About Me
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Wednesday July 23rd, I'll be performing alongside Dulok Shaman & Rheteric @ The Vibe in Riverside. $7 at the door, 18 & older with i.d.
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Then Friday July 25th, I'm back performing in my hometown of Lancaster, at the 'AV's MOST WANTED 6' show @ Uncle Sams:
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And the following Saturday July 26th, BC brings Afro Classics and Sirah to the Little Rock in Tarzana:
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And Thursday September 4th, Broken Complex throws a HUGE show @ Safari Sams in Hollywood with Awol One, 2Mex, myself and many more!!!:
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Here's the video to my song 'Get To Know You':
Thanks to Broken Complex for making it happen.
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Check out the trailer for my upcoming DVD...
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And here I am, training at Broken Complex bootcamp, for the upcoming release of my next solo cd 'SMALL TALK' this fall:
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OK, my music makes you smile.
Don't believe me?, ask Araceli...
That's me, y'all (the big guy). The other guy in the above pic is one of my producers, Ofcelfe.This is the cover of the cd I dropped in May 2004, entitled 'Audiobesity'. Very not bad if you ask me.
And now, a little something about the author...I'm an MC named CLEEN.
I'm in a crew called Life for the Better.
I finally uploaded some new songs to my page. Besides 'Get To Know You' I just uploaded 'No Good' they're both produced by DJ HOPPA of Broken Complex.
They'll both be featured on my next full-length cd 'Small Talk' which will probably be all done in Summer of '08.
I also flipped an old Ben Yomen/I.O.K. beat for my mixtape 'Asleep On The Speaker', and wrote something to it titled 'A Little Slice of Heaven' which is about how thankful I am for everything that I have...my crew, my fans, support from my family, hometown haters...everything. 'Asleep On The Speaker' is complete, but due to its limited quantity pressing (only 200 copies were made) it's only available at my shows.
And I had '99 Condoms' put back on here just so you people can see that I don't take myself as seriously as most LA rappers do. You can go to: www.lftb.net for more on THAT...
I'm kind of a smartass and you'll quickly realize when you hear me flow - I really miss early 90's Hip-Hop. I also used to enter battles. I battled for about 2 years (2005 through '06) but got burnt out quick, and now I don't really enter battles anymore. After a while, I just decided I wanted to be known for my song writing, instead of a racist punchline I said while I was freestyling, lol.
I'd also like to do more shows. So promoters, if you're interested in adding me to one of your show line-up's, hit me back & we'll discuss it. I'm willing to travel...
As for 'Audiobesity'... it's OK I guess. The few people that have it seem to like it, I just wish more people had it. Then there's my 2006 cd 'Old Man Winter' which got it's title due to my crankiness when I'm babysitting the younger members of my crew. I'm sort of like the den-mother of LFTB. Or wait, that should read den-FATHER...oh well, fuck it.
Here's what the cover looks like:
But in the meantime, in April of 2004, I recorded some songs with an old friend of mine PLURAL CLARITY
before he moved to Georgia. The 2 of us called ourselves Thee Unseen Tekneeks (cuz neither one of us look like rappers, which means our techniques are HEARD not seen...get it?) Anyways, we took our sweet time, but the cd is all done. But since the first run was just a limited pressing, it's also not for sale online just yet, only at my shows...Here's the cover:
No, we're not in the mafia.
I also made myself a profile on GIZMO (it's a myspace clone, but I can't seem to be able to update it!),
on BLOGGER just because the blogs I write on here aren't enough sometimes,
and I pretty consistently add stuff to my FLICKR photo page.
Check them out if you like...
...and the next time you go to a CLEEN show, get you some merch, fool.The Crew:
Demune, SoberMinded,
Cleen, & Cleen's Music Page,
Plural Clarity, Ofcelfe,
more Ofcelfe,
Check out some more of Ofcelfes beats here, speak. aka elephant gerald, Offbeat, Joshua Tree and
the indie rock side of LFTB
Hong Kong Kavaliers a.k.a. Shrodur DJ Jacko aka Noneuclidean, Johnny Teen Wolf aka The Booty King, and Brittany The Master Secretary, and ofcourse
Branded.
"If you don't understand something, call it art." - Lara Maldjian. And on that note...
The LFTB STORY
What Is Life For The Better?
From Cleen's Perspective
Well, I think it was the summer of 2001, and I had been going to the open mic nights at the Barnes and Nobles bookstore every month. Having been a solo emcee for a few years and since nobody at my job liked the kind of Hip-Hop I did, I was desperate for some culture anywhere I could get it.
Some of the people that would read would be grown-ass adults reading poems about their troubled love life or the aluminum siding on their house (seriously), but every month, I'd notice the same group of young people getting up there and spitting ill rap verses. Even the host, Yakeen from the The Simple Citizens, would occasionally freestyle (and come off like Supernatural, honestly). After just about every reading, I'd go up to those same young people, introduce myself and compliment them on their verses. And they would compliment me on mine as well. After a few months, we all sort of came to the realization that we were some talented-ass sum-bitches, and we might just have what it takes to start an underground movement out here in the Cadillac desert of Lancaster/Palmdale, California. So, a meeting was arranged.
My memory is a little foggy, but I think the guys that showed up were: Ben Yomen, Yakeen, Offbeat, Banana 9, Osiris Ka Plutarch, and myself. We came to the conclusion that we all had very different styles, but we all also had our fair share of talent. But you can't do anything without a name... So after about 10 minutes of bullshitting, Yakeen finally coined the phrase "Life For The Better". You see, we needed something that would produce goosebumps on the spinal cords of wack emcee's, but not something so negative, it would scare off club bookers. We needed gigs, because without gigs, we were just a bunch of broke guys who could flow.
My engineer at the time, Pete Emard, hooked up sound systems for clubs on the side of his steady engineering job, and one of the clubs he did sound for was Club Savanna, a club in Lancaster (my hometown). He told me to call his friend Jay, who was the booker. So I called Jay and told him what was up with us and that we could give him at least two hours of live Hip-Hop. He said we needed the approval of the person that ran the clubs day-to-day operations, some chick named Nameesha (forgive me if I misspelled your name). So I called Nameesha and told her the same thing I told Jay, and she gave me a day to come down to the club, do a walk through, and play her our stuff. I went to the club with Ben, Banana 9, and Con-scienz, and after doing the walk through, we all came out to my car and played her 'Witches Checkerboard' by Banana 9. We didn't have any crew songs yet. She ending up loving Evan's song, and gave us a date sometime in the next month. We had our first show: "Encyclopedia Organica, Volume 82". After calling fellow Hip-Hop heads Camp Life, and The Simple Citizens to fill up our three hour stage time, I must say we all rocked the ish out of that show.
After that first show at Club Savanna, we had such a good turn out, that we quickly got two more. We were all excited that we had a steady club that we could be regulars at, but, as bad luck reared its ugly head, financial constraints caused Club Savanna to shut its doors in early 2002. FUCK! Back to square one.
Now let's see, around the time we were in the process of promoting our first show at Club Savanna, Con-Scienz found himself working with some guy named Paul. When Con-Scienz told Paul he was an emcee, Paul told him he should meet his friend Chuck (Speak), because he rapped too. A chance meeting at McDonalds (or as Speak calls it, McMurder) soon followed with Paul, Speak, Con-Scienz, and Banana 9 and when the suggestion was made that Speak become a member of LFTB, the answer was a resounding HELL NO! But I eventually changed my mind...that was a joke.
As it turned out, I actually knew Speak from his previous group, El Rambo. A mutual friend of ours (and LFTB affiliate, Joshua Tree) introduced us right before he moved to Colorado three years prior to all this. But we misplaced each others numbers and lost touch. Its funny how life works out sometimes.
Anyways, Shrodur were apparently big fans of ours going all the way back to our first show as well. And they were already real close friends with Speak, so when he was ushered into the crew, he put in a good word for them. Honestly, since I didnt know them very well, I was little hesitant about saying yes right away, because they were an indy/alt rock band and for the most part, we were all rappers. Speak, Con-Scienz and Banana 9 all assured me they were tight as hell, but I still wanted to hear what they sounded like.
Well one night, Banana 9, and I were on our way to Hoague Barmichaels in Newport Beach to see cLOUDDEAD perform, and on the drive, he said he had a CD of some of the Shrodur recordings...holy shit! All my hesitancy was blown away - these guys were fucking dope! They HAD to be in the crew. Once they were in, Speak and Con-Scienz felt them so much that they formed a side project to begin work .. they were done with their Shrodur CD called The Sand People.
Not to keep back-tracking, but before The Sand People, Con-Scienz was in another group called Origin of Spirit. Origin of Spirit consisted of Con-Scienz and Elliptical M31 (that is what Banana 9 called himself until 2002), but they quickly realized that although they could remain friends, they just couldn't work together.
Anyways, around the same time The Sand People was set to begin work, a crew of non Hip-Hop related problems sort of fell in Con-Scienz's lap all of a sudden. And as we all know, family comes first, so Con-Scienz had to go represent for his family. It was sad not kicking it with the homie and not having him at any of the meetings, but we all wished he would work out whatever he needed to and come back to us, full steam ahead.
After a few phone calls, Con-Scienz passed the torch to Ofcelfe from D.V. ayshun to be second MC in The Sand People. And in the springtime 2002, Con-Scienz spread the word that all was calm enough in his family for him to return back to full-dedication mode in LFTB, and this time under a new name: Divided Line. We all welcomed him back with opened arms, he had finally found us a crew DJ, in DJ Stere0type.
A little while after we all got to know Speak, he told us his sister, Kelly Donovan, could sing and had made a CD a few years earlier. He also hinted at the fact that she also wanted to be down with LFTB. After we all heard her CD, and after Speak started making beats on his recently purchased SP-505, Speak said her new material would be on some tripped out Portishead-type shit, so then we welcomed 'Mean Girl'. (I call her that, because when we first met, she was really mean to me. Speak said that is her way of being nice, but I still prefer 'Mean Girl').
As of now, 8-8-02, Life for the Better is: Offbeat, CLEEN, Plural Clarity, D.V.ayshun (BenYomen and Ofcelfe), Speak, Kelly Donovan, Divided Line, DJ Stere0type, Banana 9, Shrodur and Osiris Ka Plutarch. Now, our roster is deep, and all of us are making some really dope music. I am very proud to be a part of this collection of creative, insightful, dark, brilliant, wierd, outlandish, poetic, eclectic, thought-provoking, reactive, comical, emotional, complicated, fun, musical....musicians. We are who we are. We are Life For The Better. And remember, we're here because the mainstream is polluted.
Peace...CLEEN
Update: Sometime in 2005, for reasons undisclosed, Speak changed his rap name to Elephant Gerald. Also, Kelly Donovan moved to Boston to attend college, and Osiris Ka Plutarch remains a 661 resident poet, but hasn't made a cd as of yet.
Update 2: In early 2006, Ben Yomen persuaded the core LFTB members to welcome Morb One into the fold, (so the two of them could persure their 'Beat Bums' project) as well as his friend from Hawaii: Demune. It was around that time that the band Shrodur decided to take a break from music. But the lead singer Alan decided to try his hand at Hip-Hop, so he (calling himself Non-Euclidean) and Offbeat formed SoberMinded and made an amazing cd in the process. Soon after, Dennis Torres (a.k.a. Divided Line) quit LFTB to become Muslim and persue Phillipino activism.
Update 3: In the spring of '07 Ofcelfe moved to Denver, Colorado and Demune moved to Portland, Oregon (both are still members in LFTB); but Evan Sosa (Banana 9), Ben Yomen and SoberMinded left the crew for various reasons. We wish all of them the best of luck.
Not long after that, in the fall of 2007 we decided to expand yet again by adding Precise1 (SoundTribe), June Howard and Rheteric to LFTB.
