Whatever happened to Lucas?

Today I've installed an extra seat in my homemade Tardis (making it a total of two) so that I can take you back, well back, to a time when music came from Megastores and a time when it'd take you three and a half frustrating hours of waiting by your phone line to see a half a breast on the internet.

The year was nineteen ninety something (4) and we're going back to answer the question that's probably only ever been posed by very select members of my family and the man in question himself...

Whatever bubbles, bubbles up?

...what exactly happened to Lucas?
(If you're new to this site, you might not be aware that through this blog last year we managed to track down the legendary Steve Outtrim, creator of Sausage Software. Steve was even kind enough to drop by and leave the occasional comment which made things even more awesome - secretly we're hoping Lucas Googles himself and leaves a comment also...)

Yes kids, there was a time before mp3s - that's when your mum and dad bought shiny things that looked like drinks coasters and held about half of half a percent of what a small mp3 player might cart around today. These were Compact Discs (named because compared to records they were much smaller and easier to throw) and were sold in massive multi-level stores where strange smelling people from all walks of life forked over their hard earned for the latest best of albums.

Occasionally these stores had a massive glut of music that didn't sell well for whatever reason and those cd's were either given to the homeless as the worst biscuit you've ever sunk your false teeth into or more likely relegated to the cut price tables aka the bargain bin.

Nine times out of ten you'd end up with mountains of monster turds like so:

But once a year when druids did druidic things for the calender, goats died in vain and the moon turned a completely unmoonlike color, a gem or two would appear in the midst of the 2000 Digital Boy albums. Like so:

Wait..

Whoops, my bad, I actually meant this diamond in the rough:

Lucacentric by Lucas.
Don't remember him? How could you not remember the incredibly Jazzy classic LUCAS WITH THE LID OFF?? C'Mon and take your lid off!

(What you may not realize is that Lucas's amazing film clip directed by Michel Gondry was all one long continuous shot, meaning that he had a lot of lot of running to do behind the scenes...and it's still a lot more entertaining than most of the clips in today's Top 40. Incredibly while it was a nominee in the 1995 MTV Video Music awards long before Myley Cyrus got her twerk on, it was edged out by Tom Petty's 'You don't know how it feels')

One fateful day in the mid nineties when I was clad in the finest of fine Sweathog tracksuit pant, fortune flashed it's bits at me and I stumbled across Virgin Megastore's one and only copy of Lucascentric. To add whipped cream to this triple layered chocolate cake (and I still think this was an amazing mistake by an incredibly drunk staff member) was the fact that it has been slashed more than Freddy Kruger's sharpest work and was reduced to a dizzying low 99 cents.Yes, for less than a nasty bread roll at a cheap bakery you could enjoy this rare musical masterpiece. 

Bought purely on the strength of 'Lucas with the lid off', I took it home, fired up my over sized CD/Tape/boom box and slowly absorbed Lucas's brilliance over many a year. At first 'With the lid off' dominated my track selection but then other slow burning hits such as 'The Muted Trumpet' (expressing Lucas's love rap...and trumpets) 'Cityzen' (where Lucas likens his family to parts of a sprawling metropolis) and 'Spin the Globe' (an experiment in cross nations hip hop long before it was cool) really started to take hold. There was also rhymes about bubble gum, jazz and infectious fun. Part light hearted fun, part Lucas's life story, all awesome. 
Amazingly my brother still wax lyrical over the globe trotting adventures of 'Spin the globe' to this day, some mere 19 years later...allow us to share:

Copies are rarer than hen's teeth and if it wasn't for Youtube, it wouldn't be easy listening in to the turning point of 1994.

So with that fantastic foray into my eternal music collection and some chart success thanks to 'Lucas with the lid off', surely the future was super bright for such a fun loving rapper that didn't need Gin, juice nor a .45 to get noticed?

Well it was...for other superstars. (Maybe after the awesomeness he decided to give someone else a go?)

According to Wikipedia after Lucacentric was released our main man decided to turn his interests in another direction: producing. And boy did he get busy - check out who he has worked with!

Yes

Yes.

Wait...Aqua? Yes!

Yes? Awesome!

Er...thankfully no. Just seeing if you're awake.

Nowadays it seems Mr Secon is more than happy making others sound amazing and only ventures in front of the mic once in a millennium. (Wiki says there's a song called 'My Feet Hurt' from 2001 but it's lost in the deep sands of Google somewhere...) Personally even though they'll probably never be another .99 cent Lucacentric music changing bargain in my lifetime, I'm stoked to see him still going strong in the music biz.

Keep the lid of Lucas, always.