BeatzByLans
(e-Autobiography) Real Life
(e-Autobiography) Real Life
1. iNtro to BeatzByLans
Music found Me and I'm grateful, I was born with a talented musical spirit. In 1985 When I was roughly 9years young I managed to get hold of a red SONY walkman. I used to love listening to cassette tapes on the go of what I recorded off the radio from my mum's Hi-Fi and I used to go through her record collection putting on those records like Gladys Knight & The Pips, allot of MOTOWN Supreme's etc. Even stumbled on some Michael Jackson, Studio1, D-Roy and Green Sleeve's, HawkeYe Records vinyl! That was when I actually got into Rap n around that time Slick Rick n Dougie Fresh put out The Show and La Di Da Di. Heavy D, Roxanne Shante n some real ol'Skool Electro Hip-Hop was hot then. Time Westwood used to be on capital radio in them days n the pirate station's was always about but that was who was mostly playing the Hip-Hop.
Practically I started out in 1988 by messing around with vinyl records 7" & 12"s buying old funk, jazz, Soul & R&B/Rare Grooves by saving up my lunch money for 1 week at a time, using my paper round money etc. I was also a Big, Big Michael Jackson fan in my younger days (Who wasn't), that's when I picked up some good old original Soul Funk going into the Motown, epic, polydor, SugarHill, Prism, Blu Note Records flava etc. I was digging in the crates in Paul For Music, Wired For Sound, Music Exchange and other record shops over London on a regular basis meaning weekly for years probly 10 years from 88-98 but I never actually stopped buying records as I'm a Producer. It's just I was actively digging in the crates for that 10yr period! The list is endless.
This is where my musical talent took a craving for development, which in turn needed an outlet? I started to produce musical compositions by scratching in the sample then recording it onto cassette tape (preferably Chrome Cr2)! in Deck A, stop the tape rewind back and route the sound thru Aux or Phono in to enable me to scratch a next sample onto Deck B from the Deck A playing, then create a loop into the layers, that would give me different parts like the chorus or drums and the bass loop together, then bass and main sample together etc! Yep best believe it there weren't PC's or readily available Macs then. Mainly it was Atari's Cubase & Akai Rack Samplers, 8Track Adat, Reel2Reel setups & Commodore Amiga's Protracker, Octamed setup's. 1988-1998 Yo!
From there me and cuba where making beat ideas together and also writing lyrics. We officially created 12 Stone Productions the production Unit in 1989 and then we officially began writing and creating ourselves into a Music Production Unit 1991. That was just me and Cuba. We where also heavily into the UK Hip-Hop Music scene back then! We then progressed officially into the Rap group 12 Stone. Kulture later joined 12 Stone in 1993 and Kobayashi in 1994/5.
BeatzByLans (e-Autobiography) Real-Life
3. FULL Bio
..................BIOGRAPHY Of MrLansunn...................
BeatzByLans (formerly: Mr G-Lansunn) was born in West London's St Mary's Hospital in Aug 1976. Little Lansunn was an only child and was moved from Northwest London when he was 1 going on 2 yrs young. He was moved to Hackney East London (London Fields/Broadway Market) were here Mr Lansunn (Wayne) was brought up by his mum (Tina) as a single parent family. It was not an easy living, trust! Lansunn has half brothers & sisters on his dad side who were brought up in Northwest & West London, off Harrow rd and Maida Vale, also other family in other various parts such as Kensal rise & Paddington & other parts of L.O.N.D.O.N. Lansunn was born with a talent for Music or should we say it was given to him by the Creator God above, which in turn Lansunn discovered and nurtured his god blessed gift! When Lansunn was 5yrs the young pop sensation called Musical Youth (Pass The Duchie) had the younger members of the group camp round at his grandma’s house in Maryland’s rd northwest London. This was some kind of hook up as they was all kids but that was the time when Pass The Duchie was blowing up the UK charts, so it was a bit of a hype buzz and mad fun for them youngsters! Still musically connected! Lansunn had an ear for music at an early age he used to listen to his mum playing the Reggae music tuning in to all the pirates and making nuff TDK tapes of David Rodigon(who she also met) & Pirate Station Shows, also playing the vinyls of the classic Motown, Supremes, Gladys Knight, and Stevie Wonder etc. Lan's uncle Laz was also the drummer to the UK Reggae track called Paradise Is in Your Eyes which blew up the UK reggae scene in 1985 with his mum getting an exclusive 10” Blue color vinyl copy. Due to mismanagement of the personal paperwork Lansunn's uncle never saw the profits of his labour that he should have got from that track! When Lansunn was 8 going on 9 he used to listen to the early Tim Westwood rap shows on pirates and Capitol radio fm and got into the early flava's of Hip-Hop, USA Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince, Kool Moe D, Roxanne Shante, MC Lyte, Heavy D & the Boyz, Biz Markie, Big Daddy Kane, LL Cool J, Run DMC, Dougie Fresh & Slick Rick etc. Lansunn used to record audio tapes and play them on his red walkman and experiment with the sounds. When Lansunn turned 11 years he also was a Michael Jackson fan (like most of us) but more diggin in the crates for the J5 Motown funk/souls. Also buying USA & UK Hip-Hop with the likes of Derek B, Silver Bullet, London Posse, Overlord X, Cookie Crew etc. Diggin in the crates begun and Lansunn knew allot about the years of the tracks and how to basically spot a good sample without playing the vinyl, but just by checking the production details and checking the front cover artworks. Lansunn used to go on vinyl hunts & battles with his partner in crime Cuba (Jason) and deceased friend Geoffrey by sometimes seeing who can gather the most obscure samples or different colour promo labels, or not UK release's etc. This way Lansunn gathered a large amount of vinyl at an early age. Roughly 200-400 various records by the age of 13/14. This included Hip-Hop US & UK and Jazz/Classical/Funk & Soul R&B/Reggae. Remember Lansunn has an ear for everything good no matter what type of music it is. When Lansunn moved on to Kingsland Secondary School (Dalston Shackle well Lane) in the year 1987 he hit the next level! Here Lansunn was in school with the likes of Ricky who was part of the UK R&B group Kruez, also UK Hip-Hop's Klashnekof was in Cuba's year, 1 year above Lansunn.ESP & Strappa & Funky DL was also 1 year below Lansunn. Wayne’s old time class mate is UK's DJ Natty and also Crimson Dexterity was in Lansunn’s year. From 2nd year up Lansunn began to get Musically Practical. G-Lansunn recorded an album at home with the music being made from Cuba’s Yamaha keyboard. Lansunn used the name X-Stone Cold for that project but later changed his name. Mr G-Lansunn also used to DJ scratch and mess about with some records on his Midi Hi-Fi and taught himself to scratch records & loop bits of records by scratching a sample & recording it onto cassette tape, then play it back on one deck and press the record button on the second deck and repeating the process, till eventually when he played back the 2nd tape deck it would sound like a long loop but sometimes would come out of sync!(this was before PCs/Macs, just Atari’s and Amiga’s) By now a name was needed for Cuba & Lansunn's progressive production duo unit and in 89 Cuba & Lansunn thought of the name 12 Stone Productions. Lansunn was brought up in Welshpool House where he lived on the 12 floor as an only child. The idea started with Cuba saying to Lansunn I got a name, first it starts here, on the 12 floor and also a universal number, the sound were coming with is solid (STONE), and we are producing heavy music. Basically put it all together and you have 12 Stone Productions! It was agreed and 12 Stone Productions was born. Cuba back then was called J-Loop and Lansunn was called Black. By 91 Cuba had left Kingsland School but Lansunn still had a 1 year to go and his name changed to dirty rat and Cuba’s name to Alke. During this last year at School Lansunn met Kulture as he used to reside across the road from Kingsland School. At this time Lansunn & Cuba were already writing songs & steadily progressing fully into the rapping element of MCing. Kulture was not writing or rapping at all even though he used to hold mic and DJ a bit over the then heavy Jungle sound and chat to reggae as a hobby. Cuba then progressed to Cordwainers College where the shoe designer Patrick Cox studied. Cuba knew a fellow classmate called Dan who at the time was using a computer called the Commodore Amiga 500. Lansunn's uncle Tony was also using a Commodore Amiga for video works and also had a sound sampler package called Perfect Sound which is an 8bit sampler box for the Amiga but Lansunn at the time did not know what it was and his Uncle was not using it. When Lansunn left Kingsland in July 92 he was already progressing heavily into the early elements of music production but now needed a computer to put sounds together. Mr Lansunn then progressed to Cordwainers College along with Cuba doing his 2nd year. Dan, Cuba’s friend happened to invite Cuba & Lansunn down to his crib where he let Cuba & Lansunn make a beat on his Amiga 500 computer with a 4 track sequencer package called Pro-Tracker v1.1. They made their first beat that took all night to construct and it was a work of magic, at last they made a beat proper.
This is where Lansunn's Thoughts began once again!!!!!!!!
From here Lansunn was on a mission to get this poppin and put word out? Lansunn's good school friend called Clint saved the year, yet alone the day. He happened to have a Commodore Amiga 500 which his mum was not using for a while and it was here where Lansunn obtained his first music building machine. He then approached his uncle Tony and borrowed the Perfect Sound Sampler, and then he got a copy of the Pro-Tracker sequencer from Dan. The puzzle is now complete. Lansunn and Cuba (12 Stone Prods) started to create some early bangers but it was not an easy road once again.
In early 93 Lansunn introduced Kulture to Cuba, by now Kulture used to fling some lyrics down at Lansunn's on the mic. Lansunn was progressing well with the lyrics and writing just like Cuba. They both used to help KK get into the writing and rapping element, but the sound of the UK Rap Scene at the time was not hot, but very dead and non-original in terms of BRITISH Identity as an English artist. It was mostly full of artists sounding and trying to be American as if to say they were ashamed of being an English artist which was giving the UK Rap sound/scene no substance, therefore making it weak and boring, compared to how it was just a few years be4 that. By 93/94 KK was officially crowned a member of 12 Stone Productions and due to the poor state of UK Rap 12 Stone decided to go into the microphone arena. It was here that word spread and Cuba's sister introduced the up & coming mic shredder Strappa Treece to Cuba. Strappa knew Funky DL and introduced Funky D to Lansunn & Cuba who had heard of 12 Stone's flava.
Being that Lansunn was the technical person dealing with the musical arrangements/sampling/mixing of the tracks it would be him who was mostly dealing with Funky DL. Young Funky DL (Naphta) used to go to his Uncle Chris's studio in Wanstead but wanted his own set up and it was here where Funky DL connected with Mr Lansunn (Wayne). Mr Lansunn showed DL the way forward by advising him to purchase a commodore Amiga 500. It was days of the Akai s900 sampler set-up only if you had the finance or links to obtain and or use that equipment. Funky DL had use of an Akai s900 rack sampler type studio set-up at his uncle’s studio and this is where he recorded his first album project among other stuff.
