Who is Mindbender?
In the past five years Mindbender has managed to open for national touring act’s like Cage, Aesop Rock, Jeru tha Damaja, Special Ed, Cl Smooth, Del and many others, play countless other shows, tour cross Canada and the US, appear in local and international press, ink distribution deals with Sonic imprint (UK) & Urbnet. And all of this, with absolutely no help from an established North American record label, manager, booking agent, publicist or industry support.
â€To call Mindbender a fixture of the Toronto hip hop scene is an understatement.†In 2006, Mindbender completed a record-breaking fifth consecutive year as the host and organizer of Toronto's most popular and longest running open mic showcase, called "In Divine Style". Mindbender also has been involved in numerous volunteer collectives in various Toronto communities, using hip hop music and culture to help children's self-development, while being constructive and creative. Before attending the historic Millions More Movement event in Washington, Mindbender finished background work on 50 Cent's "Get Rich or Die Trying" major motion picture, and "Sixteen Blocks" with Mos Def and Bruce Willis. Mindbender is also a journalist/columnist for Pound Magazine, where he has covered the Canadian hip hop scene from coast-to-coast for over 3 years, along with writing the cover story featuring Kanye West in 2003, and interviewing John Legend, Prince Paul, Twista, Kool G. Rap, Young Buck, Phonte of Little Brother, among others.
Where He’s Been?
Mindbender has played every major and most minor North American markets, playing shows in shows in Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Saskatoon, Regina, New York, Toronto and Winnipeg. As an artist and journalist Mindbender has toured North America extensively and with two new albums to support (2008) plans to tour further into the US and into Europe.
What People are Saying
"Known as half of Canada's infamous Supreme Being Unit (SBU) and major part of the "In Divine Style" movement (which included a magazine and a weekly spot at The Hooch) - Mindbender is a familiar voice and face in Canada's scene. Fusing spacy imaginations, barrier bursting vision, and a love for Hip Hop as a culture, Mindbender's rapid-fire delivery is his signature sound... transmitting charged emotions through microphones, his style appeals to the mind and to the emotions." - Toronto Urban Music Festival performer for WORD Magazine - August 2002
"...listening to his debut LP, one would scarcely guess that underground MC Mindbender hails from Toronto, let alone Planet Earth…" - Chart Magazine album review, February 2003
"Mindbender's rapid-fire spitting and complex rhymes combined with spaced-out Dorc production, creates a completely out of universe experience…" - Pound Magazine album review, 16, April 2003
"As evidenced on Beautiful Mutant and its predecessor, Fantasyland Before Time, Mindbender's verbosity is breathtaking" - Errol Nazareth - eye magazine - October 2004
"Hip Hop's Hidden Gem: Mindbender of Supreme Being Unit--a Toronto-area MC, DJ, host, promoter, manager and all-around pillar of the Toronto hip hop community" - The McMaster Silhouette - March 2004
"...Mindbender is one of the first live MCs I've ever seen who's possessed a genuinely dramatic flair. The image of him lurching about the stage, eyes squinched shut with concentration and roaring at the drunk kids in the front row is not something I'll forget anytime soon. With any luck we'll be hearing more from this angry young man in the future... {performance rating: 80 out of 100}" - Alison Lang, Chart Magazine, review for Def Jux concert, March 2006
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