From 'Star Wars' to samba, Cut Chemist rewrites L.A. hip-hops playbook

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Set us as preferred After 30 years of innovation in the L.A.music scene, Cut Chemist’s résumé of achievements is too long to list.

Some highlights include producing and DJing for the famed rap group Jurassic 5, and his first solo album, “The Audience’s Listening” (2006), which cleared the top 10 on Billboard’s Dance/Electronic chart.And yet, as a self-described isolationist, said résumé might not exist if he were left to his own devices.“If it were up to me, I would just lock myself in a room and not go anywhere.

But people are like, ‘Hey, you want to come to Brazil?’” Cut Chemist, real name Lucas McFadden, explains, referring to teaching at the Red Bull Music Academy in São Paulo back in 2002.On that trip, fellow legendary producer and turntablist Madlib forced him to explore the city (they were sharing a hotel room).

“It’s like I’m being led around by other people to live life.”McFadden has been led to many musical benchmarks in his artistic evolution.In 1977, when he was 4 years old, his parents brought him to see “Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope” at the Chinese Theatre.

A few years later, in the mid-’90s, a friend beckoned him to make the journey from Hollywood to the South Bay to check out Good Life Cafe, where he saw his all-time greatest inspiration, L.A.alternative hip-hop pioneers Freestyle Fellowship.When Madlib led him out of the hotel room in São Paulo, all the samba schools were training rigorously for the Carnival.

A few years later McFadden returned to sample live samba for “The Garden,” the song from “The Audience’s Listening” that has nearly 11 million Spotify streams, the most in his solo discography.“I tie a lot of my musical choices to real-life experiences that I otherwise wouldn’t do,” McFadden says.“As I come back home and isolate, I romanti...