Pomeranians, Jimmy Buffet and Gansta Rap

      When I pulled up to Big Lo (James Lopez’) house in a small suburb of Milton, FL., the six-foot-something bearded Spanish-American was standing outside, rockin’ an ODB t-shirt, basketball shorts and flip flops, smoking a cigarette as he waited for his Pomeranian, Buster, to finish peeing. 

 

Considering most rappers seem to have a certain affinity for pit-bulls, I knew Lo had something different to offer.

     He offered me a beer and led the way to his “lab”, an average size bedroom currently housing his recording studio made up of equipment that he has accumulated over the last 10 years. He estimates the net worth of everything in there to be about $20,000 but says he paid closer to $12,000. 

     “One of the next things I wanna put in [the studio] is one of those lounger sofas from the 70s,” Lo said. “See if I can find one at a thrift shop and maybe have it reupholstered to match in here.” 

     Something I noticed about Big Lo right off the bat was, while he is obviously a hard-working business man, he also likes to chill and just have a good time. 

     One of the DJs that travels around with Big Lo, DJ Bodyslanga, remembers the first time they met very well.

     “I hit him up on MySpace back in the day, asking him if he wanted to come rock a show and he said yeah,” DJ Bodyslanga recalled. “He showed up in pajamas.”

     Big Lo has had some crazy times on tour. From blowing mass amounts of coke in Vegas with Spanish chicks, to blacking out at the “All-3-Coasts” hip-hop fest in Atlanta and waking up in a hotel bathtub, the guy likes to have fun. 

     There’s more to Lo than a gangsta party though. He attended the University of West Florida and dual majored in philosophy and religious studies and went on to get his master’s degree in humanities.

     DJ Bodyslanga says that that is one of the main things that separates Big Lo from the rest.

     “He’s hella intelligent,” DJ Bodyslanga said. “His music has substance. Sometimes he uses big words and shit and some people don’t understand what he’s sayin. So he kinda comes off like a dickhead sometimes. And I gotta remind him of that all the time. I’m like, ‘not everyone is as educated as you, dude.’”

    The fact that he completed college doesn’t mean he hasn’t had his share of hard times. In 2004, Hurricane Ivan completely blew the roof off of his apartment in Pensacola and flooded his car. He has also had the luxury of dating a psychopath.

     “That relationship didn’t work out,” recalled Lo. “It was actually a really bad, violent relationship. I got stabbed, so yeah. I was like, this isn’t gonna work, this is going bad.”

     Since then, the rapper has managed to find his “better half” and married her in August of 2012.

“I definitely found my better half and I got lucky and she’s super supportive of the music,” Lo said. “She can’t trip ‘cause I work a regular job too so it’s not like I’m one of these starving artists.”

     Big Lo’s wife holds down a job as a general manager for their local Denny’s while Lo juggles jobs as a part-time roofer, part-time cab driver, and full-time musician.

     Unlike some rappers, who don’t put any effort into their live performances, Big Lo and his crew make sure to give it their all.

     “That’s probably why we get along so much with the punk crowd,” Lo said. “We take this more seriously as musicians rather than being like, ‘oh we wanna be hip-hop artists and be on MTV and make millions of dollars.’ Nah, I wanna impress motherfuckers with dope-ass live shows and then if we get enough fans where we make a million dollars, then hell fuckin yeah. If not, then at least I know I didn’t sacrifice all my integrity as an artist.”

     Beav Kenoyer, a booking agent for The Handlebar, one of Pensacola’s music venues, has always appreciated doing business with Big Lo.

     “He’s fairly laid back for most of his shows,” Kenoyer said. “He doesn’t really demand any amount of money or any special things. He’s very easy to work with.”

     Big Lo has been into hip-hop, essentially, his whole life. His first record was Kool Moe Dee’s, Knowledge Is Power. In fifth grade he and a childhood friend performed Snoop Dogg’s hit, “Who Am I,” complete with choreographed dance moves for the school talent show. They came in first place.

  

   Although his first album was hip-hop, that’s not all Big Lo enjoyed.

    

 “Musically, growing up, I was all over the place,” Lo said. “I’ve never been one of those people who only listen to hip-hop or only listen to rock. I hate that shit. I’m probably the only person you can quote in an article who calls themselves a rapper and says, ‘yeah, I fuck with Jimmy Buffet.’ I love good music and that’s across the border.”

   

 

     Jay Glock, also known as Inferno, is a local rapper/producer who helped to produce a large portion of Big Lo’s newest record, Magnum Opiates. Inferno says that the album is unlike what most people would consider to be “Southern hip-hop.”

     “We’re from that 90s golden era of hip-hop where complexity in your lyrics made the difference,” Inferno said. “We’re from the era where everything wasn’t cat-in-the-hat-fuckin-mother-goose raps.”

     With so many people claiming to be DJs and rappers these days, Big Lo doesn’t really even like to associate himself as a “rapper”.

      “I don’t even like telling people I’m a rapper anymore because it’s been so depredated,” Big Lo said. “We take our form seriously. Like we show up like, ‘yeah, these are real turn-tables and a real mixer and we’re about to really rap for you.”

     Big Lo is a big fan of Spanish and Eastern European crime films and that is basically what Magnum Opiates is. As Inferno put it, “Lo is an audio-visual fuckin cinematic rapper. [Magnum Opiates] is like a movie from front to back.”

     Keep up with Big Lo from his website, www.biglohiphop.com and make sure to pick up a copy of Magnum Opiates and make it out to one of his live shows when he’s near your area.