As a child of the 70's, raised in the 80's in Portland, Oregon I grew up listening to all genres of music. As hip-hop began it's rise to dominance in music I was exposed to many styles of rap from east coast to west coast and in between. My brother Craze MC and Kevin Bradley started a rap crew and tagger crew exposing me to the creative world of emceeing and I got addicted. Early on as I began to explore myself lyrically on the mic, I endured a lot of negative criticism. The constant barrage of those telling me to give it up only sparked my drive to be the best I could be. I started off rapping to instrumentals on a karoke machine in the neighborhood learning to develop my own concepts and swagger. I eventually joined Craze and Kevin with others in 1991 to form a crew called D.O.G.(Dis-Organized Groove), a collective of emcees from Portland with a variety of different styles. Before we were able to release any material, I moved with my moms and sister to Illinois in 1993, believing at the time that it wasn't my destiny to rap. In 1994 my daughter Alexis was born and I gave up the art of emceeing and didn't even write anymore. I even threw away all my notebooks thinking it would be better to let my dream go. After a series of unfortunate events in 1995 and 1996, including my mother's death and being separated from my daughter, I decided to move back to Portland and spend time with my brother Craze. In 1997, I ran into an old friend Robert "Pain" Smith who I grew up around. He was attending classes at Portland Community College and we both decided to enroll in recording and MIDI classes together. We began doing music together, reinvigorating my passion to rhyme. For the next few years I traveled back and forth from Illinois to Oregon recording songs getting my skills up. In 2000, I decided to go to college for Radio/T.V. broadcasting to learn more about how music gets played. While at Parkland College in Champaign, Illinois, I met some people there who I would eventually become friends and pursue music endeavors with. I met Damon Davis who introduced me to local producers and emcees. I began recording and building my name and rep, even winning $500 at a U of Illinois talent show. I stayed cool with Damon, but things didn't pan out with others, when I met Anthony DeCerbo(Cerbo). We began battling on-line, eventually forming a group called The F.E.W(Forever Evolving Wisdom). We started performing in the Champaign area, even releasing an EP called "The Catalyst Project" selling a few hundred CD's and T-shirts. While locally doing shows, I met another rap group in Champaign "The Agenda" and became good friends with one of it's members, Rod Mac. We recorded his song "Since 1976" which would eventually become the spark that created the Have-Nots. In 2006 Rod Mac moved out to Spokane, Washington to pursue music ventures. After slow progression with The F.E.W, I went out to Spokane in Feb. 2007 and met and recorded "The New Northwest" with the G.I.N. Dynasty(Game Infested Nationwide), becoming a member. At the time I was recording my first official solo album with Nu Beginnings Records "The Media Circus", so I went back to Illinois to rap it up. In August, I moved out to Spokane with Rod and the G.I.N. Dynasty. Since then, I've been on over 100 songs and produced at least 50 tracks for others. Rod Mac and I recorded a project together called "The Have-Nots" which we released in September 2008 with Real Life Arts Entertainment, a business we formed together with Dime City, M-Dub, Sik Nikolas, Madd Maxe, and others like Rukus the Rhymer and Loss Monstarz. We released 3 CD's in 2008 and another 8 albums are slated for 2009. I'm also recording another project with Real Life Arts entitled "When Tomorrow Becomes Yesterday", so be on the look-out. Look out for ZanytheMicSmith in "The Media Circus" on Nu Beginnings Records/Real Life Arts Entertainment to be released in 2009, and GAMEINFESTED/NATIONWIDE "The New Northwest", DIME CITY "Shero", and SIK NIKOLAS "Pain VS Pen" available now just hit us up. There is still more of my story to come but for now.....back then a member of [The Mighty Agenda] and Zany a member of [The F.E.W.] collabed on a song titled "Since 1976.." which in a way was the beginning of "THE HAVE-NOTS" project. 3 years later while living in Spokane, WA. they decided to put out a cd together while performing in the northwest rap scene.
View the complete ZANYtheMicSmith & ROD MAC the Ripper tour schedule
