Spacebase Was The Place: The Life Of Ras G, Blunted Saint Of The L.A. Beat Scene
At sunset on July 30th, currents of fragrant incense wafted down a stretch of Vernon Ave. in the Leimert Park neighborhood of South Los Angeles. Outside the gated windows of a small first-floor apartment, a group of friends lit dozens of candles, remembering the life and playing the music of Ras G, who had passed away inside the day before at 40 years old.
To friends and fans of his music, that apartment was known as "Spacebase." You can navigate there via GPS, but the coordinates inside didn't adhere to any terrestrial cartographic system. It was so cramped — by shelves crammed with records, electronic samplers and walls of Afrocentric and Afrofuturist art painted in popping primary colors — there was hardly even room for a bed. Here was Ras G's creative sanctuary and muse; in interviews, he referred to Spacebase as his "brain."
"I never went to a music school, I never know what you need to know for music, all I know is the feeling of music and how it should be," Ras G said in 2015, when asked about his process. "I just utilize that with intuition. Out of body experience, spirit controlling the flesh."
Whether he was a or not, Ras G intuitively scored the dance of the cosmos with the beat-driven, speaker-devastating Afrofuturist instrumentals that
