Fast forward to 1999 when I attended a show in NYC at the Wetlands headlined by the Jedi Mind Tricks along with Virtuoso, Esoteric, Atoms Fam & Mr. Lif. Although I was at the show to see the aforementioned artists, it was the host of the show who caught my attention, an emcee by the name of Sage Francis. His freestyles and performances during the gaps between the other artist’s sets blew me away. He had a sense of humor, a sort of heart on sleeve honesty to his lyrics and I had never heard anything like it in my life. As soon as I got home I began looking up Mr. Francis on my newly purchased dial up internet connection. I picked up a few of his 12” records and very soon after was introduced to Anticon, Deep Puddle Dynamics, Buck65, Adeem and many other artists in the independent hip-hop scene.
2000 I really started focusing on music more and trying to write songs for albums instead of just writing random lyrics and throwing them over any old beat.
2001-2005 I was basically releasing limited run albums, developing my sound, my writing and my sound quality and networking with other producers/emcees. My musical tastes changed, I began to get really into the abstract/underground hip-hop, trip-hop, instrumental hip-hop and progressive/neo progressive rock genres and I strayed away from conventional hip-hop and even the battle rap I was listening to a year or two before.
By 2006 I had pretty much stopped listening to hip-hop all together finding that it distracted my creative process and my writing style. This is not to say that I don’t love hip-hop and have my roots firmly planted within the music, I just ceased seeking out new hip-hop music and focusing more on my own art instead. I will forever love the hip-hop music that emerged from the years 1989-1996 nothing could ever change that.
So far in 2007 I’ve released four albums (one full length and three EP’s), in the coming months I will continue working on the plethora of projects already in progress including full length albums, cd singles, side projects and even a concept album based around the character I created on Shipwrecked named the Jack of Hearts (aka Darius Reed).

Until then,
Peas

-COGNITION-

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