Tracking with Logic

Orange County doesn’t come to mind as a traditional hotbed of hip hop culture. But the musical style has evolved and grown in its more than 30-year history.

Hip hop started on the streets of Harlem, but as styles and subject matter have diversified, it has broken out of New York and found its way into music collections worldwide.

Orange County-born hip hop artist Loose Logic will bring his brand of lyrical flow to Huntington Beach tonight.

Logic began producing hip hop songs and posting them on the Internet as a joke with his friends.

But soon those joking songs were showing up in the playlists of their friends.

Logic realized he wasn’t a bad emcee, and decided he was going to start making his own records.

“I’ve always been able to flow, I was always on beat,” Logic said.

Logic’s cousin introduced him to artists such as Dr. Dre and Tupac Shakur.

He said he learned to flow by learning their lyrics and rapping along.

His lyrics aren’t about being a thug or the streets, but rather the things going on in his life. Logic’s new album “Before the Storm” pulls inspiration from a number of places.

Logic admittedly has some party songs that are meant to be danced to, but he also has tracks that deal with personal themes. “R.I.P.” is dedicated to the memory of the rapper’s grandfather, while “Take ‘Em to Church” deals with Logic’s journey in overcoming drug addiction.

The goal, he says, is to produce an album with something for everyone to relate to.

“It’s kind of rare to find an album where you like every song on it these days,” Logic said.

Loose Logic doesn’t just write his own rhymes, he composes his tracks, too. He’s a graduate of the Music Institute’s recording tech program. He plays piano and guitar, which he records and adds to drum beats he makes on the keyboard. He then mixes his beats and lays his lyrics on top.

Logic travels Southern California playing live shows and showing off his own brand of Orange County hip hop. He hopes to land a deal, but says the music industry is changing.

It’s cheaper for record companies to sell one-hit-wonders that will be bought individually as singles online than to produce whole records.

“I would like to see it kind of go back to the days of the ’90s,” Logic said. “They’re looking for ringtone artists now.”

But until then, he’s perfectly content sharing his work with a live audience. Kerry Lovett of Hurricane’s said the bar is excited to bring in a hip-hop artist like Loose Logic.

“We thought Loose Logic might be the next generation of that genre so we wanted to give him a place to play,” Lovett said. “We like what Loose Logic has to say.”

Logic said he loves seeing fans at shows while he’s onstage.

“Someone will come up and want you to high-five, it’s pretty cool,” Logic said.

Who: Loose Logic

Where: Hurricanes Bar & Grill, 200 Main St.

When: Today and March 20

Cost: Free

Information: www.myspace.com/ looselogic, (714) 374-0500