One of San Jose’s emerging hip-hop collectives, Kid Lords have had an electric year in 2024. The crew—consisting of Tb Payback, Menasce, Xev Nebula and O2 Tony—has performed back-to-back shows and changed studios.
Taking inspiration from music legends such as Gorillaz, Black Eyed Peas, Lil Uzi and LMFAO, Kid Lords formed in 2020, during the pandemic. But their history goes back much further.
More than bandmates, these childhood friends went to the same schools, grew up on the same street and shared a tight-knit bond—even considering each other as family. The name Kid Lords actually originated back when they were in the third grade as the name of a secret club created by Xev Nebula.
“There was this clothing brand called Breezy Excursion around, and I saw it and came up with the idea to create my own clothing brand, and I named it Kid Lords,” Nebula says. “It was like our secret club, It was a play on words to the Lords of Dogtown movie. Though it started off as a clothing group, we didn’t even make clothes—but we still kept the name.”
In high school, making music was something that they all dabbled in as a hobby. But it wasn’t until the Covid lockdown, when the world came to a halt, that these friends realized they all had a talent for making music.
“We went on a Tahoe trip after we graduated high school in 2020, and we were freestyling and realized we could all rap,” Payback says. “I was like, Menasce is fire at making music, Xev is fire at making music, I’m starting to get fire at making music, and Tony can rap. We got something here.”
After discovering this shared passion, they decided to pursue music seriously—and they have made some thunderous noise ever since stepping on the scene.
Being from the greater Bay Area, where hyphy music is the staple, it was almost expected that as local artists they would focus on making music that piggybacks off the sounds of Too $hort, Mac Dre or E-40. But the Kid Lords are taking a different approach and coming with their own sound.
“We’re not really emphasizing on shooting people or robbing anyone. We’re pretty straightforward people, even though we did grow up in bad neighborhoods,” O2 Tony says. “We had the chance to stray into the gang life, but instead we are trying to symbolize in the Bay Area that, like, you don’t have to be a gang banger or anything just to make it. You can just be yourself.”
What makes Kid Lords stand out is their sense of style and swag. Each member looks like a video game character, paired with a soundtrack that’s a blend of such sounds as punk, EDM, trap and cloud rap. This group of rising stars has range, and every song they bring out feels like they’re sticking their hand in a mystery jar and pulling something out. You never know what you’re going to get.
Kid Lords’ biggest goal is connecting with their community of fans, and it shows at their live performances. Seeing all the swagged outfits and chaotic energy, it’s easy to tell that they have a strong fanbase.
“I think what makes us stand out is our sense of community—and our swag too—but I think I can meet really well-off people and they’ll tell us it’s hard for them to find their people. I think we found our people,” Payback says. “We focus on quality, we want quality people, quality merch, quality shows—we just want to be around good people.”
Kid Lords recently moved studios to GrowTheLabel, which they share with another San Jose star: the producer Dream Awake. Moving disrupted their moment, but they now have more equipment and more space, and they believe a shift in quality is coming soon.
“Getting into the new studio is a bit of a setback for now, but in the long run it’ll be worth it. We all work day jobs, and work on music on the side, but the goal is one day to make music our primary way to support ourselves,” Payback says. “Blowing up isn’t really our primary focus, I think we all want to be able to sustain ourselves mainly, but if blowing up does happen, then so be it.”
Each of the members is focusing on releasing solo music at this time, but the group does have a project in the works coming later this year.
“Right now we are working on making sure everyone gets pushed individually. We want to make sure everyone has their own catalog,” Menasce says. “Each one of us has our own skills and assets and things that we’re good at that, if we hone in on, will help us sound better when we come together.”
“I have a solo song coming out this Thursday, Aug. 5 called ‘1:35,’” Payback says. “Our new EP will have four to five songs. It is going to be very club-sounding. It will be Kid Lords Klub music, if you will.”
The group’s new EP, “Bender,” is already in production and is expected to come out in the fall.
For more information, visit kidlords.co.
