretty close to finishing it. We usually play three songs from it during our shows. In fact, we’re going to be giving a little preview of a new song at the show this Saturday 
. After this cd is done we’re going to start working on a couple of different projects that we have in mind. I know Andre wants to do a small project with Mouf together and I’m going to be making a 5 song EP with Andre which is going to be a whole seperate project from what me and him do together now. Its not going to be how it usually is where i just make his beats…this is going to be more of a “band” i suppose where we’re both one entity. After that I’m going to dedicate all my time to finally release my own solo stuff but we’ll see how long that takes…
