Written by Amal Murni & a collaboration with Cacao Havana of Lambak Lord$
We are closing the two-weeks window of the Spotlight segment on Brunei's independent Hip Hop artists and rappers and there is no group better than the one we are introducing to you now! We are excited to share the story behind the impactful members of Lambak Lord$ and their refreshing take on the Bruneian rap scene as well as fashion. Buckle up, it is going to be quite a journey and I can guarantee that you will be a fan by the end of this article. Enjoy and have a happy weekend!
Lambak Lord$
Lambak Lord$ is a group of 6 rappers working collectively towards our goal to be recognised globally. We have Cacao Havana, Supahmiyagi, Hyundai, Yung Sylvester, Don Jib and Kanji Jones. It all started back in high school: Cacao Havana, Hyundai and Supahmiyagi started being friends since we were in year 9. Our music journey started together with a bunch of other friends who shares the same passion towards music as we do. Back then, we used to memorise lyrics word for word to songs made by iconic rappers like Wiz Khalifa, Mac Miller and the upcoming Tyler, The Creator. We were fascinated by the different wordplays that these rappers had that we decided to try and freestyle over some Youtube beats ourselves, just for the sake of trying it out and having fun.
The name Lambak Lord$ came up from the different sessions back in 2015 we used to have at our friend, Zulu's place which was obviously at Lambak. We used to hang out at his place every night, just chilling out playing video games and discovering music together. It was always 7-10 people, and every night we used to still do those freestyles over Youtube beats. We imitated a lot of rappers with their flows this time such as Young Thug, Travis Scott, Future and more. Our freestyles "evolved" in a way. Not just lyrically, but within style and flow as well. Not knowing where it can lead us, Zulu came up with the name Lambak Lord$ for the whole group. Inspired by A$AP Mob's constant usage of LORD$ during that time. The whole group has always been into the same thing: music & fashion.
"We would usually try our best to look the best, even though we would get criticised by the shit that we wear. Everyone had to look fresh to death whenever we went out. Which kind of drew attention to the whole group too. It's always been about music and fashion with us."
Supahmiyagi, one of the most lyrical freestylist out of all of us. He had the advantage of taking English Literature during A Levels, which was a very dark time for him. He fell down in a pit with all his emotions, he hated everyone and everything. He was just basically the saltiest motherfucker you can ever meet during that time. His hatred towards his school at the time inspired him to write lyrics with such style and wordplay that got everyone of us amazed by his ability to write. He used to write everywhere, he has lyrics written on his table, textbooks, sticky note pads. He once even didn't finish his paper during AS and wrote 3 pages worth of lyrics about how much he hated the education system in Brunei on the exam paper. We all saw a huge potential in Supahmiyagi because his execution and delivery was so strong you could feel what he was talking about. We started bringing him to our local record store, which was Do It Good Records at the time and that's when he would usually just spit out crazy rhymes and flow on impromptu beats which got everyone in the record store amazed. One of the guys decided to bring him in to a studio and recorded 2 songs which was released during our time in Indonesia. During that time, the rap scene in Brunei was really quiet so no one paid attention to his unique talent. But he kept writing lyrics just to express his feelings when he was still in Indonesia.
Yung Sylvester on the other hand had already started his rapping journey as far back as 2011/2012. He recorded his music through Garageband and recorded his vocals through an earpiece microphone. His music back then was mainly inspired by Mac Miller, who was one of the upcoming rappers in our time. His passion towards the whole rapping thing was so strong that he actively recorded his music until late 2016 where he almost decided to give up on the whole thing and focus on his studies because he felt like his music isn't bringing him anywhere.
Kanji Jones has always written his rhymes under the shadow. No one knew about the fact that he could spit with such powerful and meaningful lyrics. He used to just write lyrics as a form of therapy for him to release his thoughts. It became a hobby to him when he started to enjoy writing his lyrics, since he was an old friend of Cacao Havana, Supahmiyagi and Hyundai so he reached out to us and decided to join in the journey from there.
Now fast forward to mid 2017, Cacao Havana and Supahmiyagi just got back from Indonesia for religious studies. Greeted by the news that we're not able to go to college to learn Fashion and Business as that was what we initially planned since before we left for Indonesia. Our dreams were killed, feeling like shit, motivation wasn't there. We didn't know what to do, we had our plans set but it was all destroyed, and so were we. Until one day, I (Cacao Havana) stumbled upon an article about how Airbnb started. Which was so inspiring to the point I thought "Fuck a degree, I can do this shit without it". Especially with the knowledge we've all gained throughout the years of discovering music, fashion, and how the creative industry works. We knew Yung Sylvester was still quite active on making music at the time, so Cacao Havana and Supahmiyagi approached him. Offering Supahmiyagi's talents to be featured in one of Yung Sylvester's tracks as he already had quite the following which he agreed to do.
October 2017, Supahmiyagi and Cacao Havana arrived at Yung Sylvester's home studio where Supahmiyagi started to record random verses for hours. Looking for different sounds and voice that suits well with the persona Supahmiyagi tried to showcase. Hyundai came to the studio as well and started to write some lyrics, Cacao Havana did as well along with Yung Sylvester. We recorded the track on Garageband so the quality was very raw, and we wanted quality music. So we went on a search to find the right sound engineer that could help us put out quality music. There were a number of studios and sound engineers we worked with to achieve what sound we want.
We finally found the right guy when we were discussing with a group of videographers about an upcoming music video we wanted to make in the future. That’s where we met Adinosaurr, the main man behind our first mixtape. We started to discuss about music and the scene around here in Brunei. We got invited to his studio a few days after the discussion and started messing around in the studio. We did not have any solid verses ready for any song, everyone wrote their verses on the spot and recorded straight away, and that’s when Untitled 06 was born.
We didn’t know how much reception that song would get if we let it surface the internet, so we posted the song on Yung Sylvester’s Soundcloud which changed everything. We were getting texts and comments talking about how the song is really lit. Everyone was praising us and the main question of that time was “who are the Lambak Lord$?” The reception was crazy we were getting 1-2k listen in less than 24 hours for 6 months straight, and from there we decided to let the flame grow by coming up with the Lambak Lord$ Mixtape and creating more content for the public to see. Within time, we gained our fanbase in Indonesia and Malaysia. We also got sent videos of our music being played in clubs in the UK and a video of students in Thailand listening to our music which led to one of our first shows overseas which was in KL. That motivated us to make more material for the people who are into our music which is why we decided to expand the whole group, with two additional rappers like Don Jib and Kanji Jones along with videographers, photographers and editors to help us create more material and it opened to new opportunities to make content that was other than just music which birthed the our latest music video: 666 with Hyundai and Supahmiyagi on the track and more music videos coming your way.
"Although we don’t pay them in cash, we are all motivated to be the first successful group from Brunei to actually go global with our music and fashion and have big names within the industry."
So we are all motivated by the goal we all are trying to achieve. With Cacao Havana behind the business and logistics, Supahmiyagi and Hyundai being creative directors and Yung Sylvester being the face of our group.
Don Jib came into the picture a little later when one of our friends made us listen to him rap to some old school boom bap beat, we heard how he flowed and rhymed which sounded like he was a kid from the Bronx. He has flavour, attitude and charisma in his delivery. His lyrics reflects his lifestyle coming from the ghetto parts of Sungai Tampoi, Sengkurong with the aggressiveness and confidence in his tone and flow. We realised that his voice is what we needed in the group to make a whole versatile sound and style in our music. He didn't think twice when we told him about our goals for the whole thing and joined Lambak Lord$ in a blink of an eye, ever since then with his first track released with Cacao Havana and Supahmiyagi called "Who The Fuck Is Don Jib?" Being one of the most youngest and lyrical rapper, the sound and style he makes has shined a light towards his name for people to see, becoming the new face of Lambak Lord$.
It has been quite a ride since Lambak Lord$ started, we’ve been getting negative comments about our sound and style for being different and trying too hard to look cool which means only one thing, we’re on the right path. We came in the game strong and raw, we didn’t care about what people say about what we do because we do whatever we want to.
"However, sometimes going your own way doesn’t always mean everything is going well."
We did receive backlash about our music and lyrics since we started using racial slurs. We followed our favourite rappers too much that we started to use the racial slurs that they used, but not relevant to our use. We missed out on quite a number of opportunities just because of that. Bandwagon Asia were interested on writing an article about us and our music until they heard the racial slurs that we used in our lyrics, and we got cancelled.
Since then we changed and were more aware of what we say in our lyrics. It has also become a challenge for us to create more materials since everyone has day jobs, college or just things to attend to so it is quite hard for all 6 of us to meet and brainstorm new materials. We’ve strategised how that can be fixed and working on it, so hopefully in the near future we can continue making great materials and just keep being great in this industry.
It’s always a continuous lesson for us as we learn new things about the industry and how we deal with the different situations during our journey. We still don’t have a uniform sound for our music, as we’re really keen on experimenting the different sounds we can go for within the genre. Our bond within the group is really strong and will forever be strong, there are times where some of us feel demotivated about the whole thing but we always have each other’s back to motivate each other and push each other towards the goals we all initially talked about when we started.
For more Lambak Lord$:
Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/lambaklords
Instagram: @thevoidcollective
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