The Last(o) Scraps

What does Lasto munch on throughout the day?

Fruits and vegetables. *laughs* I think it’s important that we get our vitamins and stuff and minerals. My best friend in the world is a personal trainer, for the time I was living in L.A., and we both bonded over our love of maintaining the body, I guess.

Random question. What are some of the artists you’re listening to, right now?

Empire of the Sun, there’s a couple of songs I liked that they did. I’ve been digging back to my Bjork cause she gives me that life. I listen to Blueprint 3. I like Drake. I like his little song, "Money To Blow." It’s such a well written ass song. Beanie Sigel, the project he just put out.

You’ve been performing for a year now. What has it been like performing across the country and what you have learned along the way?

It was really cool. Like, this was one of the best years of my life. I really did get to go a lot of places and meet a lot of people who were cool. It was just really cool. I learned that you get out of it what you put in, as far as performing. I’ve learned myself, through performing. You know, I learned that you have to keep doing it. You have to spend as much time performing as you spend making records, in order to become an effective performer. Cause every time I do it I learn something. I’ve also learned what I need in a performance. Like, these microphones with wires connected to them, like, I don’t even want to deal with them anymore. I need cordless mics. Call me what you want but that’s how I feel. Sound systems I’d like for them to be on point. But that’s not always the case. But they play such a huge part in how people are going to respond to the performance. Everything is about what they’re hearing and seeing. I learned how important it is to have a good sound system. I learned it’s not a foregone conclusion. You just never know what you’re going to get out of these venues. Also, I’ve learned more and more about how to put together a mix.

Many artists have spoken about the trial by fire that is having good and bad people around them. Have you dealt with that in the industry?

I regret some things being so wide open. But that's just the type of dude I am. But a lot of my wide open-ness has resulted in certain unnecessary-ness. And it's resulted in future unnecessary-ness to come. As far as the trial by fire, I think that nobody can protect themselves from bad people because they come in all shapes sizes and forms. And, for the most part, everybody's capable of bad or being a bad person, to you. People are different things to different people. Unless you surround yourself with no one, which is impossible in this shit, then you're just gonna have to deal with it. And I think I've dealt with it in a nice way, I guess.

You "pay it" well, as you say.

Yeah, I pay it well, like no one else. You know they haven't gotten rid of me yet. I lived.

For me, personally, I would say that my family gave me music. My father gave me soul, funk, rock and my eclectic side, my sister gave me hip-hop and my mother gave me the drive to want it. Who in your family gave you music in that way?

Well my brother is also a rapper. My father is not musicy at all. He's that type of person who, I'll have some shit on the radio and he won't be paying attention to it. He won't care what radion station I have it on as long as it's not rap. He's got an issue with rap, I guess. But see it's not even the musicality of it he just, "Why the hell it's gotta be talking about that ignorant...?" you know. So anyway it's not from him. My mother is pretty much indifferent to music too. But she's a little bit more musical than him. Since she's a minister, gospel is pretty much what she walks around singing and she's emphatic about it. I, myself, nothing against gospel, I just...There are some gospel songs that I really get into. Ummm *thnks about it* ummm what's that one? Anyway, so I would say it was my brother. My brother was the one who introduced me to rap and I hated it because...I don't know. I guess I didn't understand. I didn't get it. So when I first came into music it was on some R&B shit. The first R&B CD I ever bought was that Babyface. It was the Babyface album that had "This Is For The Cool In You" on it and ummm....

You're SUCH a 35 year old woman!! You were my mother!! *laughs*

*LAUGHS* You're too much. But I loved Babyface. That *sings* "This is for the cool." Like, that was my shit but, anyway. So yeah I used to be into TLC, En Vogue...sort of, but mainly TLC. I liked Brandy when she came out. I lost track after the first album until "The Boy Is Mine" then I lost track again. Aaliyah. You know, your typical gay boy which is a bunch of female icons. I could never get into the male figures. But then the Death Row...I really really got into Snoop and then it was just on and popping, I guess. I just kind of fell in love with it. But then I kind of fell out of love with it at the end of the 90's. Then I went off into a whole different direction and started trying to find other shit. That's when I got Bjork and my Portishead and my Radiohead and my other various heads. But it didn't mean that I was leaving rap alone. I was still fucking with rap at the same time. I love my Jigga, Eminem, Fox, you know. So I'm really glad that I did go find all those non-rap artists because it does give me that range. I get inspired from them, just like their techniques. You wouldn't think I would be able to because they're singing. Like the Bjork Medulla album taught me to use vocals in a different way. You'll see it on "Nevermind Me" (A song from Red Label) especially. That's the most Medulla inspired track that I've ever done. In particular that track, "Nevermind Me," is like an exercise in my vocal range because it's a bunch of different noises going on but they're all me. There's like a wide range over this industrial sounding minimal ass beat.

*Side Lipton: You can hear a snippet of "Nevermind Me" at the beginning of Lasto's Mondo Homo performance video HERE*