Yams and Odessa Kane - W.O.R.D.

We just dropped the Yams and Odessa Kane album, W.O.R.D. which can be found on Spotify, Apple Music, or wherever you listen to music. The project includes 21 tracks and includes features from Scarub from the Living Legends, Pep Love from Hieroglyphics, Trapper Loc, and SVTTERBRVIN. Yams on the beats. Odessa Kane on the raps. This is W.O.R.D.

If you go back to the beginning of last year, Yams and Odessa Kane didn’t actually even know each other. They’ve both been instrumental in the Underground Hip Hop and R&B scene here in San Diego and they actually grew up in the same southeast San Diego neighborhood of Paradise Hills. Yams and Odessa Kane were both drawn to the emerging 80s and 90s Rap & R&B scenes and they were both independent artists going back to the Mid90s. Yams sang back then and Odessa rapped under the name Matrix in the legendary San Diego Underground Rap group, Masters Of Tha Universe. They both found success back in the late 90s where they started building up their names in the San Diego music scene which then spread nationally when word of their talents had spread. They were artists hustling to get their art seen and heard.

As their artistry evolved, Yams started to move to the production side where he loved beats from DJ Premier, Pete Rock, Large Professor, and more. Odessa Kane shed the emcee name of Matrix as he wanted to change directions and start pushing out more music as a solo artist. One thing was consistent though… These kids never stopped making music. And these kids never stopped making dope music. Yams has always been nice with the productions and the masterful design and Odessa is just one of those artists that you hear or see and go wow, this kid is super talented. And how do I play into it? Well, I’ve been a fan of both artists for a minute but it wasn’t until I heard Odessa’s song, “Sight to Behold” where I knew I needed to work with him. Put these cats together and you have Y/O.

I didn’t personally know Odessa Kane but he grew up with a lot of my friends from high school. I had reconnected with my OG homie Kim Salminao back in the UC High School days who grew up with Odessa Kane and his younger brother and fellow Masters emcee, SCVTTERBRVIN. Kim connected me to Odessa and from there we started building. At the time I didn’t have the vision quite yet for a Yams and Odessa Kane project but I knew I wanted to work with Odessa Kane so Kim introduced us. At the time, I was working with ProducerTrentTaylor as we were planning out his album with Fashawn. We had a dope verse from Fash on a track called “Empty Roads” and that’s when I told Odessa that we wanted to get him on the track. Then we eventually got Scarub on the track which was starting to lay the foundation of what was going to come. The song was made and then we shot the video in 3 different locations. For Odessa’s verse, we shot it in his hood with Yams and Ruben Gomez on the art direction. It was there were the bond was beginning to get built between all of us but most importantly, Yams and Odessa Kane.

We all quickly saw that there was a chemistry and the plan was put into effect. Yams had the fire beats… Odessa had the nice pen game. So over a nice sushi dinner in Clairemont, we started talking about working on a project together. No timetable on when it would drop. No expectations. We were all just some 90s hip hop heads who wanted to work on some art with each other. And from there, Yams started sending beat tapes over and Odessa started writing like never before. We had something here. From there we knew we needed a creative retreat as I had done in the past. So I called up all the homies and we aligned in Encinitas so we could start recording the Yams and Odessa Kane album.

It wasn’t just Yams and Odessa Kane though. It was other creatives that I wanted to get involved in this piece of art. I was going through a lot of mental health problems at the time and stayed high AF running away from my mental health problems that I really needed to address and I knew that I was burning the candle at both ends. But this music and being with my homies and pushing them to be their best has always done something for me. So I booked that crazy AirBnb which cost me a lot of money but I knew it had the perfect vibe for us to create. We had Crispy Akiyama who set up the recording equipment to capture the fire. We had ProducerTrentTaylor there as we were finishing his album and we still had some finishing touches to take care of. We had Errol Reifman there to play one of his many guitars. We had Ruben Gomez, Ruben Gonzalez, and Tareq Zaatari there to capture visuals. KevBoneSlice whipping up something nice in the kitchen for the crew to eat. Sandwiches from Sandwich Stop Deli aka the Tarazi fam. Scarub rolled through to drop off his verse and kick it with the crew. Trapper Loc was there with the posse and dropped off a fire 16 on a track. Then we had all my homies and my big bro there to complete the vibe I set out to create. Collectively this was a community… This was family. This was W.O.R.D.

Those days in Encinitas were much needed. Not only did we get to work with the music and the vision but we all kicked it with each other. Mid90s is a lot to me but instrumental in it all is a big mental health component. Working on art projects together and coming together as a group is often lost as we grow older but I wanted to disrupt everybody’s daily routines and get them away from their day-to-day. That Encinitas Airbnb lit a fuse for the Yams and Odessa project. We kept building.

Crispy Akiyama was instrumental in this whole project. His energy is one that helps bring people together and without Crispy, I don’t know where this project would have gone. Crispy passed the engineering baton to Rocky R3y who is Odessa Kane’s right-hand-man on his sound. So now we had another creative into the mix. The songs kept flowing… The tracks kept getting knocked out. The sound was coming into form. We had a full length album on our hands and we were collectively getting excited. But we kept building… Features like Pep Love and SCVTTERBRVIN were getting added to the mix. We strategized at Ruben Gomez’s pad to listen to the album… It was dope. Tareq came through with the “Salute” visuals and Ruben Gonzalez joined us to capture the scene with his great photography. Ruben Gomez laid the early foundation for our look in some early photoshoots which would later be a part of the album cover. And then at the very end of the planning to drop the album, Odessa brought his videographer Chris G. Cleary into the mix who brought the fire visuals of “Roll Out” to the masses.

We dropped 3 singles for the project which were “Salute”, “Stigma”, and “Roll Out” and through us dropping these singles, we still hadn’t finished mastering the project and didn’t have an official launch date for the project. While deadlines are often needed, rushing a process is about the worst thing you can do. Artists need to cook but at the same time, we’re all balancing our 9-5s, our family time, exercise, mental health space and everything in between. And let’s be real… If we push a project out that isn’t truly finished, it won’t hit your ears the way we intended. It won’t have the sound we aspired for. It just wouldn’t hit the way we needed it to. So “Fade Away” became our 4th single but not in a typical kind of way. Instead of a traditional music video and a single drop on the DSPs, we filmed a behind the lyrics kind of video to give you some background of how the track was made and our overall process. Shout out to Chris G. Cleary one more time here… We shot this in his garage and dropped it 2 weeks after it was filmed. Pushing creative boundaries on this project.

At the end of July the album was finished. The artwork was done. The visuals were ready. We set the album release date for 8/8/25 with 8/8 symbolizing infinity. While music has a release date, it doesn’t need to be consumed upfront. It ages like fine wine and we’re just getting started. So now that it is officially Friday, 8/8, we give to you the new album from Yams and Odessa Kane, W.O.R.D.