Astute rap fans are used to hearing places name-checked in songs—street corners, subway lines, housing projects—particularly East Coast imagery, where local detail serves as both cartography and pride. For San Joseans, those moments are rare.
On MC Dem One’s latest, someday, but not today, his first release in over a decade, we’re flooded with local references that depict real-life experience, non-fiction from someone who lived their words. There’s a song entitled “‘94 Cactus Club” and other references like “First and Santa Clara Street” or “St.James Park in the summer.” Another track ends with a dialogue sample that asks: “Does anyone remember San Jose when it looked like this?”
The region’s historical lack of coverage, however, doesn’t mean we lack history; it means we’re easily obscured, partly from a sense of lateness relative to San Francisco and Oakland, centers with more frequent and celebrated output. “There’s a certain hunger that comes from feeling overlooked,” says Dem, born Demone Carter, when asked about San Jose’s ongoing absence from the larger rap conversation.
However, let us not forget those like MC Twist, who was the first rapper from San Jose (ESSJ specifically) to sign a major record deal—and this was in the late ‘80s. Origin stories from PB Wolf and Charizma (RIP), DJ Shadow, The Bangerz, Rey Resurreccion, Third Sight, Snow Tha Product, and many more fall within our county limits.
Another mid-’90s group that enriched local lore was Lackadaisical, which Dem was a part of alongside Jessie Jones, and Sultan Banks (later Traxamillion). They began as understudies of other hometown heroes, The Dereliks, who made some of the most lasting records to come out of the South Bay.
After long stretches smoking low-grade weed, studying Souls of Mischief, and freestyling over pause-tapes, Lackadaisical made a cassette in 1995, Shameless Self Promotion. That experience, three decades ago, remains a standout in Carter’s musical journey. A meaningful night when they hand-sold homespun tapes in downtown San Jose’s legendary Cactus Club.
“Having people respond to something we created cemented our desire to make music and be rappers,” he said.
Lackadaisical drifted apart by 1996 as young troupes often do. Yet, Traxamillion, a prodigious producer with a knack for sound, became a foundational part of the Hyphy movement, solidifying a transcendent legacy before his passing in 2023 at age 42. Jessie Jones had passed years earlier (2006) during a police altercation after relocating to Southern California.
Carter is the sole surviving, eldest member. “That’s a heavy thing to carry,” he laments. “Their memory lives on in this project, because they’re inseparable from my story and the reasons I started making music.” Carter had spent the intervening years as a writer, podcaster, and community advocate while leading a quiet double life in hip-hop. His last project, Audio Still Life, was 15 years ago.
In 2021, Carter interviewed renowned producer Controller 7 for Content Magazine, framing the article as a 20-year retrospective on Controller’s 2001 masterwork, Left Handed Straw. The takeaway from both seasoned artists was a sense of unfinished business: that rap careers need not be linear, that there’s never been a blueprint for this, and that the candle may dim but will remain lit—just don’t blow it.
Controller 7 sent beats for Carter to consider; one was titled “horns,” featuring a somber yet catchy horn line that sounds like something plucked from a 1950s transistor radio. That beat anchors the song “Senter & Monterey,” a full-circle moment that kickstarts the project.
The culminating record, some day, but not today, grapples with nostalgia, self-examination, and measured complaint—an inventory of faded glory, unflinching truths, and the universal dread of being half a century old. On “Write Hook,” Carter says, “My bad, didn’t mean to get that deep.”
“I’ve been working on this album on and off for the last four and a half years,” he says. “Processing real-life challenges while trying to prove to myself that I can still make relevant music at age 50. That’s a fraught exercise.”
Carter admits his internal struggle during the process wasn’t kind: writing, recording, rewriting, and rerecording, an endless loop of self-editing. Fortunately, someday, but not today, is a creative death spiral that never was.
“It’s a reflection on broken dreams, loved ones lost, bad decisions, and regrets. I’ve had a lot of time to confront my character flaws in my 30s and 40s,” says Carter. “Releasing this is a form of closure. I’m carrying a lot of history into this record, but I also hear how much I have left to give.”
*Dem One’s someday, but not today, is now streaming with limited physical copies underway.
