Here’s something you might not know about Lyrics Born, the 34-year-old hip-hop artist and producer who began his career while a student at UC Davis:

He has yet to do a show at Davis.

“We were actually scheduled to do a Davis show, but for some reason it was cancelled,” Joyo Velarde said at the tale end of a telephone interview. “For the record, we have never performed in Davis and we’re really upset.”

Naturally, Joyo Velarde, wife and collaborator to Lyrics Born, is being a bit playful about being mad at Davis. Either way, it doesn’t look like either of them is mad at Sacramento State, with Lyrics Born (whose real name is Tom Shimura) headlining the Sac State Welcome Evening Celebration put on by UNIQUE.

The event kicks off at 6 p.m. on Friday at Serna Plaza, with international beatboxer Butterscotch starting the music at 7:30 p.m. Shimura will follow and be joined by vocalist Velarde, keyboardist Kat Ouano of the Crown City Rockers, drummer Darius Minnae, bassist Uriah Duffy and guitarist B’Nai Rebelfront for a one hour and one-half hour to two hour show.

“Man, we just get down,” Shimura said over the phone. “We’re just trying to have a good time. There’s nothing to it besides having fun.”

Touring the globe is natural for Shimura, who bounced around a bit even before picking up a mic.

He was born in Tokyo, moved to Utah and then off to the Bay Area as an elementary school student. After spending time at three high schools, Shimura went off to Davis in 1990, where he declared as a communications major.

It was at Davis where the campus radio station pulled Shimura closer to like-minded fans of hip-hop, which was still a growing, evolving genre that hadn’t yet had the mainstream success it has now. Jeff Chang, a UC Berkeley graduate with a bachelor’s degree in economics, hosted a hip-hop show on KDVS 90.3 FM under the moniker DJ Zen. He recalls talking his way into the DJ booth after a brain-zapping experience working in the Legislature.

In an effort to get more fans, Chang posted hip-hop charts at the Tower Records on Broadway. The list was based upon the music he was into and the requested music from his show. It was enough to bring in Josh Davis, who would later become DJ Shadow.

During this same time, Chang would have a “name that sample” portion of his show, where contestants had to guess the source material of samples off of hip-hop tracks to win free records or posters. One man would continue to call in and name the samples correctly. That man was Shimura.

“I just had to disqualify him because he would win every single time,” Chang said during a telephone interview.

Said Shimura: “Basically, he was like, ‘You know what? I can’t really give you any more stuff. Why don’t you just come down to the show and bring some records?'”

Shimura told his friend Xavier Mosley, who would later become Chief Xcel as one-half of Blackalicious, about Chang’s offer. Soon after, Davis, Shimura and Mosley would make full use of their radio station access. They would come into the station and would dig through the extensive KDVS record library.

“They’d all go off to the sound booths and take a stack of records in with them, basically looking for breaks on these different records,” said Chang, who has since become a writer and authored “Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation.” “It started getting really competitive. There were two sound booths, closed door-type of things. Josh and (Josh’s friend from high school) would go into one. Chief Xcel and Lyrics Born would go into the other.

“They would all have these stacks of records, and if you walked in on them, they would lift the needle up, turn off the stereo and they would cover up the records. It was really funny. They were doing this for a while and then, finally it got to a point where I was like, ‘Damn, y’all are like kind of stupid because you’re sitting here, hanging out, but y’all are trying to be so competitive with each other. What if we all joined up and did a label or something like that?’ Folks took to the idea gradually. Eventually we formed SoleSides.”

SoleSides comprised more members, including the Timothy “Gift of Gab” Parker, the second half of Blackalicious, Lateef Damount, who goes by Lateef The Truth Speaker, and others. Eventually SoleSides disbanded and was reformed under a different business model as Quannum.

Under the combination of labels, such classic albums as Davis’ 1996 “Entrophy,” Shimura and Daumont’s 1997 “Latyrx,” Blackalicious’ 2002 “Blazing Arrow” have garnered widespread recognition.

Shimura is no stranger to respect as a solo artist. Songs from his 2003 release “Later That Day” and the 2005 remix release “Same !@#$ Different Day” have popped up on TV shows, films and ads after positive reviews.

Each album has a distinct sound to it, distinctly hip-hop, but not afraid to meld in samplings and other unique sounds.

“I think ‘Later That Day-‘ was a concert record where everything was supposed to kind of tailor to this idea of a day in the life of Lyrics Born,” Chang said. “I think he wanted to do ‘Same !@#$ Different Day’ to free it up a lot more because he had the songs and then he had a whole bunch of new ones. They just work differently.”

Shimura added that he had the idea to work on a remix album while working on the original solo album. He saw it as a way to balace his solo studio project, almost completely written and produced by himself, against the remix album with guest acts KRS-One, Evidence from Dilated Peoples and E-40.

“I suddenly realized – it would probably be fun and inspiring for me to get outside of my shell, and that bubble, and start working with people again,” Shimura said. “‘Same !@#$ Different Day’ was just an excuse for me to be able to do that.

This year, he has hit several festivals through 2006, including Coachella, Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza and Langerado Music Festival. In the fall, Shimura will also join Cut Chemist for a nation-wide tour.

There are three projects he is currently focused on. “Overnight Encore,” a collection of tracks taped at two sold-out shows in Australia, will be come out on Oct. 31. The live CD will be accompanied with three new studio tracks.

“Over the past three years, we’ve probably done 400 shows, maybe more,” Shimura said. “The live album is the result of all that touring. I just want to document all of the work that we’ve done. All the great artists when I was a kid, that I admired, they all did live albums. I wanted to be a part of that.”

He is also working on the production for Velarde’s debut album, slated for release in either February or March of 2007. His next full-length solo album will release sometime later in 2007. Once those projects get completed, then there might be time for another Latryx album, likely in 2008, which would reflect Shimura’s goal of putting out an album each year.

“Every artist wants to be current with the scene, but at the same time, he wants to stay true to what he does as far as bringing a funky aspect to the music,” Velarde said. “I think right now he’s taking a step back and he’s really just trying to survey, ‘Where in this music scene now do I fit in, how can I be relevant with what I do but at the same time, be current with what’s going on?'”

“I try not to repeat myself too much with each record,” Shimura said. “For the most part, I try to just get the work done in such a way that I’m not being redundant. I want people to look forward to what I am doing.”

Nate Miller can be reached at [email protected].