Check Out Year of the Ox’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Year of the Ox.

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
Lyricks: I’ve always been a performer all my life. At a young age, my father would rent out small party rooms at Korean bars for his birthdays and put me in charge of creating a show for his guests. Whether it was impersonating family members, roasting my cousins, interpretive dancing to Korean oldies… I tried it all and the belly-aching laughter that I would receive would be my first taste of killing a show. This carried on throughout my youth and gradually, my stage fright was overcome with hunger for more. The typical music journey for an immigrant child is usually the piano and violin but I was introduced to the sax and blue note jazz at an early age. The improvisational aspect of jazz and my love for poetry made hiphop the perfect combination to fall into. After countless songs created in my bedroom with the mattress boarding the door so my parents wouldn’t barge in and lecture me after the weekly metro rides to DC to battle in the small DMV circuit… Lyricks was born. Korean. American. Who thought he was the best rapper in the world.

JL: My name is John Lee, I go by JL, and I was born in Fayetteville, NC. I moved to Virginia Beach when I was 3-4 years old and was raised there until I went I college. My parents came from Korea and my father owns “urban” clothing stores. I grew up playing instruments and also listening to the hip hop that would play through the radio at my father’s stores as I would visit there frequently and even started to work there as a teenager. I started rapping in college after meeting Manifest and Lyricks, who took me under their wing and taught me how to become an artist.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
JL: To be honest, it has been a fairly smooth road for me personally. I have been lucky enough to be surrounded by great talent and have been able to evolve as an artist with the help of those people. Being an Asian American artist in a black art form, I have seen some people have negative opinions about it but usually after hearing our music they tend to come around. Being an artist in a big city like New York and LA is always gonna be tough but I do believe struggling with income and getting shows is part of the process of becoming a great artist.

Lyricks: We came to America so you can smoke weed and learn Satan music?! This was the typical scolding I would get from my conservative, hyper-focused parents whose only mission in life was to turn me into a doctor or lawyer. The road to my successful music career was far from smooth. There were days of defeat. Homelessness. Existential nights. Disappointed ex-girlfriends and a refining of fire from my audience. The artist that I am today is a confident, comfortable and honest representation of myself. Growing up in a Korean American home, there were countless identity issues that I only recognize in retrospect and looking back now. When you’re living your life and growing up, you don’t recognize the duality as much until you’re able to step back and see everything from a 3rd party perspective. I found it difficult to honestly portray myself in my music when I didn’t know who I was fully myself. So there were a lot of doubtful and discouraging seasons during this development period where I was learning how to be comfortable and bold in my own skin. Before Lyricks I was K. TEEN aka MaddLyricks (angry Asian boy) and now I’ve graduated to becoming an OX. Unmoveable in my beliefs. Hardworking while humble. King.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
Lyricks: Lyricks is a wordsmith. I take what I see and feel in life and formulate a verse into a digestible, easy to listen format. I specialize in emotion transfer. An MC is considered the master of ceremony and I truly believe my gift is to bring that energy and synergy to my listeners/viewers. I am proud of my ability to talk about anything but making it relatable and cohesive to people of all walks. I am proud that I am respected by both my people (Korean) and also the forefathers of Hiphop for keeping it grounded and respecting the culture more than trying to opportunistic with it. What sets me apart is my definition of success in this industry. While this may not be the most popular mentality when it comes to business, I am more focused on my legacy and reverberation in this game than the flash and monetary success of Lyricks. I am not the only one who thinks this way but I’ve proven time and time again that I’m focused on the actual contents of the gift rather than the gift wrap. No pun intended.

JL: I am a recording/performing artist in hip hop. I consider myself a lyricist/rapper/songwriter. I’m very structure-based in my writing and song making, in that I like to have different parts and different levels in a song/verse(i.e., intro, hooks, verses with structured patterns, bridges). As a rapper, I like to think that my voice is strong and I excel in the delivery and flow of my lines more so than the punchlines and/or metaphors. I enjoy trying to come up with a flow pattern that I have never heard before. I’m most proud of the album we just released because unlike our other project, we were able to show our growth as artists and make actual songs instead of just a couple of 16s on a beat.

We love surprises, fun facts and unexpected stories. Is there something you can share that might surprise us?
JL: Something surprising people might not know about is that I went to school for business management (didn’t graduate) and used to own/operate clothing stores with my father. I decided to put it aside and move to New York to pursue music full time after we released Seven Rings in 2016.

Lyricks: One thing that may come off surprising to most is how introverted I really am. Being the loud and animated character in the group forces people to assume that I’m this party animal and naturally outgoing figure but in reality, I like my alone time and getting lost in my own thoughts. Coming from Virginia and being a latchkey kid with parents barely at home a lot of my creativity and artistry was derived from within myself. Although it’s wonderful to be inspired by the surroundings and peers around me… I always come back to the silence and shadows in my mind to create the magic.

Contact Info:

• Email: [email protected]
• Website: https://www.officialyox.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/officialyox/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OFFICIALYOX/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/officialyox
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCw7RrKdqIMddn-JpnOtnWPg
• SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/officialyox
• Other: https://transparent-agency.myshopify.com/collections/year-of-the-ox