Anyone who has seen Lloyd "KidSyc" Harold perform live would have to agree that his high energy performance, intellectual lyrics and creative style give him an edge in the Savannah music scene.
KidSyc uses his platform to create positive waves in the community, including supporting local artists, musicians and entrepreneurs. Here’s a little insight into the success and uniqueness of the engaging rapper.

Q: Are you currently working on any new musical projects?

A: I’m working on a few actually. I’m currently recording vocals for the new KidSyc@Brandywine album. It’ll be our first official full-length studio album. I’m also releasing a solo album in June called “AHA!” that has been in the works for almost two years.

Q: How do you think your music affects the community?

A: I see my music affecting my community when I run into kids I’ve taught over the years, whether in the classroom or at AWOL, or just a neighborhood kid that would ask for advice. I do my best to find ways to use my “super power” for good and end up attracting some cool opportunities to share my gift because of that.

Q: How does your style reflect your music?

A: My style is reflective of my music in that it’s always riding that line between quirky and trendy. I definitely pay attention to pop culture/fashion trends and take the parts that I like and make them my own by putting my own personal spin on things.

Q: Is there a distinct difference between Lloyd and KidSyc when you take the stage?

A: There is. I feel like KidSyc is who Lloyd wanted to be when he was younger. Believe it or not, I was a shy kid growing up. I just would draw a lot. Definitely not the most popular, you know? So, once I started rapping, I saw the respect and admiration that came along with that skill, and honed in on it. So, KidSyc on stage is the culmination of “weird kid turned cool.”

Q: What’s the ultimate message you want to send your audience with your music?

A: The message is dare to be different. Everything is boring when everyone is following the same trends and doing the same stuff. So, I’m either directly saying that in my music in some way, or exemplifying it with my style and my wordplay and things like that. Like any one can write a “love song,” but what if it’s about an apple and an orange falling in love, or something like that. Just finding a different approach can be a lot of fun.

More information about KidSyc and upcoming shows and projects can be found on his Facebook page, KidSyc, as well as his band KidSyc@Brandywine.

KidSyc has reached a lot of career goals since KidSyc@Brandywine formed in early 2010: grand prize at Sweetwater Music’s Gearfest, and winning the Georgia Lottery’s All-Access Music Search — which included a halftime show at an Atlanta Falcons game.

But this Saturday, the rapper will be crossing another goal off his list.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRLm1Y1R1Z8
Being a part of the brand new Square Fest, an all-ages music festival that will feature only Savannah acts, is special to KidSyc because “playing the Forsyth Park stage has been one of my personal goals since they built it.”

He views this event as a necessary addition to Savannah’s music scene because it “gives Savannah’s up-and-coming acts as well as buzzing local acts a chance to perform outside of the 21-plus scene of downtown,” he says.

The addition of another big music-focused event is a testament to how Savannah’s music scene continues to blossom, and KidSyc is all for it.

“Since I’ve become a part of it, I’ve seen some very different acts get a chance to showcase their talents,” he says. “Savannah’s art community seems to be very receptive to the many musical styles that the local scene offers.”

The slow but steady evolution of our city’s musical offerings can be related to KidSyc’s advice for aspiring musicians: “BE PATIENT. Staying consistent and not giving up is the way to make things happen. You, of course, must constantly work at your craft, but being patient is the only way to truly see the fruits of your labor.”

Being patient paid off for KidSyc, who searched for a year before finding the right live band to join forces with. They recently performed “for 40,000-plus people for Fourth of July this year in Atlanta, (which) was absolutely incredible.” That show was part of their prize for winning the Georgia Lottery’s All-Access Music Search, which also included recording time with Capital Records.

They plan to continue to push boundaries and themselves the rest of 2012, including a show at next month’s Fashion Night Out. KidSyc also has a new solo album coming out in September, and KidSyc@Brandywine are currently recording their first full-length release.

For their Square Fest performance, expect “the BEST performance of the night,” KidSyc promises. “Like I said, we have been waiting for the chance to play that stage for quite a while. We are going to make sure we bring the crowd alive.

“For those who have never heard of or seen us, it will be one of the most unique musical experiences (hip hop or otherwise) they have had. We always strive to be one of the most memorable acts in scenarios like this,” he says.

If there’s one thing KidSyc hopes you take away from his music, it’s this: To thine own self be true.

“Don’t let somebody else’s opinion — whether it’s wrong, right, cool, stupid or whatever — affect what you’re passionate about,” advises the 26–year–old rapper.

“Embrace going against the grain, not being the same as everybody else. Explore who you are, not being afraid to be a little quirky or have people look at you a little weird. For the sake of what you know is in your heart.”

KidSyc, whose real name is Lloyd Harold, is a working example of this philosophy’s success. He is a facilitator at AWOL, the Savannah group dedicated to keeping young people out of trouble by involving them in the arts. For three years, he taught visual art at Pooler Elementary.

Born in Atlanta, Harold spent his formative years at a progressive elementary school in Minneapolis. “I assumed every kid went to a school like that,” he says. “I thought everybody had to take a stringed instrument till they got to 6th grade. I never learned how to read music, but I knew where my fingers belonged and things like that.

“We had two weeks on each instrument. We had the ukulele, keys, trombone, just get little snippets of stuff, you know? It was really dope. I couldn’t imagine not having that piece of my life.”

With afterschool art, theater and music programs, he received a well–rounded education in creativity.

Which is, he says, why AWOL is the perfect fit for him. “I guess it’s my turn to take that and give it back,” he muses. “Keep the cycle going.”

As KidSyc, he fronts the band Brandywine, which pushes the hip hop envelope by combining Harold’s rat–a–tat emcee skills with live music. It’s organic, it lives and it breathes, and there aren’t too many acts who can pull it off.

On Jan. 7, KidSyc@Brandywine will unveil a five–song CD, The Capitol Records Sessions, with a show at Congress Street Social Club. Recorded over 48 hours last March at Capitol’s famed Studio B in Los Angeles, the CD was the grand prize in the 2011 Georgia Lottery All Access Music Search. KidSyc@Brandywine won in the hip hop category.

The songs — “Smile,” “I Don’t Care,” “Ask Them," "No Speaky” and “Get It” — are joint compositions, with Harold providing the lyrical content.

From “I Don’t Care”:

She said it was the same thing every day

Wish there was a way to make the eighth grade pass a little faster

‘Cause the slap in the face will hurt less than the words that made her feel like she was lower than dirt

Certain things she couldn’t change

But her peers couldn’t accept it

So her feelings were hurt

Words with just enough in ‘em to kill her self–worth

The 13–year–old girl in the song learns to journal her feelings of alienation, and subsequently declares

I don’t care what you say

I don’t care what you say

They say I’m oh so different

I’m like, I know I’m different

That’s why I’m so terrific

“A lot of it came from those three years I spent teaching,” Harold explains. “Especially as an art teacher, you get to see a child’s imagination at work. You get to mold that, or nudge it in a certain direction — you say ‘You’re really good at this, and you’ll probably be really good at this. And all I need to do is get you from Point A to Point B. And make it interesting along the way.’”

He’d already been making rhymes and beats and cutting mix tapes, but teaching “kind of shifted my perspective, with what I was talking about. Cutting out the fat, with arbitrary songs, the overly braggadocio songs, getting to the content of what I’m really trying to talk about.”

“I think I’ve kind of strayed away from trying to paint a picture of me as a ladies’ man or something. It just doesn’t feel natural.”

But will it be successful in a world of rap songs that sometimes glorify the “ladies’ man” — or things like the so–called thug life? The back alleys of the music business are littered with hip hop artists who tried to spread nothing but positivity and never got any sort of street cred.

“I think about that a lot,” Harold says. “You hear the stuff that becomes more popular and it’s almost like ‘Am I shooting myself in the foot trying to spread a message, quote–unquote?’

“I look at it like this: I’ve been given maybe the same type of super power these other guys have. There are certain rappers that you could see as heroes, folks that are kinda poor, the good–guy side. And there are other people that are spreading something that, even though it might be subtle, is really like poison.

“If you listen to this stuff every day, you let it sink in, and you act on the things that you hear in the lyrics, it leads to this poisonous, not joy–filled type of lifestyle. It feels good for the moment, but it’s overly negative.”

He points to “You Got Me,” the hit by the Roots with Erykah Badu, which laid a plain–spoken rap over a hypnotic, jazzy bed of music. “That wasn’t supposed to be a commercially successful song, but so many people gravitated to what was being said.

“I think that making music without having that in mind — both lyrically and musically — is what makes us who we are. That’s what keeps us from going that washing–down, selling–out mode.”

Anyway, he has no interest in chasing success if it means cheapening his belief system. “I’ve accepted the fact that if we have a song that’s really radio commercially successful, it’s not going to be because we tried,” he says. “It’s gonna be because there’s something underlying in the song that strikes a chord with people.”

Harold’s felt pretty much the same since he arrived in Savannah, as a SCAD freshman studying sequential art and sound design, in 2002. He took poetry classes, too, in order to boost his feel for syntax and cadence.

His first band, Soul Essential, combined rap with live music. When the group ended, Harold went looking for other musicians who wanted more than DJs, electronically processed beats and a sequencer.

He met Lane Gardner, Charles Hodge and Dan Butler – keyboards, bass and guitar, respectively.

“We’d been playing together forever and we were getting tired of playing rock,” Gardner says. “So we decided to try hip hop and see what would happen. We figured the first thing to do was get in contact with somebody who was already in the scene.”

Once they were introduced to Harold, all the tumblers clicked into place. Derrick Larry became the band’s drummer.

“I can only speak for myself,” offers Gardner, “but I’m tired of going to see just a guy onstage. It’s cool but it’s very one–dimensional.

“That’s not true all the way around, but in hip hop there’s something to be said for pushing the grain because nobody does it. Nobody really tries.”

Brandywine creates sinewy and multi–hued musical backdrops for their lyrical frontman. They call it “living hip hop.”

Dynamic, focused and well–recorded, The Capitol Records Sessions is an impressive sampler of the magic they make together.

“I think it’s going to make us look official,” Harold says. “We’ll feel a lot better about the product that we’re giving people, knowing that it’s the real deal. Going out of town now, we’ll make a bigger impression on people. They’ll be going ‘These guys are all about it. Why aren’t they signed?’

“I feel like we’ve arrived at the next step. This is the next chapter, and it only gets better from here.”

KidSyc@Brandywine