When Lyrics Born appears on the Zoom screen for our interview, he’s wearing an apron, having just demo’d one of his recipes for Best of the Bay-winning cooking series. The Bay Area legend’s recording career spans three decades and includes a robust discography of singles, mixtapes, and full-length releases, now including two live albums.

But today we’re mainly talking with the man born Tom Shimura about food, about the forthcoming Season 5 of his YouTube series Dinner in Place and his decision to focus more on this and other types of visual media work.

Dinner in Place began as a weekly series shot on his iPhone during the pandemic and has grown to a fully professional production in what looks like Barbie’s Dream Kitchen, thanks to a combination of nonprofit funding and investing in himself.

“I like that, Barbie’s Dream Kitchen,” he laughs. “Does that make me Ken? Kenji?”

CHECK THE REST AT 48HILLS