KidSyc’s moment

Come late July or early August, KidSyc will be Indiana–bound to claim his prize in the 2010 Sweetwater Song Contest. KidSyc is the alter ego of 25–year–old Lloyd Harold, a songwriter, rapper, record producer and graphic artist. He also runs the sound design program at AWOL (All Walks of Life) and teaches art at Pooler Elementary.

His song “Snapshot” won the Grand Prize from Sweetwater, a pro audio and music retailer in Fort Wayne. So he and his freshly–minted band, KidSyc@Brandywine, were awarded eight hours at the facility’s top–of–the–line recording soundstage.

“It’s still a while away,” Harold says, “so we get to ride that excitement wave all through the summer.”

“Snapshot,” with the easy flow, hooky, incessant beats and rapid–fire lyrics on KidSyc’s well–known local mixtapes and CDs, took the big prize over hard rock, pop, country and other kinds of tunes, from independent artists all over the country.

The band includes Daniel Butler on lead guitar, Charles Hodge on bass, Lane Gardner playing keys and Derrick Larry on drums. From Atlanta, rapper Speakeasy and keyboard player Def Steph contributed to “Snapshot.”

“It was actually the first song we had completed together and had mixed down,” Harold explains. “The deadline was a week away, so I entered that. After that, it was up to us to get downloads from friends, fans, family and all that stuff – the downloads counted as votes, and the more votes you got the more you moved up on the list.”

They got into the Top Five, winning a big box o’stuff: ProTools, studio monitors, keyboards and software, a total of $2,500 worth of home studio equipment. After that, it was up to the judges.

For the Indiana gig, the band plans to rehearse like crazy up until the moment they hit the road.

“I’m trying to get some of my friends that are in the Atlanta area to come up to Indiana,” Harold says. “Let’s get as many people as I have creative admiration for involved in this thing, and let’s make it a renaissance for real.”

KidSyc@Brandywine hasn’t been together all that long – “Snapshot” is part of a freshly–minted CD called The Rapper Next Door – but Harold says the band plans to bust out on Savannah stages this summer.

Still, hip hop with a live band isn’t all that common.

“Our bass player coined the term ‘living hip hop’ instead of ‘live hip hop,’ because everybody plays more than one instrument or has more than one talent,” he explains. “It’s a really organic experience every time you see it – it’s never gonna be the same show twice.”

A new name

Say goodbye to the Indigo Arts Center. Although JinHi Soucy Rand’s Louisville Road venue has been a great success since it opened early this year, she’s never been totally happy with its name. And so, as of July 1, the place will be known as Muse Arts Warehouse.