More than a decade ago, four Cimarron-Memorial High band students did not decide to start a live jam band. And they had absolutely no intentions of developing a solid reputation, using a unique-for-their-age mix of funk, blues, jazz and hip-hop stylings to carve a niche and become a staple of halftime performances and school assemblies.
“It just happened,” says Jonathan “Jon D” Owens, the rapping half of SoMobe. (The name riffs off a jazz term for “cool.”)
Roland “Bob J” Llapitan picks up the story: “We met in middle school. Jon played the saxophone. I played the trumpet. We played whatever we felt. In high school, we had two other friends who played with us. We were purely instrumental, no vocals. I can’t remember when we decided to become a band. It wasn’t a conscious decision. But we became popular. Our first real gig was at [the now-defunct] Mars Music store in 1998. Then we started playing around town. We eventually opened for Cameo, Naughty by Nature, P. Diddy and War.”
Such has been SoMobe’s circuitous route that the group’s career has largely been defined by chance and happenstance. For instance: On the day they were set to open for War, the keyboardist quit just hours before showtime. It began a domino effect. Suddenly, four became two. Though they don’t keep in touch with old members, Bob J says there are no bad feelings.
And there shouldn’t be. At least on SoMobe’s part. If their recent release, The Great Communication, is any indication, perhaps ties should’ve been severed sooner (my words, not theirs). A funkified, jazz-influenced hip-hop album heavy on lyricism and topical rhymes, it’s easily one of the best projects ever to come out of the 702, every bit the equal of The Chapter’s Us vs. Them. As with other things SoMobe, the album just kind of, well, happened.
“When the drummer dropped out of the band, we wondered where to go from here,” Jon D says. “At the time, we didn’t know how to produce or record. We figured out we could put together a studio and work on songs. We thought about doing an EP or demos. But no one respects them anymore. They respect full projects. We recorded an album, but we threw it away because we weren’t satisfied with it. We didn’t feel it contributed to music. So we lost a year of work. Then we went to work on The Great Communication.”
Listening to Detroit wunderkind Royce Da 5’9” inspired Jon D to write rhymes. Both members pitched in on producing. The obvious comparison is to another group composed of a black and an Asian, Virginia-based hitmakers The Neptunes. But Jon D, a 23-year-old African-American, and Bob, 24 and Filipino, are distinct in their own way, direct descendents of the witty, fun-time era of the Native Tongue movement (A Tribe Called Quest, Jungle Brothers, De La Soul).
“Doing hip-hop like this is really kind of new to us,” says Bob J, who grew up listening to The Beatles and got into the music via Biggie and Tupac before embracing empowerment types like Talib Kweli. He’s a year away from getting his journalism degree from UNLV. Jon D was weaned on Parliament, Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye. “We were a full band doing different stuff, but the band stuff always had hip-hop influences.”
Neither Jon D nor Bob J expected such positive feedback for the album. Nor do they necessarily believe the hype. Says Bob J: “We’ve got good reviews in Scratch magazine, Entertainment Weekly and online posts. We’re wondering if people are just bullshitting, lying or trying to make us feel good. It’s not going to go to our heads.”
Though their best success to date has come as a hip-hop duo, shades of their past still unexpectedly creep out. “The way we perform now,” Jon D says, “Bob plays bass, we have a guitarist and a DJ. We will get to the point of doing some things to incorporate a live band. Having a DJ and live band could be cool.” Once a band, always a band.