Amoeba Music

Equipto celebrates 25 years as an independent solo Hip-hop artist with a live set and signing of his new album, Someone’s Everything, at Amoeba SF on Thursday, June 27th at 5pm! With DJ True Justice and special guests Michael Marshall, Monk HTS & Gennessee. Purchase Someone's Everything or any new Equipto album from Amoeba SF and get it signed after the show.

Someone’s Everything is produced by the legendary Gennesee of Noble House. Nine tracks of boom bap, sample-driven, bass-heavy songs that are all based on different subjects and concepts in Equipto’s past, present, and future. The album features Ryda J Klyde, Michael Marshall, Monk HTS, and more.

Ilyich “Equipto” Sato is a scholar of the microphone. That means he knows the history of the instrument and can bring it to life at any moment he chooses. This enables him to make all kinds of Hip-hop co-exist simultaneously. Central to this is a deep awareness of how to implement his vocal instrument, and ride a beat in such a way that he can both become part of the music and still stand out, both on a track and in a world where every voice is clamoring for attention.

But there is more to Equipto than those things. He is more than an MC who goes hard, resurrecting sounds and visions of days gone by. He is a free-thinker with eyes on the future and a gladiator who backs his words with actions. That places him in the tradition of musicians whose warrior spirits are apparent both in their music and daily lives, and it enables him to bend the limits of what an MC can be and do.

The Frisco legend first broke musical ground in the Golden Era of the 1990s with the equally legendary crew Bored Stiff. While worldwide fame eluded the Stiff, their '90s releases encapsulated the classic SF sound, and propelled them to underground fame and tours around the world in an era where few had the chance to travel and spread the Frisco rap gospel. Transitioning toward solo works and collaborative projects, the 2000s saw Equipto making collaborative records with the Bay’s finest: Andre Nickatina, Opio of Hieroglyphics, and Berner. Just the breadth of these three projects shows his ultimate versatility: the Bay Hustler, the revolutionary journalist, the weeded wise-man.

Equipto has helped younger artists develop their craft, while throwing shows combining national and local acts in the underground tradition. He has also continued to tour the world, building on an impressive resume of U.S., European, and Japanese tours.

And for all that, these superlatives do not tell the whole story. There is the measured mysticism of his lyrics, the reverence for the beauty of the struggle, the revolutionary mind-set that infects his inner circle and listeners, the forays into poetry and entrepreneurial spirit. Beneath this all is the quiet strength and compassion that informs his work and that of his collaborators. Equipto, and by extension his musical body of work, speak out against the oppressive nature of our time with an optimism that makes a new world seem very possible and much more than a dream. These are the gifts he presents us. We are given what should be a simple task, to accept them.