Louis Logic

Louis Logic started rapping at a young age but it wasn't until he attended Penn State in the mid/late 90s where he recorded his first release, "Logistics 101" which ended up being the B-side for his first 12 inch, "Planet Rock" featuring L-Fudge. Banking L-Fudge's popularity on Jedi Mind Trick's Superregular Records in 1998, Louis started gaining notoriety. He released a series of 12 inches "General Principal" featuring J-Treds (with the widely favored B-side, "Factotum"), "Loudmouth" and "Guilty As Charged" while making connections with artists such as Jedi Mind Tricks (landing two guest spots on the now classic, "Violent By Design") as well as others. In early 2000, Louis released his first album, "Music To Drink By", largely composed of his 12 inch releases. His album garnered mild fanfare but his off-kilter flow and dynamics left him with a small fanbase. Frustrated, Louis Logic went back to the boards and started remodeling his lyrical style in favor of more complex multisyllable rhyme structure and darker humor, and lost some of his "underground" curtails. During this period Louis's releases became more sparse but cropped up lesser 12 inch releases such as in 2002 Cage & Copywrite b/w Louis Logic b/w Vakill & Juice - 'With Us b/w Resume b/w Urban Legend'. Meanwhile Louis's peer group changed slightly, instead of Vinnie Paz and the Jedi Mind Trick family Louis expanded to Celph Tilted, Majik Most and most importantly JJ Brown, a young up and coming producer with an ear for cheeky yet complex melodies more suited for Louis's new found humor. In 2003, Louis Logic released Sin-A-Matic, which gained extremely high praise, and even as recently as March 2006 on Artofrhyme.com was refered to as "maybe the best independent Hip Hop album in recent memory" as well as earning him #10 on the top 15 albums of 2003 at Rapreviews.com. His new found style drew many comparisons to Eminem because of his rhyme structure and more notably his topics such as joking about abusing women, murder and among other inappropriate things. While Louis vocally sounds little like Marshall, Louis has always shown an affinity for Em's lyrical deterxity quoting him "No need for alarm, just remain calm" on Postal and even early in his career as "I used to be a loudmouth". The immediate comparison turns off some hip hoppers including his sometimes rap partner Apathy who surprised artofrhyme interviewer with his neglect to mention him in in an interview until asked about him. "Louis...I don't have anything to do with Louis. He was always more Celph's friend, I never rocked that tight with him. He was cool at first because he was more of a hip-hop MC. Then he started to get a little funny throughout the years." Aside from comparisons, Louis Logic's complex witty lyrical flow has been the subject for internet message board arguments with fans often listing him as one of hip hop's best, sellout, stupid, genious and everything in-between. Louis even took time to mock the fickleness of hip hop fans who often are guilty of the "indier than thou" and too quick to assign labels to their music with Fair Weather Fan, as one of the unfortunate downsides of success in an indie market comes a level of increased critism. Louis also mixes politics in music and most surprisingly shows a very high aptitude for relationships from a male persceptive with his Idiot Gear. Despite Louis's success on Sin-A-Matic, he mentioned that he couldn't make another album only to have it ignored by more major publications. Louis Logic in 2004 released along with partner in rhyme/sound-a-like Jay Love, "Odd Couple" which had mixed reviews. In December 2005, Louis got his break landing a record deal with Fat Beats along with JJ Brown for "Misery Loves Comedy" which was completed on February 10th and released June 13, 2006. Misery Loves Comedy made the rounds for reviews to a much wider audience as PopMatters, IGN, Okayplayer, HipHopDX, MVRemix and All Music Guide unlike his previous solo LPs, partly due to his new label and his previous Sin-A-Matic. Sonically JJ and Louis abandoned previous hip hopisms to make way for a cross over sound geared to fit topics of relationships, friends and drinking as opposed to battle raps and political statements that filled Sin-A-Matic; reflecting his departure with the Demigodz and newfound friendship with Travis from Gym Class Heroes. The album received mostly positive reviews, but failed to live up to Sin-A-Matic as many reviewers cited JJ Brown's production as the weakest link. Post Misery Loves Comedy, Louis Logic has been working co-writing JJ Brown on his first solo LP to which Louis professes "You guys will be surprised how much J. has learned about rapping in the last 6 months. The kid could outshine most of the guys making records that I hear. You'll see."