John Morrison

MC/Beatmaker/Keyboardist/Samplist/Mural How do you write a bio when you're not dead (and don't ever plan on dying), famous or even particulary well known?I was born in Philadelphia on November 24 1980 which according to some book I read on numerology makes me a number 6 birth: "artistic, idealistic and devoted to creating harmony for their loved ones" if you add lactose intolerant and prolific pot smoker then you get a pretty clear picture of who I am. Early on in my childhood I became enamored with music in general, Hip Hop most specifically.They don't put banks in black neighborhoods, but there are plenty DJ's and block parties. I came up in that period in the 80's and early 90's when Hip Hop, Acid House, Latin Freestyle, Detroit Techno, Funk and Electro were sowing the seeds of an intensely progressive and acutely kinetic post-soul ghetto aesthetic that continues to inform and inspire my work to date. By the middle of the 90's Hip Hop had rapidly moved away from Slick Rick and The Juice Crew's more psalms about gold chains and revolutionary art, through the Native Tongue-era cross colour collisions and Pop-Art black nationalism. I had written my first rhyme in the spring of 1990 and with that I had moved from spectator to sport. Fast forward to my highschool years and I was in full service of the craft, luch table cyphers, street corner battles and early experiments with beat making and home 4-track recording. Early on into my adulthood I lacked both the inspiration and direction (a BAD combination) to burn like I wanted to. In all honesty I had lost the plot and forgotten how much this shit should (and does) mean to me. It ain't help that I had grown disillutioned with what I perceived as the overt lack of balls, creativity and purpose in both mainstream and underground Hip Hop. Although I'd rarely admit it out loud I had all but written rap off as a fucking fiasco!!! Free Jazz, Ju-Ju, Minimalism, Shoegazer, Psychedelic Pop and Noise had stepped in, lit the spark and filled the hole. Gradually I started to feel as though I had rediscovered the beauty in my craft or at least how to create beauty out of it. Albums like Ghostface's "Supreme Clientele", the Deep Puddle Dynamics record, "GEt Rich Or Die Tryin'", Dalek's "Negro, Necro, Nekros" and Sole's "Bottle Of Humans" inspired me to write again. Street mixtapes provided a strong blueprint to help rekindle my technique, presence and sense of emotional immediacy while the proggy avant-rap tickled my interest in abstraction and conceptual un-orthodoxy!Feeling like I had regained most of what I had lost (coupled with the greater feeling that I was on the road to claiming something newer, fresher, more powerful and personal than I had ever imagined) I hit the bag hard, and after hours and hours and days and weeks and years writing and writing in painstaking pursuit of that blessed, intangible state of "nice" that every MC aspires to, I had changed myself, I had changed my art. I had shed my old skin like the moon sheds it's shadow. Music was no longer a static, intellectual exercise or a medium I abused in order to serve my ego, it became my passion, the thing to which I offer myself to in complete honesty, humility, servitude and love.Outside of my solo shit I play in three groups: Sensory Whore which is noise/psychedelic funk quintet, Calliope: a duo project of kaleido-Pop-Rap with Keith Hampson of Power Animal and The Vagus Nerve a hip hop duo with LYNX I am currently recording an album called Maker Shaker: The Curved Universe the central idea is to grasp the universe dynamically whose characteristic is always to move onward to be forever in the mood of motion, which is life. At this point the album is written out as a 28 track double LP. I am currently soliciting beats from producers in hopes of adding a final twilight section to the record making it a triple album. Feed me beats. [email protected]