Where: Hawthorne, New Jersey--land of funeral homes, banks & pizza parlors. When: 1996
I was pumping gas then just a junior in high school with all the time in the world. Since about eighth grade I had been into hip-hop; artists such as the Wu-Tang Clan, BDP, Public Enemy, Gang Starr, Das Efx, Cypress Hill, Masta Ace, Brand Nubian and Main Source were my choices of music. I would bring tapes to work and freestyle to the instrumental sections but looking back I think it was out of pure boredom that I began experimenting with writing rhymes. My earliest writings echoed the works of the Wu-Tang Clan with pathetic accuracy although the words lacked any true meaning or feeling to me personally and I never felt comfortable with them. Something made me keep writing I couldn’t tell you what it was.
In 1997 through the magic of the internet at my girlfriend’s house I discovered the music of the Jedi Mind Tricks, 7L & Esoteric, Virtuoso and Mr. Lif. The Psycho Social LP by JMT made such a huge impact on my writing style songs such as “I Who Have Nothing” showed me that you could have a different kind of meaning behind your words and get personal on the microphone in your own way. This is not to say that Wu-Tang doesn’t have meaning behind their words, but it isn’t a meaning that I could really ever relate to. I guess I always felt that there was a certain way you had to rap and some of this new music showed me that there was another way and it showed me I wasn’t alone out there. It was also around this time I dragged my friend Saga into the whole rap thing and he started getting real into writing and stuff as the years progressed

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---------DISCOGRAPHY---------

Off the Stage- Thieves w/ Golden Handcuffs b/w Cities of Time CD Single
(2008; Sleeping Giant)

Instruments for Interpretation - As We Enter this Maze w/Evil Eye Scream
(2007; Sleeping Giant)

Rooster Cogburn EP
(2007; Sleeping Giant)

Chimera CD
(2006; Sleeping Giant)

Shipwrecked
(2006; Sleeping Giant)

Golem (the flesh)
(2005; Sleeping Giant)

Nameless Split EP w/Evil Eye Scream
(2004; Valhalla)

Golem (the bootleg)
(2004; Valhalla)

Bottomless Vault: Volume I
(2004; Valhalla)

Theothersideofmyself EP
(2002; Valhalla)

Not Your Ordinary Minds w/Saga
(2001; Hutch)

(complete discog)

Shattered: Picking Up the Pieces
(2001; Valhalla)

---------RELATED LINKS---------

www.myspace.com/cognition