Tommy V (born Thomas Valencia) has been a longtime figure in the West Coast indie hip hop scene sometimes recognized for his deep singing style, honest yet comedic rap routines and whimsical production. Over the years 1997-2007 he has lived throughout Los Angeles, Montana, San Francisco, Humboldt County, Portland, Seattle, and Mexico. Aside from making his own numerous tape collections of four track recordings, "Homeless Tea Party", "Manual Labor Pains"
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Tommy V (born Thomas Valencia) has been a longtime figure in the West Coast indie hip hop scene sometimes recognized for his deep singing style, honest yet comedic rap routines and whimsical production. Over the years 1997-2007 he has lived throughout Los Angeles, Montana, San Francisco, Humboldt County, Portland, Seattle, and Mexico. Aside from making his own numerous tape collections of four track recordings, "Homeless Tea Party", "Manual Labor Pains", "Dust Collector", and "Who woulda thunk", he has appeared on many recordings with other artists including a notable 4 appearances on Awol One's 1998 album "Three Eyed Cowz - The Evil Cow Burger" and an appearance on The Shape Shifter's "Know Future" collection. In the late 1990s Tommy made himself a key part of the Bay Area's underground hip hop after years of working with artists such as Deeskee, Joe Dub (SFSM), Abnormal (Maleko and Raj The Administer), Araknophobix, Rashinel of Hobo Junction and many others. In 2001 Tommy independently released his first professionally manufactured CD entitled "Quarter Life Crisis". The cast of vocalists on the album included most, if not all, of The Shape Shifters, Dose One and Why? (Greenthink, Clouddead, Anticon), 2Mex and Xololanxinxo (Of Mexican Descent), Subtitle, and more of the cast of characters that Tommy had been known to surround himself with. In certain circles "Quarter Life Crisis" is considered to be a classic collection and a great representation of the La2TheBay sound. In that same year Tommy V linked up with Ceschi and David Ramos of Anonymous Inc. in Berkeley, CA and started what would become the band Toca with LA's Xololanxinxo. Between 2002-2007 Tommy released some CDRs including "Bus and Food Money","Fresh Produce", Four Track Folklore, and Toca's "Dancing With Skeletons" that showed his music developing towards something far more melodic and experimental with much more use of live instruments. In 2007 Tommy's band Toca finally released its self-titled debut. In 2009 Tommy plans on releasing his second professionally manufactured cd - mainly a bizarre collection of short, wild instrumentals with influences varying from Bossa Nova to Jazz to Cartoon Music to Hip Hop and Folk which Tommy has been developing over the last 3 years with a slew of musician friends.
