LBE HUNT HAS THE “IT FACTOR”
Photos & Words by Cameron Dorsey
Even in an age where it seems that accessibility is at an all time high, you’d be hard-pressed to find an artist that wears as many hats as LBE Hunt. Picking up rap during the peak of the pandemic, Hunt has also added graphic designer, engineer, and budding producer to his resume. Bringing the same passion that he does with his music into all of these other aspects of his career, speaks to the type of artist Hunt is pushing to be, and makes it evident why he aims to Lead By Example.
How did you start rapping?
When the pandemic happened, and I didn't really have too much to do, I just started freestyling. Calling my cousin and asking him to hear this song and hear what I got to say and he was just like you should take this seriously. And that's really where it came from, just being bored in the pandemic and it turned into a passion.
Alright, so that was actually my next question, it's evident that you're very passionate about your music and about your writing. So where did that passion come from?
Growing up, I already was in love with music and I was in love with a certain type of sound. You know, being the youngest child in a household where my oldest brother is 41, I really had no choice but to listen to that raw and authentic, organic Hip Hop sound. So growing up, I was always in love with that, even when I was playing ball in high school and in college, you know, music and basketball kind of go together. So, you know, just listening and dissecting songs and trying to learn these artists, it's kinda built in me, and not just me, it's built in my whole family for real. Coming up in the church, you know, we were singing in the choir and doing stuff like that, so I think we just have a musical family.
So you just released your latest project, Keep Smiling When I Come Around, in December. Talk about why you chose that name and what that means.
I just felt like no matter what you go through in this life, you just got to try to keep a smile on your face. And I feel like I go through a whole lot, a lot more than probably the average person will go through, and I always keep a smile on my face no matter what, I just want to be around positive energy. So that's why I say keep smiling when I come around because when I come around, it's gonna be good vibes.
From the outside looking in, you've received a pretty warm reception to the project, people are constantly reposting it and sharing songs from it, so what has it been like seeing the support you've gotten so far?
It's beautiful because you know, going into this project, I never put out an "album". When I think of an album, I think of the full package, not just dropping something on Apple Music, like the full package, the merch, the physical copies, the promotion, the playlisting, the shows. So coming into this project, I just wanted a different approach because prior to that, I put out six projects, but they were just projects showcasing what I can do, but I think this one has a real meaning to it. So coming into it, I just knew what I wanted to do. And I knew it was gonna be kind of big because of all the work that we put in, all the groundwork, all the shows and things like that. So I've been getting nothing but good feedback, people know the lyrics to my songs and people repost them every day, yeah, it's just beautiful.
So out of your whole discography, what song do you think you are the proudest of, like as soon as you heard it, you knew you had one?
Well, it's from this project because, like I said, going into it I wanted a different type of approach. So I listened to my previous projects, and I realized what I didn't do the greatest, so with this project, I wanted to have more lyrical content as well as hooks. So we kind of mixed it in, not just super lyrical, but not too many hooks like the previous project. So the one that I'm really proud of, and that I really listened to a lot has to be Work Loop because when I was writing that, I actually was at work on break, and I was feeling away about being at work, working overnight, and it was just it was a good way for me to express myself. So I feel like that's the one I'm most proud of because I was super vulnerable. And I was talking like everybody goes through that, being at work, not really wanting to be there, having another passion and other jobs outside of your nine-to-five, so I think it'd be Work Loop that's the one.
Earlier, you mentioned the merch and doing the physical copies and stuff like that, and for those that don’t know, you make your own merch in-house. So where did you get that entrepreneurial spirit from? Where it's not just the music for you, it’s the whole package.
So like I said, my cousin Don, Donovan Lynch, he put me onto a lot of stuff during the pandemic, I let him know what I wanted to do with this music thing and he just gave me a lot of game. Then when he passed away, it just made me feel like I had to take everything that he gave me and put it out to the world since he can't do it, so that's the entrepreneur side. I feel like he just inspired me he gave me a lot of game and now when it comes down to trying to make sales and things like that, I’m kind of on autopilot. But with this latest merch drop, I got more creative than I would usually get, and I enjoyed the creative process and just being a designer because I designed everything that I put out, so I think I found another passion in graphic design and designing clothes because one thing that we always gotta have is clothes, there’s always a market for clothes. So I think with the graphic design thing, I just really fell in love with the process more this time around.
So you mentioned not being too proud of your first six projects, what exactly have you grown to dislike about them?
Two of them I took down just because those were my first two projects and they weren’t mixed well because I was mixing them myself, which I'm also a good engineer, but I found an engineer who just focuses on engineering so he has a more professional sound than me so I kind of just stuck with him and let him handle that side. But I took the first two off because I want the first impression to be great, not something that's just in house. I don't like putting just anything out, I'm gonna give my all. But those are kind of like trial projects just to get my name out there, but we do have plans on re-mixing all the vocals to those and somehow, someday putting them back out. We might do it on a Bandcamp where you have to pay a fee to listen to it, because my first project is super personal to me, I spoke about my mom on that project so I just feel like that’ll have to be something that's in the vault and whoever really supports me and wants to hear the art can just purchase it other than being on Apple Music where they have to take cuts and things like that.
The transition into making a body of work rather than a collection of songs, was that a natural thing going into this project or was it a conscious effort to do so.
Yeah, I did a lot of studying before this project came out. Of course, a lot of people would still listen to the music and they liked what I was doing, but I studied a few artists who I felt like I could relate to and resemble. I listened to a J. Cole 2014 Forest Hills Drive. The album sounds like the cover art, you know, everything was in sync from that. And then I also was listening to Joey Bada$$, his 1999 project as well as his new one, 2000. That's when I really started working on the album, when his 2000 album came out in the summer, and I just took notes on what they were doing because I see them as great MCs, so if I want to be a great MC, I got to look at the greatest and they also can relate to the youth. Because you know, I can always go back and listen to a Illmatic by Nas, but times are different, you know, that was super raw, but I just feel like I can relate more to a Joey Bada$$ or a J. Cole. So I really paid attention to that, as well as the lyrical side that I wanted to display with the album, I listened to a lot of Benny the Butcher, Westside Gunn, the whole Griselda, and I saw how they were just dissecting words and making their words into images so I put all that in one and that's how this album came about.
You mentioned your cousin Donovan, rest in peace, you mentioned your brothers earlier, your mom, and being in the choir growing up and things like that. So what effect has your family dynamic had on you in terms of your music career?
Yeah so, 2020 when I first introduced that I was gonna rap, I was still playing ball in college. So my family didn't look at me as a rapper, you know, they looked at me as the ballplayer. I was still in school doing that thing, so of course I didn't expect them to be super supportive, but as time went on, they saw how things were going and they got super supportive. And they’re all super proud of what I've done, moving to another city, doing what I got to do out here, so they’re definitely supportive now. It's crazy that you mentioned that because my older brother, JB Lynch, shout out JB Lynch, he rapped for about, I'm gonna say 20 years, he was rapping before I was born. He's 18 years older than me, so he had been rapping. It's like now he sees what I'm doing and he just feels like he got a second chance at it, he can live that dream through me now. So he does a lot of mentoring, a lot of management things you know, he sends me ideas and we just chop it up every day, so yeah, that's definitely a good part. Even my dad, my dad's 67 years old and he'll FaceTime me and he'd be looking at my music videos, so it's all love with the family, all of our close friends. We're just trying to expand the brand, expand this thing till we can't no more.
What do you think is next for you? What can we expect from LBE Hunt this year?
I'm actually going on a slight tour, and when I say slight and small, I mean the quantity of the shows, it’ll be about four to five. So i’m hitting different cities, we got DC, we got New York City, we got Norfolk, Raleigh is in the works, Miami is in the works, Richmond, so that's, that's really what I'm looking forward to is this tour just to kind of expand the brand again. I'm also tapping into my producing side. This is something that's fairly new to me, but I always felt like I could be a producer because I just know music. Like I said, growing up, I was really in a musical family. So all I really had to do was learn the software to make these beats and that's what I'm focused on. So you're gonna get a lot of LBE production, right now mainly making beats for myself because when it's time for me to get in the studio or write or get creative, it's always like a certain sound that I look for that another producer may not have at that moment, so I feel like that will eliminate those types of situations, but it's gonna be a lot a lot more LBE Hunt production this year. My next project I'm thinking about, what I really want to do is I want to produce the whole thing. I don't think I want to make it like a solo project, even though I thought about it before but I don't think I want to do that right now, because there's nothing wrong with collaborating with other artists. So I'll say that it might come about April or May, I might be working on something new because that gives people five to six months to take in the last project but, yeah I'm looking forward to it being produced all by me.
LBE Hunt:
