Marcus Yates (formally Oobergeek): July 2013

Marcus Yates may be working on changing his name from Oobergeek, to his God given name, but what isn't changing is his dedication and passion for what he does.

Marcus came through Portland, OR on his stop for Summer of Strange, the highly anticipated tour featuring Krizz Kaliko, ¡Mayday!, and Stevie Stone. I was extremely grateful to get to spend the day with Marcus during his stop, pick his brain on music, and get a photo-shoot done for him by Shawna aka Ms Bunny, a very talented Portland Music photographer. Marcus told me before we started, "Portland is one weird place, but I like it."
The day started out with us meeting up with Marcus at the Roseland Theater for lunch, and well, the rest is history!

Lettey: " So Marcus, formally Oobergeek, tell the world why you decided on the name change.

Marcus: "I just wanted to change my name, because my imagination is centered around Marcus, not Oobergeek. It's Marcus."

Lettey: "What do you think your fans will say? Do you think they will be accepting of it?"

Marcus: "I mean, I don't have a whole lot of fans, to be honest, yet. I appreciate their support and everything and I hope they understand. If they don't, well I still have to do what's right for me."

Lettey: "Do you think changing back to your given name will help with the confusion ,making you feel like it's less of a gimmick and more you?

Marcus: "Ya, I think it would."

Lettey: "Tell me about the tour. How are things going?"

Marcus: "I'm just soaking everything in. Just looking at all the views. All the different views of the different cities. Cities I wouldn't think to go to on the regular. Like hey let's go to Tucson."

Lettey: "Portland being your favorite city though, right?"

Marcus: "Ya, Portland is one of my favorites. Tucson was a good one. Santa Cruz was a good one. Ah, all of them were dope, but like, Santa Cruz and Tucson stuck out cause they were innovative a very innovative city, and I like that."

Lettey: "Tell me, how has your experience been in Portland so far?"

Marcus: "Uh, its been great. A lot of weird people. Weird is good, if it ain't killing nobody. I just love the vibe here."

Lettey: "What are your expectations for the Portland show? Have you seen the crowd yet."

Marcus: "I have not seen the crowd yet, but I expect Portland to be awesome, just because Lette and her sister are here."

Lettey: (Lettey laughs) "Thanks we are glad to be here too. Tell me a little about how you've grown on this tour, and what you are taking away from it when you're done."

Marcus: "Being around other artists and just seeing how they live, even like living on this bus with 12 people. Its just looking how people are, people you look up to and seeing how they live, its dope."

Lettey: "Can you tell us any funny behind the scenes stories from the tour bus?"

(A member Mayday yells out “don’t tell them anything..just kidding”)

Lettey: "What happens on the bus stays on the bus right?"

Marcus: "I mean we turned it up a few times. Don’t give this voice recording to Travis tho (Marcus laughs) We turned it up a few times. Everyone here is mellow, everybody is cool. Krizz just came off of it (previous tour), he’s resting right now. Everybody is cool."

Lettey: "What's the plan after the tour? What will you be doing next?"

Marcus: "I’m gonna make an EP. I am starting to work on some tracks right now. I’m working on the EP and I’m gonna get it done."

Lettey: "This new EP has a jazz feel to it, right?"

Marcus: "Ya its Jazz based, its really jazzy. It's not gonna be all jazz, but something jazzy in a way. That’s were I’m from."

Lettey: "Are any collaborations coming from this tour?"

Marcus: "Especially ¡Mayday!. Krizz of course, uh everybody on this bus. Yep, everybody on this bus. We said when we have time we’d find out about collaborations. When everybody is busy here, its hard to focus on plans. We’ll do it when the tour is done. We can play our beats out loud here for everyone tho. Everyone on this bus is dope."

Lettey: "Tell me about getting to get down with ¡Mayday!"

Marcus: "It was cool. To find out someone has that funk like you, they know how to get down."

Lettey: "What would you like to leave with at the end of this tour?"

Marcus: "A bigger fan base, more listeners and eyes and ears for when I put out my EP!"

Lettey: "Your Facebook likes and YouTube views are increasing dramatically every day. How do you feel about that?"

Marcus: "I think that is awesome. I really had fun creating that song with Futuristic and Krizz. When we met up, some tour they just got off of, it was amazing."

Lettey: "Can you tell me about your upcoming song with Tech on his new Something Else CD release?"

Marcus: "I can’t really say the title, but its dope. It's crazy. Man I don’t know if I should talk about it, but like some of the lyrics were like about manifesting things for yourself. Getting better as you get older. Some of them were taken personally."

Lettey: "Any finals words for your fans?"

Marcus: "Communicate!"

Marcus, myself, and Ms. Bunny spend the rest of the day photographing him around Portland, showing him the sites, and just getting to know each other. The bands were very welcoming to us and all the guys really got along well and had fun with what they were doing.

I feel privileged every day to to work with such an enthusiastic and humble person, who has such a strong talent and desire to move forward in his work. I look forward to bringing everyone more information on this amazing up and and coming artist and helping everyone transition from Oobergeek, the name, to Marcus the man. Once you meet him you'll see there is no need for a fancy name or gimmick he's just Marcus plain and simple, tho there is nothing plain about this friendly and funny guy.

Just check out the pictures and see for yourself.