Introducing Leaf Dog/Lord Balrog/L.Lyricist;
beat-maker/producer/rapper and all round promoter of fresh original talent and
real music. Leaf Dog started making hip hop in 2004 when he dropped his first
release, 'Lost But Not Forgotten' at the tender age of 17, acting as the lead pioneer
in his first project with lifelong associate BVA MC and Brighton producer Naive
by the name of 3 Amigo's. The transformation from Drum and Bass MC'ing to Hip
Hop rapping was made after various cyphers at known hip hop night, 'Beat
Pimps'. Progression started accelerating after the group was formed; leading to them
releasing their first album, 'World War 3' in 2008 under their own independent
label Real Life Drama Records, opening the door for them in terms of recognition
on the whole UK scene. To date the record label has seen various releases
including both ‘3 Amigos’ albums as well as a solo EP from ‘BVA MC’, an EP from
collaboration group ‘2DaRoach’ and another solo EP from RLD new boy, ‘Smellington
Piff’. Leaf Dog led the whole label with quality production for the majority of
the products alongside younger brother and producer, ‘Illinformed’.
In the next 3 years, UK
Hip Hop saw a very healthy and welcome return onto the underground scene of
British music. Consequently this drew interest in from further ashore, reaching
out across Europe and even in the US and Australia, arguably fore fronted by
the launch of London based record label 'High Focus'.
Led and started by South London MC Fliptrix, High Focus quickly
started assembling its crew from the abundance of talent available to dedicate
themselves to the forward-thinking wordplay future of the UKHH (UK Hip Hop)
revival. This led to signings of other UK rappers including Verb T and Dirty
Dike, Jam Baxter, Ed Scissortongue - all formerly from UK super-group Contact
Play.
Leaf Dog stands out as perhaps one of the less praised pioneers of
this whole movement, with his endless ability to produce timeless sounding beats
intertwined with melodies from a vast range of genres including; jazz,
classical, r'n'b and blues. His first solo release on High Focus, 'From A
Scarecrows Perspective' launched in 2011 and immediately helped magnetize
interest to their crew from across the Atlantic; the debut release saw
immediate collaboration from American MC's Diamond D and Rampage.
In the same year UKHH group The Four Owls were created as a
product of four artists at High Focus; Leaf Dog, Fliptrix, Verb T and BVA MC.
The album included guest appearances from US MC 'Q-Unique' and was all
incredibly produced by Leaf Dog, who has since built up a respected
collaboration list with a huge range of US artists. Since this Leaf Dog has
gone on to form yet another group, ‘Brothers of the Stone’ consisting of RLD veterans
BVA MC and younger brother Illinformed ; leading to their first self titled release in the summer of 2013. With an abundance of talent and motivation, the
future is bright for this UK hip hop entrepreneur.
